Small Business Stories - Senator Claire McCaskill Video

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Small Business Stories - Senator Claire McCaskill

Claire: Well hi, hopefully I don’t have to introduce myself, you’d, I know who I am, Claire McCaskill, I’m one of the United States Senators from the state of Missouri. Thank you for asking me to come here today, and talk with you about small businesses in particularly with the focus on woman owning small businesses and what we need to be doing in Washington to help the fasting, the fastest growing segment of our economy. I’m certainly very aware that women own small businesses is a growth industry for our nation, and I feel very strongly with the economic strength of our nation is more important than national security, than any weapon system. We had to have a strong economy or we can not remain the kind of power we need to be in the world as it exists today. And with the consumption growth in China, and the consumption growth in India, and stable rattling in South America, and some of the other problems that we see around the world. We got to be very focus in Washington on how we make it easier for small businesses to establish themselves, to grow, and to thrive. So I hope in the future, you all see me as your ally and your friend and that you will call on me and my office to help you, especially when it comes time to wade thru some of the Byzantine processes that are in the federal government in order for you to interact with the federal government. I consider that one as the strongest part of my job is to arm wrestle bureaucrat when necessary in order to accomplish what the law want accomplished. Obviously I think I’ve got a lead off with telling you the first year has been an incredible experience. I feel blessed to be there, even though there are days I wanna strangle people. Most of the time I’m still in my goose bump stage, where as I drive to work every morning and look at that building, I cannot believe that I have been given this blessing and this opportunity. So for all of the worth and all of the ugliness, I want to reassure all of you that the democracy is well and it is thriving. That there are still, I think, one of the things that you most be optimistic about is how many young people are attracted to the work on the hill. I think, I’ve been the executive in my previous two jobs and had hired and dealt with very large staff, professional staff and one office auditors, and my first big executive job, I had a very large legal staff in the prosecutors office in Kansas City. So I was used to reviewing resumes and hiring people. I must tell you, I was blown away at the thousands of resumes I received after I was elected. And I’m not talking about young people who didn’t have any other opportunities. I’m talking about graduates from all of the Ivy league schools. From law students that could have commanded easily, 6 figure salaries wherever they wanted to work. And they want to come to the hill and work for very little money and incredibly difficult hours. And probably more than anything else, they renewed my faith, that we still are engage in something in Washington DC that young people aspired to be a part of. And I think the day that the resumes quit coming is the day we all need to panic. Coz that’s really when I think we’re in trouble. I will tell you that the partisanship is ugly, I have seen it first hand. We unfortunately got into that habit that the quickest way to success seems to be to demonize the other side. Figure out ways we can make people vote on things that get them in trouble. Figure out ways that we can keep the other sides from accomplishing anything. And it’s an equal opportunity sin. The democrats engage in it, the republicans engage in it, and so one of the things we got to figure out the way to do is we got to figure out how we empower the people we represent to reward people who are willing to compromise. To celebrate people who are willing to cross the party line and find the middle ground. I saw it in the A&T votes. I saw it in the state tax votes. I saw it in many votes where clearly there were enough people there that agree that the party politics held them back. And so I am proud of the fact that I have crossed the line more than any other democrat, save one, in the United States senate. I have wandered over and pitch a tent in the middle and I’m very comfortable there, although at times it, it’s a little awkward when you have to tell your party leadership that you are not gonna vote with them. That’s not a moment I relish, but I do feel very strongly that Missouri wants an independent voice in Washington. And so I’m gonna try and continue to swim upstream with some frequency, whether it’s on the earmarking process, which is think is fundamentally flawed and it’s a stupid way to spend tax payers money. We should be determining how we spend money base on the merit of the project not on the power of the member. You shouldn’t get to spend a lot more money in your state just because you’re in a certain committee, or because you hang out in congress for three decades. You should be able to spend money for your district when is the project that benefits the most for the least amount of money. And that should be a completely transparent process and one that is not base on who you know. So, I am one of twelve members who do not request earmarks, it’s that also a little awkward from time to time. But in the long run, that principle position is much easier for me to hold. It’s awfully hard to criticize the system and try to change the system if you’re participating in it. So I feel like this is the better position to take and I think in the long run it’s the more responsible way for us to spend your money. The problem is those appropriators, I think it’s their money, and it’s not, it’s your money. And so I think that’s kinda get a little bit of an attitude shift. And I’m not saying that it’s gonna happen overnight, we did make some progress on the earmarks this year, but we got a lot more progress that we got to work on. Specifically for small businesses, I am glad that we are able to put some of the small business relief in this year. Whether its some of the expensing benefits that we managed to get done. Some of the benefits for the escorts, obviously I was in the benefit… the help on some of the tax credit opportunity tax credit work, I think that’s very important. We got to get the small business, I know you all are very concerned about the small business legislation that senator Carrey sponsored along with Olympia Snow and my freshman colleague Ben Cardin, I do think that it has been none controversial and obviously until very recently, and now it may become controversial. But I think that the legislation will continue to move forward, I think small businesses, particularly women own small businesses are going to be vocal enough. If you’re started a business and you have succeeded at starting a business, you’re the kind of person that is not meek and quiet and it’s gonna go away silently into the night. So I’ll depend on all of you to continue to natiotize and to call and work through this organization to do what we need to do to make sure that women own businesses, have the opportunities they deserve base on merit. And I think, I’m optimistic we can still do that in spite of the position that has been taken by this administration. And why don’t with that I open it up, on health care, I just tell you, I don’t, we wont do anything on health care this year, but as you can tell, but if you’re paying close attention to presidential politics, it is going to be a huge issue in November. And I think that health care will be at the very top of our agenda beginning in January of ’09. And I believe that something will happen on healthcare in the legislative session in ’09. I wouldn’t bet my children on it, but, well maybe my oldest, he’s driving me crazy, but