Peter Welch

What Elijah understood is that the Government that is here to serve the people has a responsibility to do things that protect them from price gouging.

The question for this Congress is whether our Government will play a role, an active role to stop price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry?

I appreciate the subcommittee's attention to the importance of the Affordable Care Act as our Nation is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clearly, more needs to be done. I would like to hear more about what ACA could do to be improved.

If you are going to ease regulations, you have to have standards so that a person... has confidence that they will get the healthcare they need when they need it.

If the cost of healthcare keeps escalating like it is, none of us are going to be able to afford it.

I applaud the success in getting some kind of peace arrangement, but I think we've got to be clear-eyed that the likelihood is the Taliban will be in charge, that country will continue to be very impoverished, and the instability in that…

It is not unreasonable to expect that the Taliban that's managed to sustain itself is ultimately going to be in charge in Afghanistan.

The elected government in Afghanistan has had one backer, and that's essentially the United States.

I believe it is time for the United States to be out of Afghanistan.

I mean, obviously, you have the right to make political donations within the law, and I have no dispute with that.

I assume that both of you agree that that is an essential mission of the Post Office?

I want to thank Postmaster General DeJoy. And I want to thank the chairman of the board, Mr. Duncan, for your patient answering of our questions.

It was President Nixon in 1970 who had signed a very major postal reform bill to guarantee the independence of the Post Office.

I note the irony that the position of the administration, essentially, is that undocumented immigrants are not, quote, 'persons.' They are not persons.

I think all of us would really appreciate getting the audits done.

Mr. McKinley and I, for years, have been working on the HOPE for HOMES Act.

But so much of mental health seems to be an outgrowth of loneliness, depression, erosion of community stability, lack of jobs, communities getting hollowed out.

It is 230, they cite.

We just need to give them the same incentive everybody else has to moderate their content, protect consumers.

Anyone think that that was a good decision, to eliminate that?

There was a real delay in the use of the Defense Production Act.

I think it is fair to say that not a single member of this committee, Republican or Democrat, as of December of last year, or even January or February, had any notions that there was this emerging threat from the coronavirus.

I don't think the virus was under control. I don't think many people would agree with me in the scientific realm.

We just didn't do it.