So, the old days of just handing out a check are over.

We do appreciate your service in so many different ways to your country and your fellow veterans.

That is so important.

I think that is one of those that people do not think about, but the accessibility really is important to Members of Congress.

Can you talk a little bit about how impossible it is to run an efficient entity where you simply do not have the ability to discipline people when they need to be disciplined?

The latest decision by the Merit Systems Protection Board overturned disciplinary action. I think we have a situation now where they have overturned more than they have upheld.

I commend you on the things that you have done, but let us stick to our goal of by the end of March getting a new toolbox and giving you the tools that you need to have accountability as a mechanism that works in the VA.

I certainly did and I certainly did. And I took his money for my foundation where I used it to better than he's using it now. I guarantee you.

reserving the right to object, first, I want to express my appreciation for the work Senator Grassley, Senator Whitehouse, and others have done in crafting the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. I agree with my…

I understand the point the Senator from Rhode Island makes. I would say it poses a Hobson's choice for many States. I would also make note of his earlier comment about a court's inherent authority to enforce its previous order using its…

I share in the mutual admiration for the Senator from Iowa, and I appreciate his work on this and many other pieces of legislation. I commit to work with both him and the Senator from Rhode Island to try to resolve this as promptly as…

I think that would be a good idea. I would like to see it much higher than that.

So only in Washington and only from the Office of Management and Budget could we see the gross Federal debt go from $19 trillion today to... even with $3 trillion worth of tax increases, $26 trillion in the 10-year window.

But your attempts to sugarcoat this budget and its projections for the future on behalf of the administration that I know you work for is just a sad abdication of responsibility for the challenges we are facing as a country.

Now, when you look at where we have come from, the $10 trillion to $20 trillion, that is a huge deficit increase--or huge debt increase, and no one gets a pat on the back for that.

How can you sit here with a straight face and tell this committee... that this President has done anything but lead?

I think deterrence works best when deterrence is clear, as with relationships that we have with NATO, Taiwan, and so forth.

there was uncommon consensus in the subcommittee hearing about the need for this next generation bomber.