other than that, I do believe, and I’ll tell you why I think it’s gonna happen. There is still a healthy connection between people’s concern to the political process. And as I travel around the state, when I went around the state on the Farmville, when I went around the state on my veteran’s tour, when I went around the state on all the issues I’ve gone around on this year, since I’ve been in the senate, at every stop more frequently than Iraq, more frequently than price of gas, more frequently than any other topic it has come up that people are concerned and worried about health care. And so I think this is really a matter of people taking up pitch forks, it is a dramatic change in how people see healthcare from when I was beginning as a young lawyer. I mean, anyone took for granted you could get it, maybe they are worried about copes, or worried about prescription drug cost. But now there’s a real sense out there that there are a whole lot of American that are worried that they cant get it. That they, that it is an, unattainable healthcare insurance. And obviously that has to do with the fact that businesses can no longer afford, many of them, to offer it as a benefit. And so we got to figure out a new model for delivering healthcare and I think all of us agree on that, now the devil’s gonna be on the details. And whether or not we can withstand the lobbying of the giant, giant, giant healthcare, really silos of profit. We some big silos of profit in this country in the health care world and we have to bust up those silos in order to get this thing change, so, whether that I open it up for discussion and questions you might have. Female: I’ll gonna put you on the spot a little bit. Claire: Sure. Female: About the SBA ruling,If you can educate us a little bit. When ruling was put out on December 26th, which that in itself which is a great for surprise of everybody, it had been almost 7 years… [ inaudible ] and the SBA took a huge study, the last study was publish by Ran, which created this wonderful link, that only four industries are under represented by women business centers, and senator, it’s really a kitchen cabinet making and other vehicle and companies integrated, they were not core industries, and so, we have a 60 days time frame, I understand right now that were in for a huge outcry and women inside the policy have taken a firm stand or collaborated with a lot of their partners and which we are aware, we are a half a million people big. We are in the press, we are talking to people like yourself and different offices, make sure that everyone knows that we are not gonna sit still and they need to look for themselves. That’s 60 days, what could, we’re looking what’s the best the could happen after that, because when you walked in, my, what I’ve heard is that you may need to change the legislation, stop this and use something new, which would almost like starting from scratch after waiting for 7 years for this to move forward. To your point Olympia Snow, John Carrey, the last one, they’ve been very outspoken in the media, especially I Washington about this. What insulting is this whole thing is slap in the face, so it’s not just the business end that the uprise is coming from. To your point, the people that supporting it, the legislator in legislation, what is the benefit we have that you envision? Claire: Well, you know, the, first of all it’s a rule making, it’s not legislation. And legislation always tramps rule making, so, if I think, if this continues to move forward in a way that appears that they’re gonna, they’re gonna actually try to undo what congress did 7 years ago. Then I think it would provide more emphasis for John Carrey’s legislation, not less. And there’s no reason the legislation has to start over. If there’s tweaking that has to be done in the language to specify that this legislation over turns any rule that has been promulgated, I mean, I don’t think that even would be a problem. I just don’t think, just because this administration has come out with a propose rule that applies in the face of legislation as being propose, that doesn’t do anything in terms of the system or the process to slow down that legislation. And what would have to happen in order for the legislation to slow down, because so far there really hasn’t been any kind of really organize opposition to the legislation. So in order for the legislation to slow down, someone’s gonna have to stand up and say I’m oppose to it, by the way I think they’d hear from a lot of people. So, you know, this is one of those things where the good news is, it’s happening in the very end of this administration. I mean this would be much more difficult if this rule would come out in the opening days of the bush administration. I think it’s time for all the presidential candidates, especially the front runners to be put on the spot about how they feel about this. And those of you that are republicans, you need to make sure that you are asking those questions of the front runners of the republican side. Those of you that are democrats need to make sure that you are asking these questions of the front runners of the democrat side. And you need to make sure that the people who are gonna be in the White House, whether it is John Mcain, or Mick Romney or, or whether it is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, that they are all in agreement. Because candidly, I think it’s gonna be very difficult for much of anything to change dramatically before now and the election. This is going to be one of those years where a lot, there’s gonna be a lot of threading water, and a lot of posturing, and frankly a whole much, a whole bunch more of that partisan food fight stuff that drives me crazy. And, you know, I think we wont get down to really serious business until January of ’09. So use this year as an election year as an opportunity for you to weigh in with everyone, I mean, you, I know you have a relationship on both sides of the aisle, and that’s what you really need to call on those relationships. And you need to find champions, and there are a lot of republicans right now that are willing to stand up to the administration. There’s, you know, I mean, I don’t mean this to sound over political, coz frankly congress’ approval rating is just as bad, that’s it’s very hard to get republicans to really, put quote unquote lay the body down for a president who celebrates when he gets to 37 percent approval rating. I think they realize that it’s time to turn the page, and I think all of them now wanna focus on who ever their supporting for the republican nomination for president. So I think you can use this kind of, in a weird way, it’s an opportunity for you all to really force some folks to say very clearly whether or not they agree with this policy or they don’t. And if they don’t, it’s very important for you to rally your folks behind someone else. Female2: I do have a question on healthcare. For 8 years we’re trying to get a small business called Insurance Plan, and every time it passes the House, flying colors, everyone agrees, it get stopped in the Senate. I don’t, it’s very troublesome I believe what happens is that the organize labor groups have really been oppose to this and there’s opposition on the part of what you called Towers of Money or whatever… Claire: Pillars of Profit. Female2: Pillars of Profit, okay, same kind of thing, so those are the people who are able to exercise apparently a great deal of influence at the senate level, that they hadn’t been able to exercise to the house level. You know, how can we get pass this, I, you’re probably not familiar with this legislation… Claire: Oh I am… Female2: You are… Claire: Yeah. Female2: Okay, it was even reworked last year and almost made it that… Claire: You mean, last year ’06 or last year ’07? Female2: The prior congress. Claire: Right. Female2: The prior congress, I’m sorry. Yes, the prior congress and of