Chuck Grassley

President Obama's budget by his own numbers, your numbers, would add more than $8 trillion to the debt, bringing the total debt from $17 to $25 trillion.

A budget is a document that brings all the President's policies together in one place. It reveals the President's agenda in its entirety.

Thank you. According to CBO, Federal revenues are expected to reach $3 trillion this year, or 17.5 percent of the economy, which is just a little bit below a 40-year average.

Yes, Senator. We think the Federal budget is on an unsustainable path.

So, simply put, it is not in our economic interest to shrink the size of the workforce.

CBO now projects that the Affordable Care Act would reduce the number of full-time equivalent workers by about 2 million by 2017, 2.5 million by 2024.

Well, GDP is more for more people, and if we are going to have lower GDP, we are going to have more people in this country, and more people are going to have less.

I mean, how reasonable is that? This is the same Mr. Lew that sat at that table there and said the President's budget would spend only money that we have and not add to the debt anymore.

We want to see a growing economy that helps workers find jobs, that ends flat wages and reducing wages and creates naturally through the process of free enterprise higher wages for American workers.

What works for one may not work for another. But companies must be proactive.

I am not going to ask a question. I did have a question, but I kind of want to make a statement that I hope that we can avoid a situation where the government says you do something and you do it, and it is abiding by the regulations and…

This hearing will help bring more details out, I hope.

I think we are all trying to find the same solution. This is not a case of a group of business people on one side and the government on the other side.

It is very important that we have this hearing.

We are just trying to determine whether or not he has exceeded that authority.

It is unfortunate that we always have to start a Department oversight hearing with this same request to respond to unanswered questions from Congress.

I would like to know when I might be able to expect a response but, more importantly, whether you agree with Secretary Sebelius that the Affordable Care Act plans should be exempt from the anti-kickback laws.

I just do not want a big black hole here.

It would seem to me it is pretty easy to see how that one individual is going to be run over if we do not see that they get their constitutional rights protected.

It does not seem to me like you would want to exempt anything from anti-kickback laws.

We are going to have a bigger problem with the Government abuse of privacy with drones now.

I think this is unacceptable. The Department should show sufficient respect for this Committee to answer its questions.

But I am not questioning whether or not he can do it. I might have some question about the legality and constitutionality of it.

Maybe we have got more agreement than what you and I might realize at a particular time.

I mentioned my concern that the President has been using Executive orders to circumvent the will of Congress and the American people.