Any military leader would want to keep all the advantage to him, not provide any advantage to the enemy.

Bingo.

I almost objected, not because of any reservations about General Nicholson, but about my extreme admiration for you.

Isn't it true that in order to go to the 5,500, which is a fundamental change of mission?

a stable government--whatever type of system it is--promotes a stable economy.

one of the key things to do that is in fact make sure we choke off the funding that goes to terrorist organizations.

we are losing the war on terror. Now, we can turn this around.

I would argue, for example, that the GI bill is one of the most cost-effective programs in history, but the results did not come in for some years.

I think that is an important point, because there was a lot of talk at the time that CBO says ACA will cost 2 million jobs, and that is really not accurate.

How do we deal with the $18 trillion debt? I mean, balancing the budget would be nice, but we have still got an $18 trillion debt.

I think he has outlined the problem magnificently and dismally. It is not a happy picture.

I think we shortchange this whole process by saying, well, we are going to reduce the size of the Federal Government.

We are spending all of our time on really one-fourth of the Federal budget.

If you vote for the expenditures, you ought to be at the same time voting for an extension of the debt ceiling.

But I would also point out that there is another deficit that is not shown on this chart, which is the infrastructure deficit.

If we just collected the taxes owed, we would almost eliminate the current deficit.

The workforce is a big concern to me, and I think you are going to see potential other Government breakdowns unless there is proper attention to this over the next 5 to 10 years in particular.

It seems to me that that would be a reform that would clarify the accounting.