I wonder, would you be considering sort of--or how do you deal with this other trade?

$1 billion from the sale of warrants on TARP funds to the initial capitalization of the NHTF.

We thank Senator Menendez and others who have cosponsored S. 1731.

Are you confident that we have done everything we can to ensure that situation?

I just want to quickly turn the topic because we have focused on commercial enterprises, but there is a growing--this is not a surprise to anybody--concern among municipal governments and State governments about their pension liabilities.

One of the concerns would be--you are exactly right. They will not go out of business, but their only remedy then would be to essentially do what has been done to Mr. Gump and his colleagues which was to ratchet down payments or increase…

It seems to me again--and these might be isolated incidents--that there were occasions where companies who had taken over, the pension plan was on the books overfunded, and that money was not used for reinvestment in jobs or anything else.

Thank you very much for that.

The pursuit of bi-partisanship should not and cannot lead us beyond the realm of reason, beyond the scope of science.

I think even in this first hearing we have seen the qualities of energy and inquiry that I think will help make this a very valuable Task Force.

Senator, we have talked before about the need to have greater oversight and to try to focus on things that would improve the overall operations of the Federal Government.

I'm delighted to hear you say that.

To me, that is a non-starter. We have a country where 1 percent of the population controls more wealth than the lowest 50 percent.

I introduced the concept of utilizing an open source approach to the Vista software...

The idea that you cannot deal with revenues is almost beyond logic and sanity.

I want to thank particularly Chairman Conrad for his leadership on this.

I would hope that the witnesses do not buy into the 2,000-page bill problem/concern.

An oasis.