Jack Reed

The thrust of the legislation is to have a transit system independent safety oversight body.

If we subsidized these transit systems at the rate we subsidize the airline infrastructure and the road infrastructure, these problems might be self-correcting because the money would be adequate to do this.

There are very severe, long-lasting costs associated with unemployment rates at the level we are seeing.

I think jobs are the issue right now, and I think it is not just today's incomes, today's production.

I think from my view, the faster we get this accomplished, then we can move on to some of the other issues we have talked about today.

I think an essential element would be to try to reform health care in a way that controls costs going out.

So you would concur that our effort today to pass health care reform is critical to our economic future.

Was the trajectory of Federal spending and Federal Reserve policy more appropriate at the end of 2000 or the end of 1999 than it is today?

Even with the most dedicated and talented government in Kabul, Afghani Government, the ability to reach out into the provinces is limited.

Some of the criticism of even talking about a date... is that it would embolden the enemy.

That was agreed to by the Bush administration as a hard deadline without conditions.

I think most people had a suspicion as they saw during the first decade of this century that no real increases in income, yet financial executives were enjoying huge, huge paydays.

I am pleased not only to be here today, but also to be a cosponsor of Senator Dodd's FAIR Overdraft Coverage Act.

I think this legislation is timely, appropriate, and extremely important.

The kind of prevention and Rapid Re-Housing initiatives that are in Senator Reed's bill, the Zero Tolerance bill, would take that a step further.

It is going to take leadership at the national level, and, of course, the Secretary has put down a hugely important marker for that.

What needs to happen is the VA needs to take leadership at the local level.

We have run across an increasing number of veterans who are having a difficult time right now that perhaps some short-term assistance would keep them from ever becoming homeless.

We want to make sure this is an appropriate veteran who will come in, and as the law requires, we will participate in ongoing health care services.

This is a real and growing problem. And we have to commit ourselves to an all-out effort to help these young men and women and not-so-young men and women.

I particularly want to recognize Senator Akaka, who has been a leader in veterans affairs.

We are looking, and unlike some, we have a long history of both the health care needs of these veterans.

The political support for doing more about homeless veterans, those things combine to give us an opportunity

I am deeply worried that Rhode Islanders, especially those at high risk of contracting H1N1 influenza, will not have access to adequate protection.

So much of the technology transfer there is off-the-shelf in commercial or not the traditional military platform.