John Larson

It seems to me that our current tax system is broken. It was antiquated in the last century.

The future for the city of Hartford and for Coltsville is now, and the sense of urgency is upon us. This is a project--certainly, everybody recognizes--that has national significance and historic value and deserves to be preserved. The…

I would like to clarify that Congress does not wish to interfere with those arrangements in a way that could lead to higher fees being imposed by administrators to make up for lost revenue, which would directly raise health care costs and…

America has lost a great patriot. The Congress has lost one of its giants, one of the most knowledgeable Members on national defense ever to serve here, whose service spanned four decades and eight Presidents and Members from both Chambers…

More importantly, after I qualified for clean elections, I could spend the majority of my time talking to my constituents.

As the Speaker of the House, I am engaged in recruiting candidates to run for the legislature.

I am certain that many candidates would not be able to run for office without the public financing option.

I think that is the beauty of a hearing.

I think it gets more attention to the culture of your campaigns which we have kind of lost here in this arms race.

When I used the term 'corrosive,' what I meant by that was the entire approach ends up being corrosive.

I think that is an important thing to know for our colleagues who represent very low-income communities.

But certainly the most important thing about this thinking is the flexibility...

I don't see how we lose on that one.

Our bill, you are right, does not address 527s.

If we had full public financing here, a voluntary system...would we be struggling this week to figure out how to put together a health-care bill?

I would like to see us implement a system very similar to what we are talking about in Maine.

I can't imagine anybody likes doing that. I can't imagine anybody wants to push this.

The last thing the American people need is for this body to heap greater debt on the backs of our progeny for the sakes of political campaigns.

I do not understand why putting restrictions on the other side makes much sense.

I hate raising money for campaigns. The only two people I know who enjoyed it both went to prison.

I do not understand that contradiction.

The Fair Elections Now Act is voluntary and would provide qualified House candidates grants, matching funds, and vouchers.

What it seeks to do, I think, is end the corrosive part of this process and then provide an opportunity to put the public back in charge.

These are bills--and I know that the committee is aware of this--that other thoughtful Members like John Tierney and Dave Obey have introduced legislation.

Again, as you look at this both in terms of the amount of money that you would be able to raise in a primary and then as the amount of money that you would be able to raise in a general election, there would be sufficient funds there.