Ben Cardin

Please provide all communications you have had with representatives of agricultural and other companies regarding water quality litigation between Arkansas and Oklahoma.

I found this hearing to be very informative, but certainly our options are, in some respects, very heavy.

I do want to just get on the record that if North Korea moves towards establishing its nuclear capacity as far as weapons, is it not more likely that the Republic of Korea and Japan may very well start to show some interest in a nuclear…

I am not sure I exactly understand. You are saying China is not going to work with us, we are going to impose secondary sanctions on their companies, they are going to complain about that, but we are going to do it anyway?

So because China is not cooperating, we are going to have to treat China as an adversary?

That cannot work unless China cooperates, and we have not seen China anxious to join us.

That requires strengthening the sanction regime, making sure it is enforced, and moving toward secondary sanctions.

They are not going to do it voluntarily if we continue down the current path.

I noticed that President Trump said, 'It won't happen.' Does that mean we have drawn a red line?

It is clear that North Korea, according to the statement of their leader, is in the final stages of testing and launching the intercontinental ballistic missile.

I just really urge us to recognize, yes, we want a better outcome, we all want a better outcome in our health-care system. But you do not do that by taking money away from our most vulnerable.

I hope you understand our concern, that when we talk about changing Medicaid... it sends a signal that what we are going to do is cut the Federal Government's commitment to access for minorities.

One of the major objectives of the Affordable Care Act was to deal with the historic discrimination against minority communities in our health-care system.

I hope that we can work together to find ways that we can do more outreach to help access to capital for particularly minority businesses.

To me, that is an extremely important part of our commitment to help veterans and returning warriors in regards to small business.

Thank you very much for being willing to serve in this public position.

Will be to make sure that because American companies, NGOs, and development relief efforts are expected to play by the rules and abide by Dodd Frank, Cardin-Lugar, FCPA, and other laws, that foreign companies or investors do not get an…

[a]ny reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.

We do not have a VAT tax system, we have an income tax system, and other countries do.

I would just urge you, as I did in my office, to take a look at a progressive consumption tax.

You want to grow our economy in regards to exports.

I would just urge you, on the first part, to recognize that we have to be disciplined as we deal with the Federal budget.

The second is that tax reform should be at least as progressive as our current tax code.

I would hope that you would agree that we do not want tax reform to increase the size of the Federal deficit.

I think we all would acknowledge that our income tax rates, personal and corporate, put the United States at a disadvantage in global competition and it is something we need to deal with.