Chris Dodd

Frankly, there are historical examples where that kind of approach has not produced the best results.

Today, the Banking Committee will hear testimony on covered bonds, a potentially significant alternative means for raising capital for housing finance.

I think one of the things I feel strongly--I am looking at my own State of Connecticut where you have got to have an income of $20 an hour on average to afford a two-bedroom apartment, a rental unit.

I want to thank you for championing this issue and pressing it as you have.

We have such a paucity of stock that obviously the supply and demand issues have driven up the cost tremendously, driving it out of the range of an awful lot of people who need that rental housing market to provide decent shelter for…

It has been a good hearing, very informative.

I rise this afternoon to express my very strong support for the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to serve as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. [...] Therefore, each Senator must decide for him or herself what…

I take great comfort in knowing that he and the Senator from Oregon...have expressed such tremendous interest in this subject matter since the very first days they arrived in the Senate.

It is a subject matter that historically some of my strongest--when I wrote the first child care development block grant program back in the early 1980s, my cosponsor was Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Well, thank you. That is obviously up for reauthorization. We are trying to get that done now in the next few weeks before we adjourn.

Thank you very much, Senator. I appreciate your emphasis on the tobacco issues.

I asked him the other day to comment, if he would, based on his expertise and his own doctoral studies, about the impacts of long-term unemployment on people.

We have authored some legislation over the years to try and provide leave from work for parents.

I think if a teacher can see where a child lives and the circumstances in which they live, that is a very different relationship.

Over the last 36 years, you have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to developing policies that promote children's healthy development and guarantee essential health resources.

I cannot really get to that point unless I get more data on how we are doing with the present law.

In fact, Lamar Alexander and I wrote the Preemie Act in 2006 to combat the increasing rates of preterm and low-birth weight children.

I should express my gratitude. They did increase some funding. By the way, they did it for Head Start as well and the child care development block grants as well, close to $1 billion in either case, and in this environment I appreciate…

I certainly know of no studies that suggested increasing inequality is helpful to the well-being of children.

I do not like to see us competing because I think the extended day idea has a great value.

To a large extent, the parents who are aware of the existence of programs, who make an effort, have a substantial lead on others who are not aware or are so stressed out trying to cope every day just to put food on the table.

Thank you very much, Doctor, and I thank all of you for your work, your dedication to these issues, and the efforts you are making today to improve the quality of life for these kids and their families.

We very much appreciate your leadership, Senator Dodd, on the FMLA, and the Administration supports further efforts in this area.

Nothing, no set of issues have given me a greater sense of joy or pleasure to work on over the past 3 decades than this cluster of issues.

In fact, my staff reminded me that in the Affordable Health Care bill--and Bob Casey was involved in this as well, The National Quality Strategy--we fought very, very hard that children be a part of that.