course where did it got stopped once again in the senate. We can’t afford this nor do we want mandatory health insurance coverage for our employees. I mean this, it’s sort of the small business health plan gave us some flexibility, so I would ask… Claire: Well here’s the problem with the plan as it was propose. It allowed these companies that were not gonna be regulated in terms of requiring mammograms, requiring how many days in the hospital, it would do away with all state regulations, which in itself is not evil, but if you put on top of that the ability of them to cream the least risk off the top, in other words, what we got to do, we can’t do something that’s gonna work if it is just targeting small businesses. We have to do, and I agree with you, that we’ve got to be very careful about any kind of mandatory single parent system. On the other hand, if you look at some of the plans that have been put forth, whether it is kudos to Matt Rony on what he did in Massachusetts, I think we’re learning from what they’re doing up there, and that was a form of mandatory and, you know, I think that so far the reviews are pretty good up in Massachusetts. I know what you’re colleague, what are your small business colleagues in Massachusetts say about it? Have you heard from the women that own businesses up there and say this is a horrible thing? Female2: They think that I have that they are accepted this year that their amount increase. So the small businesses are… Claire: Worried. They haven’t yet been increase. But they’re worried. Female2: They’re very worried, because of the fact that they are small businesses. Claire: Well, I think the good thing is, is that’s gonna happen, if it’s gonna happen this year, and it’s a wonderful little laboratory experiment that’s real that will allow small business owners around the country to see how does it work. If you look carefully at the plans that have, and I don’t know, if you all had a chance to review carefully the plans that had been put forth by for example both Hillary and Barack? Yah, I mean, if you look, I mean, Barack plans is not mandatory, except for children, who don’t have any choice. And it allows both of those systems to allow the free market system, unlike Hillary’s plan, you don’t have to change if you don’t want to. So what we got to do here is we got to make sure that we do, coz all we’re gonna do is we don’t do it comprehensively, we’re just gonna chase more people to the emergency room. The more people we chase into emergency room with basic health care, the higher everyone’s premiums get. Because guess who they pass those cost on to. Somebody has to pay for you guys. We have mandatory healthcare now, we do, because if you, if you don’t have health insurance, so you walk here and get hit by a car in Brentwood, and you break your arm. You’re gonna go to a hospital and guess what, they’re gonna set your arm. They have to, so we have mandatory now. But we just have it in the most inefficient and most expensive way imaginable. And you got to sit for ten hours if you go to the emergency room. I mean right now the average wait, I don’t know if you all know this, are major trauma center in this city, major trauma center, if you go there with something other than a life threatening emergency and you’re not insured, the average length of time wait to see anyone is ten hours, at BJC. So all we’re gonna do, if we don’t do a comprehensively is continue to drive up health care cost for everyone else, because we’re gonna continue to use emergency room as our primary point of health care for those people who are under insured and un insured. So we have to do it comprehensively. So in a weird way, I understand your frustration, coz it’s like, you know, okay, this is moving through and I feel a little desperate, I wanna give my, I, by the way, I know this is like, probably politically incorrect. That I think women business owners feel so strongly about trying to provide health care for the people who work for them. I think it’s, you know, I mean and I think it’s, this is like politically, but I do think there’s a nurturing thing there, you know, you want to be able. And besides that you know, fundamentally, that people who have good benefits are more loyal employees, other feel more connected to the workplace and I think in the long run we have a high level of productivity in this country. Because of the fact that we have to find benefits for our workers, but the era of defining benefits is disappearing in this country, because we are competing with other countries that don’t have defined benefits. So the era of big pensions and, you know, health care through retirements, and in order for us to compete is particular in a manufacturing segment with other countries that don’t have defined benefits is very, very difficult. So we are really trying to feel our way through that dilemma. How do we continue to hold our head high and shoulders back, because we are better than the rest of the world if it’s a race to the bottom. You know, and that’s really what we got to figure out here, and part of it I think is educating the American consumer. The weird thing about the whole toy thing, was in a strange way, I think it was good for America. Because all of a sudden you began realizing, oh, you know, I don’t like the fact that a lot of these companies don’t offer health insurance, but by the way, I’d rather get that product for 50 cents less. And I think for, particularly, I mean if I were still the mom of young children instead of teenagers and young adults, on that toy thing would’ve shaken me to my bones. Because, you know, the idea that I would buy a Mattel toy, it would be dangerous for my kids. And that is the race to the bottom in terms of how it manifest itself to the American people. You know, and cheaper is not always better. And, by the way, I get it though if your gas prices are going up and your health care cost is going up and your tuition is going up, cheap does look better, because you feel the crunch. So, I don’t think that particular way of getting it done is going to prevail right now, because I think there’s too much push to it comprehensively. By the way, those people that you’ve mentioned aren’t gonna like it much there either. I don’t think yeah Blue Crush Shield will be jumping up and down about comprehensive health care reform. Female2: Probably not, but you know, the facts are the facts, we spent 38 percent of my premium on the administration whereas to the medicare system it’s, what 6, 8 percent, something like that, so there’s much… Claire: Which by the way is a single parent system. Female2: IS a single parent system. Claire: And mandatory. Female2: And mandatory. Claire: So I mean, I mean, if it’s so bad and so evil, how come they can do so much cheaper. I mean everybody, this just drives me crazy when I listen to this people say well private sector is so much better, but yet everybody understands that medicare is more efficient than private health insurance. Everybody says, oh the private, the public sector is so bad, I don’t know if you guys checked, but, you know, the post office doesn’t do a bad job. You know, I mean, when you mail a letter, you know it’s gonna get there 99.9 percent of the time. Those are all government workers guys. I mean government is evil in itself, now I’m obviously the first, and it’s kind of my nitch, I want government to be better at what they do and certainly do it less expensively if we possibly can. And I don’t think we worry about that in Washington as much as we should. But having said that, just because it’s government doesn’t mean we cant do it well. You know, a lot of these plans rely on the congressional health system, which also have very, very low administrative cost. We spend more, you guys know this, I know already, but we spend more per capita on health care than any developed nation in the world, including those who have single parent systems. We