Michael Bennet

I think history will demonstrate that.

You have always listened, even when we disagreed, which we sometimes did.

Every time I think about the partisan nonsense that we are facing over immigration, I will remember the courageous vote you took in 2013.

The whole purpose of Title 1 was equity, and I believe that too.

I first want to ask whether there is anybody on the panel who believes that we should be spending Federal education dollars to arm teachers in our schools?

I believe health care is a right. It's also just an essential.

This is one of the reasons Senator Kaine and I have offered the bill--I don't know if any of you have seen it, this Medicare X bill that suggested maybe what we need is a real public option that would be administered by Medicare.

In many of my rural districts, 50 percent or more of the kids are on Medicaid.

The least we can ask is for a system that treats us, whether we are in rural or urban areas, as real people, not just boxes on a spreadsheet.

I want to thank Senators Kaine, Bennet, and Murkowski for co-sponsoring.

I want to thank Senator Bennett for his support for the Preventive Health Savings Act.

It would seem to me that provoking a trade war with Mexico, Canada, and the EU, when the issue fundamentally is with China, and when the growth for all of our farmers and ranchers in the West is going to come from the Pacific Rim, seems…

China retaliated against U.S. agricultural products, in my opinion, because they viewed the power of this Committee.

We export $20 billion worth of agricultural products to China. It is our biggest market.

The world is watching.

This kind of uncertainty really does not help, and our adversaries understand that.

They do not need your sympathy. They need you to act rationally and reasonably.

I also agree it makes sense to update NAFTA. A lot has changed since its inception in 1994.

I agree that we need strong, meaningful trade enforcement when countries like China break the rules.

The reaction from many of the farmers I have spoken with is not surprising. They want trade, not aid.

Our farmers need markets in order to be successful, and there are impacts that are occurring right now because of the uncertainty.

The stagnation of wages for the vast majority of American workers over the last several decades should be, I think, the key policy concern of all lawmakers in the United States, both Republican and Democratic.

I would say, Mr. Chairman, with my last 15 seconds, from Colorado's perspective, just from my state's perspective, the last thing we would do would be to punish our closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico.

Those unfair trade practices were costing American workers and businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of lost profits and good jobs.

I think currency misalignment is one of the key issues with respect to China, and workers' rights.