You cannot hire people without paying them. You cannot build stuff without paying for it.

Mr. McDonald's job will be to, in a very significant way, in a bold way, start addressing those problems.

I am strongly supportive of the nomination.

It is my strong opinion that if VA is going to do quality health care that it needs to do, we are going to need--simply need more doctors, more nurses, more medical personnel, more productivity in the VA.

Now, in a nation in which 40 million people have no health insurance, a nation where we spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other Nation, a nation where 45,000 people die because they do not get health care, now…

We want to make sure that in that transformation, as we bring down the wait times for benefits--for claims, that we do it in an accurate way.

What I pray is that through a superb Chairman and through people like Patty Murray, the head of the Budget Committee, and others, that we will provide you with the resources that you need.

I hope very much that we will be able to do that and I hope we will be able to do that before we leave here for the recess.

I do believe that if we're going to say this planet and make it habitable for our kids and our grandchildren, we have to rethink some of the basic premises.

At the 50th anniversary I think we need to give it a good old try.

if we do not move away from fossil fuels and transform our energy system away from oil and coal and gas to sustainable energy and energy efficiency, the truth is that while, yes, I know extraction of fossil fuels will create jobs, will…

extreme storms continue to cost us billions of dollars each year.

I have been a champion of funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund since I got here almost 20 years ago.

With that, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania. Protecting Our Children

Let me concur with Senator Leahy. We take this opportunity to wish Governor Hoff a very happy 90th birthday. Jane and I see him quite often, and we just bumped into Phil and Joan recently. We look forward to continuing that relationship…

For more than 100 years--I think many people don't know this--the Republican Party dominated Vermont politics, controlling both Houses of the legislature and the Governor's office. This is a funny story. Even in the landslide Presidential…

I thank Senator Leahy for yielding. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

way back in 1968 as a young man, I got a job at the Department of Taxation in a small building on State Street across the street from the statehouse, working for the administration, then-Governor Hoff, and that was a very important…

every now and then there are figures who come along who play a profound and transformative role in the period in which they are living. Phil Hoff is one of those people. We are here to celebrate his 90th birthday and the work he has done…

Senator Leahy talked about the influence Governor Hoff had on the State. Let me give some examples of what he did. Senator Leahy will remember in the early 1960s we had the situation in Vermont where the Vermont State House of…

See, he told you not to get started on that.

Patient safety is not going to improve substantially until the 'playing field' between the ill patient and the healthcare industry is leveled by an enforced bill of rights.

You'll be sanctioned or you'll lose your accreditation.

This issue has not gotten the attention that it deserves, and I hope that today is the beginning of an effort to focus more light on it.

You're saying you know that there are some hospitals that have infection rates 10 times higher than other hospitals.