Mike Johanns

I just think that all of us in the Federal Government need to be mindful that our credit card is getting maxed-out.

It is a pleasure for me to be back on what I consider to be one of the Senate's most important Committees.

I hope the panelists can discuss how this year's budget will fix that.

Never in the history of this country has there been a greater need for people, foreign countries, whoever, to buy our debt than now.

It is kind of breathtaking in its magnitude.

There just is not an appetite to buy more paper, because those who are in that marketplace look at the U.S. Government and say, you know, you have so detached the joy of spending from the pain of taxation that you do not have a fiscal plan.

You would not suggest that it would be good economic policy that we pass a law that the price of a porterhouse steak or the price of a gallon of milk could only go high, would you?

We cannot guarantee that a single consumer will get any benefit from that legislation.

I voted against it, and I wish more of my colleagues would have.

I mentioned it as much today to send a message to the Japanese yet again that we have not forgotten, that it really, really is time to step up to the plate and solve this problem.

I just wanted to put on the record again today that the situation specifically with Japan is not yet solved.

One of the frustrations for me, and I know for you and I think for every person who has served as ag secretary in recent years has been market conditions relative to U.S. beef.

We have to build roads. We have to build bridges. We cannot allow, as a Nation, for our bridges to fall into the river as one did fairly recently.

The one thing I could always get business and labor to agree on was investment in infrastructure.

The only way to achieve that was to have a sufficient and predictable flow of funding into those programs.

If we do not address the issue before us the competitive nature of this system is going to be decreased.

I believe it is time we stop watching other countries make the moves that have been teed up for this country for about 5 years. Implementing the agreement would increase U.S. exports by more than $1/2 billion annually and create almost…

I think it is very clear that there are some that are more deserving of immediate attention than others.

If you did a study on 62,000 chemicals, we would be here into the next century.

I think it is very important that when you try to extrapolate from animal studies to humans, animals have to drink a much higher concentration than people do to get the same amount into their bodies.

In issuing that guidance, which causes people out there to do things, and I am guessing you hope they do, and spend money and et cetera, what scientific analysis or study did your folks rely upon that would cause you to take that step?

There is nobody out there employed by any water system that wants to provide a dangerous product to their customers.

We have known for over 30 years that inhaled chromium VI definitely causes cancer in people.

If the whole system, whether it is banks or credit unions or whatever, if there had been better oversight, we would have avoided a lot of these problems.

I cannot get credit.