Senate committee on Health Education and pensions will please come to order. Im usually on time and excuse me for being late. We reauthorize a Higher Education act. Today were looking at ways to simplify the free application for student aid or fafsa to make it easier for students to apply for federal Financial Aid. Well introduce the witnesses and after your testimony senators will have five minutes of questions. Senators may be coming and going because of the tax bill. Nearly four years ago in a hearing before this committee an unusual thing happened. Four witnesses from diverse back grntds agreed that almost all of the 108 questions on the free application for federal student aid or fafsa are unnecessary. The fafsa is the government form 20 million families fill out every year to qualify for it federal aid that helps nearly 20 Million Students attend universities. Weve spent a lot of time holding this to remind people of all it questions even though most people fill it out online. Th
Fincher and remain standing to join the corollaries in the singing of one verse of the starspangled banner. Rabbi fincher congratulations. In the jewish tradition, we have a specific blessing that is set on special occasions. It acknowledges that getting to any particular moment is not to be taken for granted. We are to celebrate in joyous times, voice appreciation and milestone events, acknowledge our gifts and successes, and realize that we alone are not responsible for our good fortune. We rejoice and elevate those special moments, make them holy, by filling them with words of gratitude and expressions of humility. I share this blessing with you now. [speaking in hebrew] i also offer you a moment to reflect upon the many who helped to bring you to this day. The communities and individuals that have inspired and helped you. Your families and friends. Your teachers. Your coaches. Your advisors, your mentors. They have strengthened and supported your growth. They have believed in you.
Live now to the floor of the United States senate. They are back from their summer recess and our live coverage picks up right here right now on cspan2. The president pro tempore the senate will come to order. The chaplain, dr. Barry black , will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Eternal and sovereign god, the earth in its fullness belongs to you. Teach us to live by your prece precepts and follow your plans. Guide our lawmakers in the challenging decisions they face. May they build up rather than tear down using their powers to keep dreams from becoming nightmares. Give them the wisdom to know that history will judge them by whether they act with courage or cowardess. Lord, lead our senators in their efforts to guide our citizens to the better angels of our nature. May our lawmakers make the commitment to stand for right, though the heavens fall. And, lord, we pray for those affected by Hurricane Harvey and for those bracing for hurricane irma. We pray in your merci
A senator mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from colorado. A senator thank you, mr. President. I ask that the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Bennet thank you, mr. President. All year this year, the majority has tried to ram through legislation to repeal the Affordable Care act and replace it with proposals that in effect cut health care for millions of people to finance tax cuts for those who make millions of dollars in income. All year the American People have made it perfectly clear that this was the opposite of what they wanted. Unfortunately, those re and fortunately, those repeal efforts failed. Now instead of listening to the american peemg and learning from people and learning from that failure, the majority has doubled down its tax plan. Like health care, theyve made no attempt to bring both sides together. In the senate we only saw the bill last thursday, mr. President. Im on the finance committee. Ive been on there for ye
And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Amy goodman has been cover ing politics for 20 years now. Her newest book is now available in paperback. She joins us tonight from stanford, california. Good to have you back on the program. Its great to be with you. Are there still in fact movements that are changing america or are we up against something we havent seen the likes of ever . And if not ever, certainly in quite a while . Both. I think there are major movements that are changing this country still. In fact, our escalating, you look just at these three. The media played a lot of the first 100 days of donald trump, as we should have. The evaluation of what he has managed to do so far. What wasnt done as much is evaluating the movements, and theyve been quite astonishing, the day after President Trump was inaugurated. Three times the crowd for his inauguration came out. A lot was made of the fact that Donald Trumps inaugural crowd was smaller than pre