Michael Bennet

I think it is a terrible decision, for the people that I represent in my state.

There is not a replacement for the Akron Research Station.

It is a war on rural America, I think, and rural Colorado.

For them to be presented with a 30 percent cut to the Department of Agriculture is an insult.

It is not going to be acceptable to me, and I don't think to the United States Senate, to cut it

Who gave you that task?

I wonder if you could tell the panel a little bit about the role these research field stations play and how they work to provide useful information to local growers and producers.

I want to thank you for holding an excellent hearing. This is a great panel, and timely, I think, because of the budget that has been submitted.

There is about a $3 billion savings that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated could happen if essentially Congress were simply to say to the company, 'You have to make that available.'

I think only the Congress can essentially say that.

My hope is that in the Senate, we will not do this in a partisan way, but we will come together as Democrats and Republicans and address the health-care system in a way that is actually believable to the people whom I represent.

If you set out to design a bill less responsive to the critics of Obamacare in Colorado, to Republican critics of Obamacare, you could not write a bill less responsive than the House bill.

To believe what you just said, you would have to first reject the findings of the Congressional Budget Office that the House bill throws 23 million off insurance.

What is my State supposed to do?

It does not comport with the evidence. It is not true, and it certainly is not true in my State.

I do not want to have to walk back through the list. I mean, I think we have agreed that that is a very small percentage.

Well, what they would say is, there is a tiny residual percentage of people who are not disabled, are not elderly, are not children, and do not work, but are on Medicaid.

And more than 40 percent of our Medicaid spending supports the disabled and seniors, many of whom are in long-term care facilities.

They said that when you look at who is on Medicaid in Colorado, nearly half the program are children.

I mean, even if it is just $834 billion, I think that is a 25-percent cut to Medicaid.

If we could work together, I would appreciate the opportunity to work with your staff to see whether in the end we are talking about $834 billion or $1.4 trillion.

I want to start just by understanding the Medicaid cuts, or however you want to characterize them.

The 21CSC initiative has received bipartisan support in Congress from Reps. Martha McSally and Seth Moulton and Senators John McCain and Michael Bennet.

I am confident that Congress will act on the debt limit in a timely manner to ensure the full faith and credit of the United States Government.

I believe it is important for Congress to raise the debt ceiling as soon as possible.