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.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven), the Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), the Senator from…

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.

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.

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?