"I appreciate very much your being here, your testimony, and look forward to working with you. I am particularly concerned about the issue of making sure you have adequate funding to be able to carry out your enormous task here."
"the notion that we are not going to help people who are desperately in need because we have a budget crisis, I think, is unacceptable."
"I, too, believe that we need to get our budget deficits under control, but I don't want to do it by balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest of the poor in this country."
"But the reality is, for many, many years, we have been balancing the budget on the backs of the poor in this country."
"I think what the Congress needs to do is to make sure that there is a safety net and that the safety net works."
"the increase speaks to the extraordinary need in Massachusetts as well as the hard work by the state to be able to deliver benefits to eligible people."
"people right now need help, and people are not getting these benefits."
"As a United States congressman, I am ashamed to state that hunger is getting worse in this country."
"temporary solutions are becoming unacceptable permanent solutions."
"the city near the nuclear power plant is cutting back on its first responder preparedness."
"the federal government is not serious about creating a long term solution to the nuclear waste storage problem."