There are clearly too many jobs in the Federal government that require a security clearance.

I asked Director Haines about a matter that I'm especially concerned about and that's the National Security Council's rewrite of the Executive Order that governs classification and declassification.

It would be great if Congress was interested in codifying something like that.

One of the reasons is that there are too many secrets of matters that do not need to be secret.

Senator Moynihan always stood for the proposition that a big part of the job in intelligence is striking the balance between transparency and protecting sources and methods.

this is more reason for the Congress and this Committee to step in and do this job and do it in a bipartisan way.

I welcome any of my colleagues to run with those suggestions, but I would rather sort of think about this notion of tough decisions.

I would think this is something that conservatives and liberals ought to be able to zero in on and be able to get more value.

We don't have to continue paying twice as much for health care that on an international scale is mediocre.

There are things that we ought to be able to focus on and agree upon.

American consumers, especially seniors, should not be held hostage.

The American public overwhelmingly supports it, and yet the Federal Government is hopelessly out of step.

I think you will find bipartisan support on this committee to deal with the integrity of the Hospice Program so we are not cheating patients or the government.

Yes. Thank you. And certainly this is an agenda that we can continue to push forward.

I've been pushing the administration to set up just such a hotline and the reaction so far has been modest.

I feel like I should invite you to Oregon. I don't know if you have been, but since everybody else was inviting you, I am thinking that should be the first thing I should do instead of waiting until the end.

The one thing that has happened that is of serious concern is the increased, not-anticipated demands on stored water.

The bipartisan National Apprenticeship Act helped streamline that registration process, actually requires that the Department of Labor give provisional approval within a month and final approval within a year.