I certainly appreciate the Ranking Member pointing that out. That is actually a result of Federal policy.

One of the efforts that I led in the Congress was to strip the VA of their construction management authority for building major construction projects.

It is interesting being able to listen to this debate. The common ground is we want to be able to have consumers have access to capital, and we also want responsible lending. We now need to reset this debate to the reality that is being…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing and bringing my bill, H.R. 4609, the West Fork Fire Station Act of 2017, up for consideration.

I am really grateful for that effort and proud to come from the area that we live in.

Consumers need advocates on their behalf.

Excessive consolidation leaves consumers with few choices, which not only limits their care options but also has the potential to raise prices.

When Medicare's expenditures go up, the taxpayers suffer as well.

As I said in my opening statement, my colleague, Tom Reed, and I have been looking into insulin prices, and I think that our investigation, the facts we've learned, have broad implications from the consolidation issues here today.

We really want to protect Guam; we also want to protect Hawaii. That goes absolutely without saying.

It is clear that the delivery of care is changing, and not always to the benefit of patients and payers.

It was a $5-trillion surplus projected over a decade. Is that not correct?

We borrowed all that money from our kids.

We may have an armed conflict of some kind, and the idea that we are now spending the money instead of trying to figure out how to work in a bipartisan way, to do the work----

I do not think you guys have made hard choices. Giving $37 billion to 572,000 taxpayers that make more than a million dollars a year by borrowing that money from our kids is not a hard choice.

It really adds insult to injury when we did our work the last time to see farmers and ranchers, especially in this commodity environment, getting whacked.

I have statement after statement after statement of Republican colleagues who were unwilling to lift a finger to--

Consolidation does not always have to be negative.