What she wanted to do was raise the funding fee from 2.25 to 2.4 percent.

That doesn't make any sense.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member. I am very grateful for your leadership.

We have been fighting for nearly a decade to deliver VA healthcare and benefits to the Blue Water Navy veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

I think this is an injustice that we can and must rectify, and I think we can do it in this Congress.

the last issue, if Madam Chairman does not mind me raising it, is this issue of access to banking.

I am so excited about the ABLE Act. We are beginning to make progress.

Well, they used to be able to provide banking and did it for a very long time, decades and decades.

the rate for persons with a disability of unemployment is 9.2 percent for 2017. That is double the national rate.

people want to work, and I thought that quote was really important. And I think people with disabilities desperately want to work.

one idea to address that is this idea of postal banking because we have so many post offices in every part of the country.

you want to earn at your fullest potential.

I rise to speak in opposition to President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. In my home State of New York, more than 8 million people have health problems. That is almost half my State. They are living with…

We should be crediting time out of the workforce caring for family members towards the calculation of Social Security, not forcing women to reduce their earned Social Security benefits even further for the invaluable, but monetarily…

No one should be kept from seeing their baby's first smile, whether at home or in the NICU.

It would make these programs more affordable, and put small businesses on a more even footing with large corporations.

It also gives you about 66 percent of your wages guaranteed for up to 3 months with a cap.

It does not cost a lot of money, and it covers everybody.

It is about the cost of a cup of coffee a week for you and for your employer.

American families can and should have paid family leave and a secure retirement.

The FAMILY Act would allow for working individuals to take paid time off, and would not discriminate based on gender or the nature of their job.

Using your retirement security to fund paid time off from work when you have a child is not paid family leave at all--it's robbing from your retirement to be able to care for loved ones now.

This approach makes it more difficult to build major transit projects and could end up making those projects more expensive.

So Congress desperately needs to catch up. We need a national paid leave program now.

The FAMILY Act covers birth or adoption, taking care of an older family member, addressing one's own personal medical needs.