also have the highest level of uninsured of any developed nation in the world. So figure that out. And I got to tell you, as long as we got a guy going home in retirement in one of the largest health care in the world with a billion dollar retirement. United Health Care, he retired with a billion dollar retirement. Now you don’t think something’s terribly wrong with that, that’s really weird. Really weird. So, I think, I think, I know you’re frustration and I am really aware of that, coz I know my predecessor was somebody who’s really working on that. Anybody else? Well you guys are easy. Female3: As I was gonna say, before we dealt on… do we have any hands out from the from the senator’s office? Female4: I do. Female3: Very good. Leaving the aside these policies, one of the things what we really here to do, as you’ll well aware, is to really educate women business center and how important it is to form relationships with the people who are elected into office, as you mentioned when you first walked in, so many of us feel, I don’t know, embarrassed, not confident about doing it, we’re not suitable of the issue. So, what we do from this stand point is we work together in this past 12 months, we started doing this kind of alignment, yesterday we did the same thing at Kansas City, travel the country, search up women, introduced them to each other and start pinning up team leaders and groups to start educating each other, working together in different issues. And then we have something that we’ve point about the administrative office, we have someone that either lives with the district with the senators office to form a one on one relationship with, and Cameron Cobe is actually team leader for this area and I guess she kind of adapt your office. So, who in your office here does she worked with? Claire: Well let me introduced Michelle. Michelle Syrat is here, and Michelle is in charge of the entire St. Louis Region for my office and she is my former deputy at the state auditor’s office. Michelle is both a lawyer and a CPA, and a terrific, a terrific, I know, I know, isn’t that something. Make’s you sick, doesn’t it. I mean, I finished law school, said, you got to be kidding me, I’m not doing that, you know. But Michelle is, and we have a fairly large staff here in St. Louis, but I like to go on further, I know Pamela we invite you down to the office to have lunch with the staff there. We love to have you and we buy lunch. We’re on Delmar, just east of Skinker, kind of right between the Loop in downtown. And some rehab offices there that are really nice, where hopefully we’re helping, kind of stabilize that neighborhood and bring it back, that in a very accessible office, right on street level. And, but what I like to do is set up a relationship in all of our offices with some of your people, you know, we have a similar size office in Kansas City. We have an office in Columbia. We have an office in Cape Gerardo. And we have an office in Springfield. And so, if you have members in any of those communities that would like to develop that kind of relationship, we would welcome that opportunity. Female3: Absolutely. I think I just have Pam, that would be great. Claire: Yeah. Michelle have counterparts in all those places, they would also love to buy people lunch at our offices, so, okay? And in Washington, if you ever need to reach me in Washington, you should know that the person you should ask for is Sonia Windell. Sonia is the staff, the legislative assistant in Washington that handles all of these issues. And she does all of the business tax issues, now health care is Melissa Garsa, but, and you can call Michelle, and Michelle can hook you up with their direct line numbers and their direct email. So that any of you have questions, particularly, if you’re trying to keep track of this legislation. I mean, what I would really recommend to you is, is you develop an email relationship with Sonia about what’s happening with the legislation, and she’ll put you on a calendar and a tickler, that if you wanna know every 30 days what if anything has happened, I mean, she’ll just send you an email, say, hey, the last 30 days, you know, nothing appears to have happened or here’s what’s going on behind the scene. And it gives you a way, a kind of glimpse in beyond, coz it’s really hard out there. I, you know, I, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t spend much time with lobbyist. I frankly don’t want to, but, that’s not an insult to your organization or the other organization, that I really, what I try to do is I read the summaries of all the communications we’ve gotten from Holme every week, you know, so we get between 8 and 10,000 pieces of communication from Missouri every week. And so, about half of those are emails, we screen our emails so that we’re not, really frankly if you send me an email, and you’re from Texas, aint gonna happen. We are not, that’s why when you go in our website to send an email to our office, it makes you fill up a form. Which drives people crazy, you know, they just loose an email, but we screen you because it’s not that I don’t care about the rest of the country think, but obviously, I want to prioritize the folks from Missouri and I want to get a sense of what we’re hearing. So I do that every week, and then I meet with my legislative staff every week. And they provide a screening and a kind of a buffer for all of the information that are coming from lobbyist. So that they can kind of sort it all through and say, okay, now this group came in and this was their concern, but this group came in and these are their concern and then we can outside of the kind of, you know, one on one with the lobbyist. We can kind of try to sort it through and find that kernel compromise and middle ground that hopefully move the public policy forward. So, you know, I don’t, it’s not that I insult anyone who’s technically a lobbyist, it’s just I think it’s a more efficient way to run the office. And it’s hard to be efficient out there, so, the system doesn’t lean itself towards efficiency, so we’re just trying to find a way to prioritize the stuff that we think that’s most important to people here. Female5: This is a little outside of this, but I got an opportunity to watch [ inaudible ] Cleaire: Well it’s, it’s really an important issue, and we’re gonna have legislation on it. It is, and by the way, since I have, I’ve gotten re acquainted with my family for the first time in four years for the last few weeks, I’ve got to the point now that I really don’t miss my teenagers anymore, but part of me being home is of course, I got this horrible genetic defect, that I keep CNN or MSNBC on all day long, you know, coz I just like, you know, I start shaking if I go two or three days without, like hearing something about politics. And so those channels ran all those commercials, and I am blown away about how much money they’re spending marketing about reverse mortgages. And it is a very scary thing because I don’t think most seniors understand that they’re very expensive, it is a nitch market, it is not a broad base market, it’s not right for every one. And the stories if you watched that hearing, that was just a couple of the incidents that we learned about. I mean it is wide spread the horrible tales of tragedy that have occurred to families who’s love ones that are elderly have unfortunately gotten into these vehicles, this financial vehicles when they shouldn’t have and it is with dire consequences. So we need to make sure that we clean that up, coz we don’t want the next sub prime mortgageness in the reverse mortgage area. So, thank you for that, and we’re gonna, they just reshowed the hearing a couple of days ago, which I learned that, these bandits hard up for materials to when we leave for, they start re, they do the reruns of all the stuff, so, okay, anybody else. Okay, well, it’s been great to be here, thank you all for having me.

