Maintaining or expanding Social Security is the single most effective thing we can do to prevent poverty and economic ruin for millions of senior citizens.

Tax increases do not solve this problem, and it would be a mistake to go down that road.

Both the Social Security and Medicare programs face substantial financing shortfalls that require legislative corrections.

I think you could make a very big difference in the income of a lot of retirees today or new retirees, raising those benefits at a relatively low cost.

Rather than asking how we should scale back the program, we should be asking ourselves how we can strengthen it.

Retirement security in America, as we know from reading the histories of FDR and other stories from the New Deal on, has virtually always been thought of as a 3-legged stool: Social Security, employer-provided pensions, and personal…

That is the purpose of the hearing, Senator Nelson.

Much of the shortfall that we are looking at in Social Security is because of the upward redistribution of wage income.

I do not know whether it will or whether it will not, but that certainly affects the environment of how we think about Social Security or the government's liabilities in the long term.

Low-income people need a better Social Security program, but higher-income folks really do need to save more on their own.

Few in the Senate know retirement security issues as Ben Cardin does.

Well, do not do it between 62 and 65 or 63 and 66, because it has gone up.

So, why does it take 40 days longer in the Cleveland office?

I appreciate the VBA transformation plan. I think the results you outlined in your testimony are admirable and important and positive.

Veterans in Ohio are now waiting less time for decisions.

It seems that we are falling short depending on how you file on either or both of those.

I am of a mind that the fundamental challenge confronting us in trade now is even greater than the challenge confronting us in our Federal deficit.

The inventory in Cleveland has been decreased by 47.2 percent over the last 8 months.

But the backlog in Cleveland has been persistent for some time. Does not the VA need to respond?

IT for us is the way forward for really providing that even higher level of service to our veterans.

It is imperative, in my opinion, that an American Infrastructure Bank be part of the agenda of today's hearing.

I believe that if you want an Export-Import Bank loan, then you should have to respect the entire supply chain, for it is the taxpayers' money after all.

If we can keep it from increasing the Federal deficit, get it properly sized, as Senator Merkley often talks about, toward $1 trillion, and put a Made in America or domestic content requirement on it, then that is millions of instant new…

That's why China's recent actions to shut down foreign journalists are so troubling.

We are calling on China immediately, this Commission and all of us in the Senate and House that care about these issues, to immediately cease its policy of harassing foreign journalists, period.