Bob Casey

Can I just ask? How do we best rectify that?

For me, SSI played a strong role in helping me achieve my educational goals. However, for too many people, it becomes a lifelong parking lot.

If I want an appointment with Senator Nelson, I should call you.

We need in this country, as is happening across the globe, to think of seniors as assets and not liabilities.

It is particularly interesting, because when I look at a State like the one I represent, Pennsylvania, we have just about two million seniors in our State.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for calling this hearing, and Ranking Member Collins, as well.

I rise today to pay tribute to my colleague, Max Baucus. Senator Baucus has been a leader in the areas of tax, trade, health, agriculture and the environment. I have served with him on the Finance Committee and the Agriculture Committee…

An increasing body of evidence demonstrates the lasting impact of high-quality early learning.

This legislation would build on the investments States are already making, helping them expand access to pre-K so that all children have access to at least 1 year of high-quality pre-K.

Sixty-five percent of 4-year-olds in the bottom 40 percent of this country are attending preschool.

Like you, I share a strong belief in the need for the Federal Government to play a more active role in promoting access to high-quality early learning.

I like to say if kids learn more now, they'll earn more later.

We believe strongly in Louisiana that aligning a birth to 12 system is fundamental to achieving the outcomes for students we want.

Responsiveness--the 'serve and return' interaction in which infants' gestures, affect and vocalization are responded to with nurturing communication from adults, encouraging further communication from the child--is important throughout…

We have the opportunity to make a significant investment in early learning, and set future generations on a path to academic and economic success.

I think we're starting to make progress. We have Senator Harkin's bill, the Strong Start for America's Children legislation, which is gaining significant momentum now and support.

More successful children turn into more successful adults, and society benefits in many ways.

It's, obviously, the right thing to do for our children, but it's also the right thing to do for all of us, because all the data shows--and it's irrefutable now--that this is a critically important part of economic growth.

The proposed changes seemed to jeopardize the efficiency of the existing process, which could increase the risk of harm to consumers.

Let's support existing networks and leverage knowledge from those networks; allow for new networks to be created...

We need a policy and clear objectives.

I think we have to try to address that.

I think we should try to arrive at some consensus.

It seems one of the reasons we get the short end of the stick, or our workers do, is because the United States of America, as I see it, does not have and has not ever had in recent history a trade policy.

For senior non-married women, the poverty rate is 16.3 percent by the official measure, with another 11 percent near-poor.