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Claire: Well hi, hopefully I don’t have to introduce myself, you’d, I know who I am, Claire McCaskill, I’m one of the United States Senators from the state of Missouri. Thank you for asking me to come here today, and talk with you about small businesses in particularly with the focus on woman owning small businesses and what we need to be doing in Washington to help the fasting, the fastest growing segment of our economy. I’m certainly very aware that women own small businesses is a growth industry for our nation, and I feel very strongly with the economic strength of our nation is more important than national security, than any weapon system. We had to have a strong economy or we can not remain the kind of power we need to be in the world as it exists today. And with the consumption growth in China, and the consumption growth in India, and stable rattling in South America, and some of the other problems that we see around the world. We got to be very focus in Washington on how we make it easier for small businesses to establish themselves, to grow, and to thrive. So I hope in the future, you all see me as your ally and your friend and that you will call on me and my office to help you, especially when it comes time to wade thru some of the Byzantine processes that are in the federal government in order for you to interact with the federal government. I consider that one as the strongest part of my job is to arm wrestle bureaucrat when necessary in order to accomplish what the law want accomplished. Obviously I think I’ve got a lead off with telling you the first year has been an incredible experience. I feel blessed to be there, even though there are days I wanna strangle people. Most of the time I’m still in my goose bump stage, where as I drive to work every morning and look at that building, I cannot believe that I have been given this blessing and this opportunity. So for all of the worth and all of the ugliness, I want to reassure all of you that the democracy is well and it is thriving. That there are still, I think, one of the things that you most be optimistic about is how many young people are attracted to the work on the hill. I think, I’ve been the executive in my previous two jobs and had hired and dealt with very large staff, professional staff and one office auditors, and my first big executive job, I had a very large legal staff in the prosecutors office in Kansas City. So I was used to reviewing resumes and hiring people. I must tell you, I was blown away at the thousands of resumes I received after I was elected. And I’m not talking about young people who didn’t have any other opportunities. I’m talking about graduates from all of the Ivy league schools. From law students that could have commanded easily, 6 figure salaries wherever they wanted to work. And they want to come to the hill and work for very little money and incredibly difficult hours. And probably more than anything else, they renewed my faith, that we still are engage in something in Washington DC that young people aspired to be a part of. And I think the day that the resumes quit coming is the day we all need to panic. Coz that’s really when I think we’re in trouble. I will tell you that the partisanship is ugly, I have seen it first hand. We unfortunately got into that habit that the quickest way to success seems to be to demonize the other side. Figure out ways we can make people vote on things that get them in trouble. Figure out ways that we can keep the other sides from accomplishing anything. And it’s an equal opportunity sin. The democrats engage in it, the republicans engage in it, and so one of the things we got to figure out the way to do is we got to figure out how we empower the people we represent to reward people who are willing to compromise. To celebrate people who are willing to cross the party line and find the middle ground. I saw it in the A&T votes. I saw it in the state tax votes. I saw it in many votes where clearly there were enough people there that agree that the party politics held them back. And so I am proud of the fact that I have crossed the line more than any other democrat, save one, in the United States senate. I have wandered over and pitch a tent in the middle and I’m very comfortable there, although at times it, it’s a little awkward when you have to tell your party leadership that you are not gonna vote with them. That’s not a moment I relish, but I do feel very strongly that Missouri wants an independent voice in Washington. And so I’m gonna try and continue to swim upstream with some frequency, whether it’s on the earmarking process, which is think is fundamentally flawed and it’s a stupid way to spend tax payers money. We should be determining how we spend money base on the merit of the project not on the power of the member. You shouldn’t get to spend a lot more money in your state just because you’re in a certain committee, or because you hang out in congress for three decades. You should be able to spend money for your district when is the project that benefits the most for the least amount of money. And that should be a completely transparent process and one that is not base on who you know. So, I am one of twelve members who do not request earmarks, it’s that also a little awkward from time to time. But in the long run, that principle position is much easier for me to hold. It’s awfully hard to criticize the system and try to change the system if you’re participating in it. So I feel like this is the better position to take and I think in the long run it’s the more responsible way for us to spend your money. The problem is those appropriators, I think it’s their money, and it’s not, it’s your money. And so I think that’s kinda get a little bit of an attitude shift. And I’m not saying that it’s gonna happen overnight, we did make some progress on the earmarks this year, but we got a lot more progress that we got to work on. Specifically for small businesses, I am glad that we are able to put some of the small business relief in this year. Whether its some of the expensing benefits that we managed to get done. Some of the benefits for the escorts, obviously I was in the benefit… the help on some of the tax credit opportunity tax credit work, I think that’s very important. We got to get the small business, I know you all are very concerned about the small business legislation that senator Carrey sponsored along with Olympia Snow and my freshman colleague Ben Cardin, I do think that it has been none controversial and obviously until very recently, and now it may become controversial. But I think that the legislation will continue to move forward, I think small businesses, particularly women own small businesses are going to be vocal enough. If you’re started a business and you have succeeded at starting a business, you’re the kind of person that is not meek and quiet and it’s gonna go away silently into the night. So I’ll depend on all of you to continue to natiotize and to call and work through this organization to do what we need to do to make sure that women own businesses, have the opportunities they deserve base on merit. And I think, I’m optimistic we can still do that in spite of the position that has been taken by this administration. And why don’t with that I open it up, on health care, I just tell you, I don’t, we wont do anything on health care this year, but as you can tell, but if you’re paying close attention to presidential politics, it is going to be a huge issue in November. And I think that health care will be at the very top of our agenda beginning in January of ’09. And I believe that something will happen on healthcare in the legislative session in ’09. I wouldn’t bet my children on it, but, well maybe my oldest, he’s driving me crazy, but other than that, I do believe, and I’ll tell you why I think it’s gonna happen. There is still a healthy connection between people’s concern to the political process. And as I travel around the state, when I went around the state on the Farmville, when I went around the state on my veteran’s tour, when I went around the state on all the issues I’ve gone around on this year, since I’ve been in the senate, at every stop more frequently than Iraq, more frequently than price of gas, more frequently than any other topic it has come up that people are concerned and worried about health care. And so I think this is really a matter of people taking up pitch forks, it is a dramatic change in how people see healthcare from when I was beginning as a young lawyer. I mean, anyone took for granted you could get it, maybe they are worried about copes, or worried about prescription drug cost. But now there’s a real sense out there that there are a whole lot of American that are worried that they cant get it. That they, that it is an, unattainable healthcare insurance. And obviously that has to do with the fact that businesses can no longer afford, many of them, to offer it as a benefit. And so we got to figure out a new model for delivering healthcare and I think all of us agree on that, now the devil’s gonna be on the details. And whether or not we can withstand the lobbying of the giant, giant, giant healthcare, really silos of profit. We some big silos of profit in this country in the health care world and we have to bust up those silos in order to get this thing change, so, whether that I open it up for discussion and questions you might have.

