Michael Bennet

One of the things that I am worried about in our country is that we have seen periods of growth in the 1980s and the 1990s where there was a relationship between the growing GDP and growing wages and growing jobs.

Italy is the third largest bond market in the world, and it is the largest bond market in terms of bonds outstanding in the euro area.

Bank recapitalization does not require treaty changes.

We have got to work on some of these things in our own country as well.

If we really are accepting as a Congress a standard of outcomes of success that is just keeping the lights flickering... we are all going to rue the day that we did not have a more meaningful conversation about it.

It is not a sufficient answer to the people we represent that things have to get worse before we fix this problem.

We have got 14 million people that are unemployed that we have not been able to figure out how to put back to work.

My hope is that this hearing, among other work that is being done on the Hill, will show how perilous the position we are in is today, how perilous the global economy is today.

This may surprise our witnesses, but there are people in this town that will say that things have to get worse before we can construct the politics that will actually solve the problem that we are facing.

I think it is very clear that what continues to elude us here is an alignment of incentives that could help create some velocity in the market.

If there was a silver bullet to solve negative equity and keep foreclosures at bay, I would definitely want that silver bullet.

Another way of saying negative equity, the issue is is there a way to prop up the values of people's homes, or do we need to take the pain as an economy going forward?

Sometimes in this town, I feel like people are forgetting what people in our States are really going through, through this incredibly difficult economic period.

There will be no rollcall votes on Friday. The next rollcall vote will be Monday, September 19, at 5:30 p.m. ____________________

The penalty for counterfeiting drugs is lower than the penalty for counterfeiting a DVD, for example.

I appreciate Senator Bennet's work in this area and the interest of Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Enzi in finding solutions to these complex issues.

I appreciate Senator Bennet's work in this area.

Right now, you get higher penalties for illegally copying a DVD than for counterfeiting drugs.

Many regulations are woefully, and dangerously, outmoded, in the face of an increasingly globalized and opaque supply chain.

The incentives are not really there for innovation in quality.

I introduced the Drug Safety and Accountability Act last year, to increase both industry and regulatory controls to ensure drug safety and protect patients.

We think actually that leveling the playing field and putting in place a modern system can help a great deal in innovation and competitiveness.

We shouldn't wait for another tragedy.

If there's a bad actor, it hurts everybody in the entire industry and our patients as well.

I really want to thank you for holding this hearing.