Peter Welch

“Last night, I had a telephone townhall for my constituents back in Vermont, and we had 11,500 people on it. And I had people on Social Security saying if getting fewer benefits will help us on the debt, they're for it. And I had a farmer saying that he's had subsidies for 35 years but we can't afford them anymore.”

“One of the things I give Nancy Pelosi a lot of credit for is that she's able to get things passed and hold her members together because she shows us that she's doing everything possible to get our views into these bills.”

“I favor the extension of the middle-class tax cuts because in a recession they're stimulative and they help with demand.”

“I represent a rural state and live in a small town. Small merchants make up the majority of Vermont's small businesses and thread our state together. It is the mom-and-pop grocers, farm-supply stores, coffee shops, bookstores and barber shops where Vermonters connect, conduct business and check in on one another.”

“Homes and buildings, many of which are old and drafty, eat up 40 percent of the energy America uses. Such inefficiencies perpetuate our reliance on foreign oil, imperiling our national security and increasing our contribution to climate change.”