Senator Barrasso: (12:48 PM)

• Spoke on the Trickett Wendler Right to Try Act.
  • "So all we're asking for is hope when we know that there is actually hope available that may provide help. So the state of Wyoming passed the right to try law. The attorney general of the state of Wyoming is with us today. He knows about this. He knows it was bipartisan - bipartisan. There was nothing partisan about this, I would say to my colleague from Wisconsin. It was bipartisan, overwhelming support in the Wyoming legislature, signed by our governor. And yet we see the Senate minority leader come to the floor and object to a vote, which something I know would pass. 
    Incredible. And his reasoning was something about a nominee of the president to be on the Supreme Court. We're talking about people that are dying today."

 

Senator Coats: (12:54 PM)

• Spoke on the Trickett Wendler Right to Try Act.
  • "Along with my colleague from Wyoming and others, this bipartisan supported measure, how the minority leader can come down here and give the example of why every parent deserves the right to try, to try to save their children and to take advantage of medicines and procedures that might be that miracle cure and then say no, we're not going to take it up. We're not going to give that to you because we know you're in a tight race, is essentially what he's saying. We know you're in a tight race in Wisconsin. I don't want to do anything. Put yourselves in the shoes of a parent who is trying to save the precious life of a child and say how can you put an election in a state that's up for grabs, how can that trump the kind of sorrow and clinging to the last hope that parents are making?"

 

Senator Flake: (12:59 PM)

• Spoke on the national debt.
  • "So how do we avoid this gloomy picture? If we want to put ourselves on a sustainable fiscal path, we can't just nibble around the edges. Discretionary spending has been largely held in check over the past several years, but the retirement of the baby-boomer generation has led to huge increases in our so-called entitlement programs. Discretionary spending represents an ever-shrinking percentage of our total spending. Putting ourselves on a sustainable fiscal path has to involve a grand bargain of sorts, like the one contemplated by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, more commonly known as Simpson-Bowles. Of course, this outline will need to be updated to take in account the nearly $7 trillion of debt that has accumulated just in the past six years. But it's a good place to start."
• Spoke on Hispanic Heritage Month.
  • "Now, this month recognizes the social, economic, and cultural contributions of the more than 57 million Latinos living in the United States. In my home state of Arizona, the Latino population has nearly tripled in the past 25 years and now stands at just over 2 million people. This is nearly one-third of the state's population and Hispanic children already make up more than half of the K-8 public school students in Arizona. From an economic view, Hispanic-owned small businesses are growing at a rate of two or three times the national average and now total roughly 125,000 statewide."

 

Senator Coats: (1:08 PM)

• Spoke on wasteful spending at the Department of Education.
  • "This is one of these ridiculous wastes of $1 million. The Department of Education has created and paid money for the creation of a video game called ECO. The Department of Education is trying to have classrooms use this game for students literally for ideological purposes, and obviously what they were basing this on is what happens here in Washington, DC. They were creating a virtual government through a video game. The students could vote by a majority vote as to whether to add something to this government in terms of what their policies were or take it away, but the game's rules say that the group's operator could act as a king, issuing rules by himself or herself."
• Spoke on the economy.
  • "The truth lies in the facts, not in what somebody wants to tell you the truth is. Fact: Under the Obama administration, real growth continues to average only half of the growth of the average recession recovery over the last half century. We've had many recessions, but the surge of economic activity post those recessions has been twice as much as what has happened over this recession which took place in late 2008 and early 2009. So it has been eight years, nearly eight years, and we're half of what the average growth of all of the recessions over the past half century. Fact: Productive growth has slumped under President Obama. Fact: Business dynamism has slowed down significantly. Fact: Today a smaller share of Americans are working than before the recovery began. Fact: For those Americans who have been able to get jobs, a larger share are working part time."