the pressure to continue within the established incrementalist approach, as opposed to how you make sure your customers have got that ability to occasionally have some risk capital, in effect to noodge innovation forward, I think is…

I very much appreciate the Chair and the Vice Chair's willingness to kind of push this sector to take a fresh look.

due to a prior commitment, I regret I was not present to vote on H.R. 5985, the VA Expiring Authorities Act of 2016. Had I been present, I would have voted in support of the legislation. ____________________

after one of the longest recesses in modern history, Congress returned last week to Washington. Unfortunately, it seems that some of our colleagues have been more interested in continuing to play politics with the health and welfare of the…

I want to start by echoing what Senator Brown and Senator Capito and others have said and thank my friend from West Virginia for continuing to wage this fight. It feels a little bit like deja vu all over again. We have been down here time…

I commend you for your work so far.

As we move to a system that pays for value, not volume, this growth threatens the gains our country has made in helping to drive down health-care costs.

I would just urge you that this is going to be an area that is going to exponentially grow in importance.

I would hope you would move forward with that.

I think there is an increasing consensus among CEOs... that this is long-term destructive to real value creation in business.

I believe that is a negative long term.

I appreciate my colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, yielding for a question. I am proud to join so many Members of the Senate. I want to echo the comments of the Senator from Missouri, her comments about getting the same kind of…

I want to move to another area of concern that I have.

I am proud to stand here with my colleagues and friends--Senator Manchin from West Virginia, Senator Casey from Pennsylvania, Senator Brown from Ohio, and, shortly after me, Senator Wyden from Oregon--to echo what has already been said…

I think regardless of where we sit--which side of the aisle--I think most of us would, at least, privately acknowledge you could not create a more complicated, messy tax code than we have in America.

I do think if we want to move beyond whatever this new normal is, the idea of how we simplify our system but incent long-term value creation has to be part of this ongoing discussion.

I am sympathetic to potentially leverage. I am not sympathetic to both.

I think we have seen a lot of the banks move out of this space.

It seems like the legislation you are proposing is a bit of an overreach.

There are some of us on the Committee, Senator Corker and I, who believe strongly in risk retention.

I want to thank you for holding this hearing on the need to improve access to capital for businesses and communities.

I remain open to hearing the arguments, but obviously I have a series of grave concerns on this topic.

It strikes us as an inappropriate time to actually weaken oversight of these entities.

I thank the Senator from Arizona for working with us on this very important issue of making sure that veterans in a number of our States are able to get quality care in a location that is convenient to them, and I appreciate his partnering…

I want to thank you and Senator Bennet for your interest in this subject.