David Perdue

Having lived outside the United States, I have witnessed the benefits of what you guys do and I want to applaud what you do.

I think the small businesses need protection before large businesses.

This is an important topic here today in our free enterprise system.

Cuba has increased the number of politically motivated arrests by 70 percent.

I echo what Senator Menendez just said about Venezuela. We buy $32 billion of oil a year. We have not affected their regime one iota, that I can see.

Just since President Obama started these secret negotiations with the Castro regime, since June 2013, there have been reportedly 15,000 political arrests.

We have evidence, though, cause and effect of several other countries, Britain, Canada, others, having open trading relations with Cuba.

today I wish to speak on S. 1, legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bipartisan bill, which will approve construction of the pipeline that has been under review for 6 long years. By moving…

I would encourage the committee to look at the total responsibility we have to our taxpayers in terms of the total payment over the next 30 years.

I agree with the Ranking Member that what we are talking about today really is not a partisan issue.

I take offense about that. I think this is our irresponsibility over the last really 30 years... we have kicked this ball down the court.

So the $80 billion that is open, that is still out there--

I just do not see, frankly, how we can pay that.

I think we have agreed on two things today... One is that we have got to move to ensure that benefits are not reduced, period.

I do not want to be the member of the first generation that has to tell your generation that my generation is leaving your generation an America that is worse off.

The number one crisis we have right now, in my mind, is our ability to fund our future unfunded liabilities.

I think the first goal here, in my opinion, is to make sure that we can live up to the obligations that we have right now.

The last time we had a balanced budget in this country, we had a Democratic President and we had a Republican Congress.

What do we do for the beneficiaries past 2033?

I think that is right.

We have got a crisis. This financial crisis, however you look at it, is out of control.

the idea that this is a trumped-up, phony crisis is absolutely ridiculous.

That gridlock is not going--I just do not see how we are going to solve this without growing the economy.

So the 20 and the 80, is that just on discretionary, or is that overall in the total budget?

Well, what I am really interested in is what the potential is by discretionary and mandatory.