If we ever go back in a future Congress and say we are going to restore earmarks in the appropriations process, maybe we could do this: Put a cap like some percentage of revenues that earmarks cannot exceed.

I disagree with this President on the second engine, by the way, the so-called second engine on our new fighter plane.

What I want to do is to provide for a reasonable response when a President says, my hands are tied.

We are running a deficit this year of about $1.5 trillion. We need to look at almost every corner of our budget

I would not have favored that, and I described it before you got here as giving the President--like putting a bazooka under the President's desk.

Thank you for bringing your previous role as Mayor of a large city and a leader of the Nation's Mayors to these issues.

The Fiscal Commission...provided us with a roadmap out of this morass.

We really have to figure out how we are going to get better results for less money in this new time of fiscal constraint.

We finally, with the leadership of this man to my left and Senator McCain and this President, we basically pulled the plug on the F-22.

I congratulate you on this important bill and your excellent line-up of bipartisan co-sponsors.

The solution is a multi-year, comprehensive fiscal plan that tackles all areas of the budget.

Good questions. Thank you, Senator, thanks very much.

I think the balance of this bill has it right, because what it basically says is that nothing happens unless Congress affirmatively enacts these changes.

I think that drawing up that legislation is more complicated and I think it is politically more challenging.

We need only ask our friends in Greece and in Ireland about that.

So as I think you suggested, Senator Carper, it kind of hits that Goldilocks sweet spot.

I think on earmarks the argument--I do not know if Senator Levin made it while I was out of the room, but if we have a grant program, we will say it is a transportation program, so we have like $100 in it, and somebody comes along and we…

Clearly, we face a dangerous fiscal situation and deficits and debt are rising as far as we can see.

We are like Moses standing on the mountain top looking at the promised land.

That level of debt was not sustainable then and it is not sustainable today.

Thank you. I have used this analogy before, I think, in this Subcommittee or in this Committee, and in our experience in Delaware, we had something akin to earmarks.

I am encouraged by what we are doing in these big deficits in a struggle to get an economy moving.

The last President, this President, current Secretary of Defense said, 'Why don't we stop buying more C-17s?'

The President says it is wasteful spending. Secretary Gates says it is wasteful spending.

We need for the White House, the Executive Branch, to provide stronger leadership on long-term deficit reduction.