Dick Durbin

The for-profit college industry is clearly the single-heaviest subsidized business in America. More than any defense contractor or any farm operation... So many of them are a horrible waste of students' time and of taxpayer dollars. ”

Unfortunately the Republican tax cut will deny important revenues to many states facing their own deficits. This will create greater pressure for higher state and local taxes. ”

Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive. ”

Town meetings are not bean bag. I've had hundreds of them, and sometimes folks get upset. And that's part of America, part of our process. ”

I don't disagree with Senator McCain when he talks about the earmark process. ”

If we can get back to where I can earmark money to bring it home to Illinois... to make us a stronger economy, I'm going to continue to do it. ”

We all make mistakes. But I'm lucky. Being from Illinois and from the Midwest, we believe in pretty basic fairness. Once you've made a mistake, get up, dust yourself off, and go to work. ”

The fact is I tried for years to work with the financial industry on reasonable swipe fee reform, but the industry wouldn't have it. ”

We borrow 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend. We borrow most of it from countries like China. They have become major creditors of the United States and have more power over our economy than we want them to. So dealing with this is not only the right thing economically, it's certainly right from a moral viewpoint. ”

This city of East St. Louis needs a tomorrow. ”