Bob Casey

The tax system is just broken.

The President's fiscal year 2018 budget request slashes HUD's funding by more than $7 billion.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program sets income limits at 50 percent, 60 percent of area median income; however, extremely low-income households have incomes that are less than 30 percent of area median income.

The President is clearly not in tune with the housing crisis that we have in this country.

Our Nation is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic. I share Secretary Price's tremendous sense of urgency to combat this public health threat.

I will be a strong advocate for the programs that are working.

Climate change is a serious threat to human health.

The President and the Administration are failing to live up to that promise.

You certainly have my commitment that this area is extremely important, and I understand the value of it, and will argue for such programs to be scaled, and they should be across the country.

The programs are already making a difference since the time it has been implemented.

It is called the Pregnancy Assistance Fund which was both authorized and had an appropriation attached to it in the bill for 10 years, $250 million over 10 years.

I think the country is grateful to hear that news, and we are appreciative of that.

Another suggestion I have, you know, we are worried about the budget cut to the National Institutes of Health, a big cut of billions of dollars.

But I am serious about the issue. In addition to the work we have to do to reauthorize the Special Diabetes Program, we have got to fight hard against the cuts to NIH.

I thought, because Mr. Sparks is familiar with the White House, he could somehow get in there and get that and just cross it out of the budget document.

Thank you and your colleagues for their bipartisan support of the Special Diabetes Program. It is doing great work for everybody.

The Senate health care bill, in my judgment, could lead to higher costs for individuals and families in this room.

Let us hear it for Senator Collins, our Chairman.

Well, that helps us as well to be able to give folks a sense of the challenge that you face every day.

Your testimony is very compelling, and that is the kind of testimony that will help us win some of these legislative battles.

Thanks very much, Chairman Collins. I was mentioning before that one of our witnesses is from Pennsylvania: Lorynn Watt.

We want to ensure that when you get older you can access care that is affordable as well.

Another issue that I wanted to raise is part of the debate we are having right now about programs like Medicaid.

Seventy-five senators signed a letter that I led in September urging that this federal investment continue.

If confirmed, my focus will be on providing tax relief to middle-income taxpayers.