Female: I’ll gonna put you on the spot a little bit.

Claire: Sure.

Female: About the SBA ruling,If you can educate us a little bit. When ruling was put out on December 26th, which that in itself which is a great for surprise of everybody, it had been almost 7 years… [ inaudible ] and the SBA took a huge study, the last study was publish by Ran, which created this wonderful link, that only four industries are under represented by women business centers, and senator, it’s really a kitchen cabinet making and other vehicle and companies integrated, they were not core industries, and so, we have a 60 days time frame, I understand right now that were in for a huge outcry and women inside the policy have taken a firm stand or collaborated with a lot of their partners and which we are aware, we are a half a million people big. We are in the press, we are talking to people like yourself and different offices, make sure that everyone knows that we are not gonna sit still and they need to look for themselves. That’s 60 days, what could, we’re looking what’s the best the could happen after that, because when you walked in, my, what I’ve heard is that you may need to change the legislation, stop this and use something new, which would almost like starting from scratch after waiting for 7 years for this to move forward. To your point Olympia Snow, John Carrey, the last one, they’ve been very outspoken in the media, especially I Washington about this. What insulting is this whole thing is slap in the face, so it’s not just the business end that the uprise is coming from. To your point, the people that supporting it, the legislator in legislation, what is the benefit we have that you envision?

Claire: Well, you know, the, first of all it’s a rule making, it’s not legislation. And legislation always tramps rule making, so, if I think, if this continues to move forward in a way that appears that they’re gonna, they’re gonna actually try to undo what congress did 7 years ago. Then I think it would provide more emphasis for John Carrey’s legislation, not less. And there’s no reason the legislation has to start over. If there’s tweaking that has to be done in the language to specify that this legislation over turns any rule that has been promulgated, I mean, I don’t think that even would be a problem. I just don’t think, just because this administration has come out with a propose rule that applies in the face of legislation as being propose, that doesn’t do anything in terms of the system or the process to slow down that legislation. And what would have to happen in order for the legislation to slow down, because so far there really hasn’t been any kind of really organize opposition to the legislation. So in order for the legislation to slow down, someone’s gonna have to stand up and say I’m oppose to it, by the way I think they’d hear from a lot of people. So, you know, this is one of those things where the good news is, it’s happening in the very end of this administration. I mean this would be much more difficult if this rule would come out in the opening days of the bush administration. I think it’s time for all the presidential candidates, especially the front runners to be put on the spot about how they feel about this. And those of you that are republicans, you need to make sure that you are asking those questions of the front runners of the republican side. Those of you that are democrats need to make sure that you are asking these questions of the front runners of the democrat side. And you need to make sure that the people who are gonna be in the White House, whether it is John Mcain, or Mick Romney or, or whether it is Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, that they are all in agreement. Because candidly, I think it’s gonna be very difficult for much of anything to change dramatically before now and the election. This is going to be one of those years where a lot, there’s gonna be a lot of threading water, and a lot of posturing, and frankly a whole much, a whole bunch more of that partisan food fight stuff that drives me crazy. And, you know, I think we wont get down to really serious business until January of ’09. So use this year as an election year as an opportunity for you to weigh in with everyone, I mean, you, I know you have a relationship on both sides of the aisle, and that’s what you really need to call on those relationships. And you need to find champions, and there are a lot of republicans right now that are willing to stand up to the administration. There’s, you know, I mean, I don’t mean this to sound over political, coz frankly congress’ approval rating is just as bad, that’s it’s very hard to get republicans to really, put quote unquote lay the body down for a president who celebrates when he gets to 37 percent approval rating. I think they realize that it’s time to turn the page, and I think all of them now wanna focus on who ever their supporting for the republican nomination for president. So I think you can use this kind of, in a weird way, it’s an opportunity for you all to really force some folks to say very clearly whether or not they agree with this policy or they don’t. And if they don’t, it’s very important for you to rally your folks behind someone else.

Female2: I do have a question on healthcare. For 8 years we’re trying to get a small business called Insurance Plan, and every time it passes the House, flying colors, everyone agrees, it get stopped in the Senate. I don’t, it’s very troublesome I believe what happens is that the organize labor groups have really been oppose to this and there’s opposition on the part of what you called Towers of Money or whatever…

Claire: Pillars of Profit.

Female2: Pillars of Profit, okay, same kind of thing, so those are the people who are able to exercise apparently a great deal of influence at the senate level, that they hadn’t been able to exercise to the house level. You know, how can we get pass this, I, you’re probably not familiar with this legislation…

Claire: Oh I am…

Female2: You are…

Claire: Yeah.

Female2: Okay, it was even reworked last year and almost made it that…

Claire: You mean, last year ’06 or last year ’07?

Female2: The prior congress.

Claire: Right.

