Susan Collins

My legislation would add language to Section 171 to clarify that in establishing minimum capital requirements for holding companies on a consolidated basis, the Federal Reserve is not required to include insurers.

I do not agree that the Fed lacks this authority and find its disregard of my clear intent, as the author of Section 171, to be frustrating.

As I have publicly and repeatedly stressed, Section 171 does not direct the regulators to apply bank-centric capital standards to insurance entities.

I want to emphasize my belief that the Federal Reserve is able to take into account and should take into account the differences between insurance and other financial activities.

I feel strongly that it is so important that nothing be done to diminish or weaken it.

I wager that this hearing is the most technical hearing that is being held on Capitol Hill today, perhaps this week, perhaps this year.

I do think that was one reason you are seeing a slight increase though I know Aroostook County could use far more than just five more of those food packs.

Sequestration does not discriminate between absolutely vital programs, such as several of the ones we have been discussing today, and programs that are duplicative, outlived their usefulness or are ineffective, and just taking a meat-axe…

Do you think that will ultimately translate into a lower poverty rate for women?

That is an excellent point.

There is more to those Meals on Wheels programs than just that hot meal.

I know that you do more with less than anyone I have ever seen in my life, and you are enormously creative.

What do you think is the greatest unmet need of low-income elderly that you serve?

Thank you, Senator Collins, for holding this hearing and for detailing in your own statements how important it is that we realize that elderly poverty is still a problem.

After spending four decades in the workforce, our Nation's seniors should be confident that they will have the resources to meet their needs in retirement.

The importance of this program to low-income retirees cannot be overstated.

One of our Nation's greatest accomplishments has been the dramatic reduction in the poverty rate among our elderly.

Senators Collins and Klobuchar have introduced S. Res. 303, a resolution calling on the U.S. Senate to make fighting Alzheimer's disease an urgent national priority.

Alzheimer's is costing the United States more than $200 billion a year, yet we are spending less than three tenths of 1 percent of that amount on research.

If we are to prevent Alzheimer's from becoming the defining disease of the next generation, it is imperative that we dramatically increase our investment in Alzheimer's disease research.

The fact that we still are not sharing critical threat information, particularly with the owners and operators of critical infrastructure, is just unacceptable in this day and age.

I believe we're extremely vulnerable to attacks.

I had no idea that more older people were starting businesses than the very younger parts of our population, so, this has been an eye-opener for me, as well.

I think this has been a fascinating hearing that is really going to help increase public awareness of the critical and growing role that senior entrepreneurs, encore entrepreneurs, are playing in our economy.

I love Ms. Isele's idea of allowing them, the long-term unemployed, to use their unemployment benefits as a start-up loan.