Jon Kyl

I am delighted that they have been upheld in the Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project decision because they are a very important work horse in our efforts against al Qaeda, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.

I would ask unanimous consent that I may speak for such time as I may consume. The ACTING PRESIDNET pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________

All of those I think are very useful suggestions, and I appreciate them all. Thank you.

I think that is a very clever way to do this.

Discuss the benefits of that premium support concept generally because I think it is not necessarily well understood.

I think you could do great harm by effectively doubling the capital gains and dividends taxes

An important observation. Thank you.

To the extent they are lower than the previous year's, would it not cut that amount from your baseline?

So this memorandum that was sent should have distinguished between mandatory and discretionary spending when it talks about CBO's policy.

The President is the commander-in-chief. He is the person that deploys troops, not Congress.

So the old saw that corporations don't pay taxes, people do is actually true.

We will put the burden on him to answer the question then.

There was a tax rebate under Bush, and then more recently we had a payroll tax one-year policy, which some would like to see extended.

Yes. And here, with defense, for example, you have high unemployment of returning veterans to begin with.

You have heard a lot of frustration up here about the fact that while you can provide estimates to us of some of the behavioral impacts, that they are not reflected in the official estimates that you provide to us.

Cause and effect is complicated in the economy.

While I know you agreed with Senator Toomey's observation that there is another point of view or other points of view, regarding your argument that cuts in spending now can harm economic growth or delay economic recovery, that is true of…

There may be very substantial savings that can be obtained from administrative efficiencies that would not involve cuts in these programs.

One of the things we will hear is that entitlement spending is a key driver of our debt.

Well, just to summarize, will you work with us to try to help us identify the potential policy that could result in, on a cost-benefit analysis, significant savings if we were to implement it?

It is estimated that improper payments cost taxpayers almost $100 billion last year alone. If we created a Department of Improper Payments, it would actually be one of the biggest departments in our Government.

So given that there are some of these other factors, temporary versus permanent, short term versus longer term, and obvious deleveraging that is going on in the country right now, all of those are factors that you would have to put into…

We hear a lot of talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. It is a trite phrase, but the reality is there is a significant amount of truth to it.

If I could just interrupt, I understand--you understand our problem----

Exactly so. And that is where we need your advice.