Female2: The prior congress, I’m sorry. Yes, the prior congress and of course where did it got stopped once again in the senate. We can’t afford this nor do we want mandatory health insurance coverage for our employees. I mean this, it’s sort of the small business health plan gave us some flexibility, so I would ask…

Claire: Well here’s the problem with the plan as it was propose. It allowed these companies that were not gonna be regulated in terms of requiring mammograms, requiring how many days in the hospital, it would do away with all state regulations, which in itself is not evil, but if you put on top of that the ability of them to cream the least risk off the top, in other words, what we got to do, we can’t do something that’s gonna work if it is just targeting small businesses. We have to do, and I agree with you, that we’ve got to be very careful about any kind of mandatory single parent system. On the other hand, if you look at some of the plans that have been put forth, whether it is kudos to Matt Rony on what he did in Massachusetts, I think we’re learning from what they’re doing up there, and that was a form of mandatory and, you know, I think that so far the reviews are pretty good up in Massachusetts. I know what you’re colleague, what are your small business colleagues in Massachusetts say about it? Have you heard from the women that own businesses up there and say this is a horrible thing?

Female2: They think that I have that they are accepted this year that their amount increase. So the small businesses are…

Claire: Worried. They haven’t yet been increase. But they’re worried.

Female2: They’re very worried, because of the fact that they are small businesses.

Claire: Well, I think the good thing is, is that’s gonna happen, if it’s gonna happen this year, and it’s a wonderful little laboratory experiment that’s real that will allow small business owners around the country to see how does it work. If you look carefully at the plans that have, and I don’t know, if you all had a chance to review carefully the plans that had been put forth by for example both Hillary and Barack? Yah, I mean, if you look, I mean, Barack plans is not mandatory, except for children, who don’t have any choice. And it allows both of those systems to allow the free market system, unlike Hillary’s plan, you don’t have to change if you don’t want to. So what we got to do here is we got to make sure that we do, coz all we’re gonna do is we don’t do it comprehensively, we’re just gonna chase more people to the emergency room. The more people we chase into emergency room with basic health care, the higher everyone’s premiums get. Because guess who they pass those cost on to. Somebody has to pay for you guys. We have mandatory healthcare now, we do, because if you, if you don’t have health insurance, so you walk here and get hit by a car in Brentwood, and you break your arm. You’re gonna go to a hospital and guess what, they’re gonna set your arm. They have to, so we have mandatory now. But we just have it in the most inefficient and most expensive way imaginable. And you got to sit for ten hours if you go to the emergency room. I mean right now the average wait, I don’t know if you all know this, are major trauma center in this city, major trauma center, if you go there with something other than a life threatening emergency and you’re not insured, the average length of time wait to see anyone is ten hours, at BJC. So all we’re gonna do, if we don’t do a comprehensively is continue to drive up health care cost for everyone else, because we’re gonna continue to use emergency room as our primary point of health care for those people who are under insured and un insured. So we have to do it comprehensively. So in a weird way, I understand your frustration, coz it’s like, you know, okay, this is moving through and I feel a little desperate, I wanna give my, I, by the way, I know this is like, probably politically incorrect. That I think women business owners feel so strongly about trying to provide health care for the people who work for them. I think it’s, you know, I mean and I think it’s, this is like politically, but I do think there’s a nurturing thing there, you know, you want to be able. And besides that you know, fundamentally, that people who have good benefits are more loyal employees, other feel more connected to the workplace and I think in the long run we have a high level of productivity in this country. Because of the fact that we have to find benefits for our workers, but the era of defining benefits is disappearing in this country, because we are competing with other countries that don’t have defined benefits. So the era of big pensions and, you know, health care through retirements, and in order for us to compete is particular in a manufacturing segment with other countries that don’t have defined benefits is very, very difficult. So we are really trying to feel our way through that dilemma. How do we continue to hold our head high and shoulders back, because we are better than the rest of the world if it’s a race to the bottom. You know, and that’s really what we got to figure out here, and part of it I think is educating the American consumer. The weird thing about the whole toy thing, was in a strange way, I think it was good for America. Because all of a sudden you began realizing, oh, you know, I don’t like the fact that a lot of these companies don’t offer health insurance, but by the way, I’d rather get that product for 50 cents less. And I think for, particularly, I mean if I were still the mom of young children instead of teenagers and young adults, on that toy thing would’ve shaken me to my bones. Because, you know, the idea that I would buy a Mattel toy, it would be dangerous for my kids. And that is the race to the bottom in terms of how it manifest itself to the American people. You know, and cheaper is not always better. And, by the way, I get it though if your gas prices are going up and your health care cost is going up and your tuition is going up, cheap does look better, because you feel the crunch. So, I don’t think that particular way of getting it done is going to prevail right now, because I think there’s too much push to it comprehensively. By the way, those people that you’ve mentioned aren’t gonna like it much there either. I don’t think yeah Blue Crush Shield will be jumping up and down about comprehensive health care reform.

Female2: Probably not, but you know, the facts are the facts, we spent 38 percent of my premium on the administration whereas to the medicare system it’s, what 6, 8 percent, something like that, so there’s much…

Claire: Which by the way is a single parent system.

Female2: IS a single parent system.

Claire: And mandatory.

Female2: And mandatory.

Claire: So I mean, I mean, if it’s so bad and so evil, how come they can do so much cheaper. I mean everybody, this just drives me crazy when I listen to this people say well private sector is so much better, but yet everybody understands that medicare is more efficient than private health insurance. Everybody says, oh the private, the public sector is so bad, I don’t know if you guys checked, but, you know, the post office doesn’t do a bad job. You know, I mean, when you mail a letter, you know it’s gonna get there 99.9 percent of the time. Those are all government workers guys. I mean government is evil in itself, now I’m obviously the first, and it’s kind of my nitch, I want government to be better at what they do and certainly do it less expensively if we possibly can. And I don’t think we worry about that in Washington as much as we should. But having said that, just because it’s government doesn’t mean we cant do it well. You know, a lot of these plans rely on the congressional health system, which also have very, very low administrative cost. We spend more, you guys know this, I know already, but we spend more per capita on health care than any developed nation in the world, including those who have single parent systems. We also have the highest level of uninsured of any developed nation in the world. So figure that out. And I got to tell you, as long as we got a guy going home in retirement in one of the largest health care in the world with a billion dollar retirement. United Health Care, he retired with a billion dollar retirement. Now you don’t think something’s terribly wrong with that, that’s really weird. Really weird. So, I think, I think, I know you’re frustration and I am really aware of that, coz I know my predecessor was somebody who’s really working on that. Anybody else? Well you guys are easy.

