What does it say in the Bible in the New Testament, 'The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.' So, I think it is our turn.

Yes, and our hands are not clean.

A lot of folks have invested a great deal of energy articulating the outcomes that they are trying to achieve.

It is unfortunate that my colleagues had to leave.

I think it is going to be very important that we work closely with you and that, ultimately, budgets and appropriations reflect these priorities.

Sitting here, I am going back in time a little bit when I was privileged to, in my last job as Governor of Delaware, we said early on our overarching goal for our Administration, that I was privileged to serve for 8 years in that role, but…

Congress has a role here and an important role, that this is not just a matter that is up to the agencies.

I think GAO, in terms of deficit reduction, are actually getting better results for less money.

the idea of bringing in private sector firms to actually recover payments that should not have been made, $700 million in recovery last year.

Nobody likes waste. It is not a Democrat or Republican issue.

We have to have continuity. Sometimes I look at the Executive Branch and it almost looks like what I call Executive Branch Swiss cheese.

I would just say, what I think we are getting at here is really trying to change the culture.

I used to say that if every kid had at least one, maybe two, loving, caring, involved parents nurturing those kids, making sure that they were prepared to start kindergarten at the age of five and making sure that the parents were involved…

We cannot just always 'gotcha' and embarrass.

I think one of his central premises was that the role of government is to steer the boat, not row the boat.

I offered legislation in the House in 1992... to take what I call a 2-year test drive with enhanced rescission powers for the President.

There are four ways to reduce budget deficits. No. 1, cut spending. No. 2, raise taxes. No. 3, grow the heck out of the economy. And No. 4, really change our culture around here.

Let us do a 4-year test drive... to go into domestic discretionary spending, defense spending.

One of the great ways--it has just dawned on me fairly recently that, and Senator Coburn came up with it a lot sooner than I did, but a great way to leverage our collective efforts is by really investing a relatively small amount of money…

Well, good. I wish Senator Akaka and Senator Voinovich were here to hear you say that, but thank you very, very much for those words.

I do think it has some merit for savings, I want to say marginal, but they would certainly equal the amount that was just in controversy a few months ago.

I think we need to make sure--these are very modest amounts of money, very modest.

I thought it was the smartest thing that we did. I think it was the smartest thing that we did.

I think when there are clear priority goals, clear metrics, Congress can play a very constructive role.

We are all in this together. One of the things that we need to do is just work like a team.