Female3: As I was gonna say, before we dealt on… do we have any hands out from the from the senator’s office?

Female4: I do.

Female3: Very good. Leaving the aside these policies, one of the things what we really here to do, as you’ll well aware, is to really educate women business center and how important it is to form relationships with the people who are elected into office, as you mentioned when you first walked in, so many of us feel, I don’t know, embarrassed, not confident about doing it, we’re not suitable of the issue. So, what we do from this stand point is we work together in this past 12 months, we started doing this kind of alignment, yesterday we did the same thing at Kansas City, travel the country, search up women, introduced them to each other and start pinning up team leaders and groups to start educating each other, working together in different issues. And then we have something that we’ve point about the administrative office, we have someone that either lives with the district with the senators office to form a one on one relationship with, and Cameron Cobe is actually team leader for this area and I guess she kind of adapt your office. So, who in your office here does she worked with?

Claire: Well let me introduced Michelle. Michelle Syrat is here, and Michelle is in charge of the entire St. Louis Region for my office and she is my former deputy at the state auditor’s office. Michelle is both a lawyer and a CPA, and a terrific, a terrific, I know, I know, isn’t that something. Make’s you sick, doesn’t it. I mean, I finished law school, said, you got to be kidding me, I’m not doing that, you know. But Michelle is, and we have a fairly large staff here in St. Louis, but I like to go on further, I know Pamela we invite you down to the office to have lunch with the staff there. We love to have you and we buy lunch. We’re on Delmar, just east of Skinker, kind of right between the Loop in downtown. And some rehab offices there that are really nice, where hopefully we’re helping, kind of stabilize that neighborhood and bring it back, that in a very accessible office, right on street level. And, but what I like to do is set up a relationship in all of our offices with some of your people, you know, we have a similar size office in Kansas City. We have an office in Columbia. We have an office in Cape Gerardo. And we have an office in Springfield. And so, if you have members in any of those communities that would like to develop that kind of relationship, we would welcome that opportunity.

Female3: Absolutely. I think I just have Pam, that would be great.

Claire: Yeah. Michelle have counterparts in all those places, they would also love to buy people lunch at our offices, so, okay? And in Washington, if you ever need to reach me in Washington, you should know that the person you should ask for is Sonia Windell. Sonia is the staff, the legislative assistant in Washington that handles all of these issues. And she does all of the business tax issues, now health care is Melissa Garsa, but, and you can call Michelle, and Michelle can hook you up with their direct line numbers and their direct email. So that any of you have questions, particularly, if you’re trying to keep track of this legislation. I mean, what I would really recommend to you is, is you develop an email relationship with Sonia about what’s happening with the legislation, and she’ll put you on a calendar and a tickler, that if you wanna know every 30 days what if anything has happened, I mean, she’ll just send you an email, say, hey, the last 30 days, you know, nothing appears to have happened or here’s what’s going on behind the scene. And it gives you a way, a kind of glimpse in beyond, coz it’s really hard out there. I, you know, I, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t spend much time with lobbyist. I frankly don’t want to, but, that’s not an insult to your organization or the other organization, that I really, what I try to do is I read the summaries of all the communications we’ve gotten from Holme every week, you know, so we get between 8 and 10,000 pieces of communication from Missouri every week. And so, about half of those are emails, we screen our emails so that we’re not, really frankly if you send me an email, and you’re from Texas, aint gonna happen. We are not, that’s why when you go in our website to send an email to our office, it makes you fill up a form. Which drives people crazy, you know, they just loose an email, but we screen you because it’s not that I don’t care about the rest of the country think, but obviously, I want to prioritize the folks from Missouri and I want to get a sense of what we’re hearing. So I do that every week, and then I meet with my legislative staff every week. And they provide a screening and a kind of a buffer for all of the information that are coming from lobbyist. So that they can kind of sort it all through and say, okay, now this group came in and this was their concern, but this group came in and these are their concern and then we can outside of the kind of, you know, one on one with the lobbyist. We can kind of try to sort it through and find that kernel compromise and middle ground that hopefully move the public policy forward. So, you know, I don’t, it’s not that I insult anyone who’s technically a lobbyist, it’s just I think it’s a more efficient way to run the office. And it’s hard to be efficient out there, so, the system doesn’t lean itself towards efficiency, so we’re just trying to find a way to prioritize the stuff that we think that’s most important to people here.

Female5: This is a little outside of this, but I got an opportunity to watch [ inaudible ]

Cleaire: Well it’s, it’s really an important issue, and we’re gonna have legislation on it. It is, and by the way, since I have, I’ve gotten re acquainted with my family for the first time in four years for the last few weeks, I’ve got to the point now that I really don’t miss my teenagers anymore, but part of me being home is of course, I got this horrible genetic defect, that I keep CNN or MSNBC on all day long, you know, coz I just like, you know, I start shaking if I go two or three days without, like hearing something about politics. And so those channels ran all those commercials, and I am blown away about how much money they’re spending marketing about reverse mortgages. And it is a very scary thing because I don’t think most seniors understand that they’re very expensive, it is a nitch market, it is not a broad base market, it’s not right for every one. And the stories if you watched that hearing, that was just a couple of the incidents that we learned about. I mean it is wide spread the horrible tales of tragedy that have occurred to families who’s love ones that are elderly have unfortunately gotten into these vehicles, this financial vehicles when they shouldn’t have and it is with dire consequences. So we need to make sure that we clean that up, coz we don’t want the next sub prime mortgageness in the reverse mortgage area. So, thank you for that, and we’re gonna, they just reshowed the hearing a couple of days ago, which I learned that, these bandits hard up for materials to when we leave for, they start re, they do the reruns of all the stuff, so, okay, anybody else. Okay, well, it’s been great to be here, thank you all for having me.

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