Dan Coats

The reality is that, probably, we're not going to get to the numbers the administration has proposed.

Politicians like to divide up the pie. They don't want New Jersey and New York to get all of it.

High-speed rail makes sense in some very dense corridor areas. It doesn't make sense in the middle of America.

It seems to me there's a priority there. We're not going to be able to do No. 2 unless we can do No. 1.

High-speed rail makes sense in some very dense corridor areas. It doesn't make sense in the middle of America.

Look, we can't solve our deficit problem if we don't look at the whole picture.

Politicians like to divide up the pie. They don't want New Jersey and New York to get all of it.

The problem with building it, and even when it goes to high-speed rail, the political system kind of rears its ugly head.

I don't even know the name of it, the company, or what the market is. It's just that I've run into someone that told me about it, and he indicated that there's been a dramatic reduction in sailors lost at sea as a result of this thing.

I mean, obviously, we are going to have a congressional budget I hope.

We've had a lot of interest here, obviously, in strengthening the Border Patrol regarding illegal immigration.

I could not agree more. But there just are fiscal realities that we have to deal with.

Just this morning, though, we had four Cubans who were able to voice what they perceived as a threat.

Do you have a similar system in place?

I do not look forward to working on this together; it is not something either of us relish, but I think it is something that we are going to have to do.

The reality in this Congress is that we are going to appropriate--I believe, going to end up appropriating less than what that budget asks for.

I am sympathetic to what Senator Lautenberg was saying relative to representing an area that is a significantly high-threat area.

Doing as much or more with less is something, again, that all of America has had to do in these last 2 years.

The reality is that we do have this significant deficit problem and it is going to be addressed one way or another.

Where are you in that process? And where do you rank? We all know the Air Force has the best facilities, including golf courses.

So the question is, at a time of limited resources, how do we begin to address some of the kinds of engagement that can help promote a more peaceful, stable democratic type of Middle East?

My only plea is let's not take a cleaver to it. Let's try to be as surgical as possible in figuring out what is really in America's national security interests, how we prioritize.

What percent of your forces are married?

I assume some of our allies have come to the same conclusion, that it's in their interest, both from an energy standpoint, immigration standpoint, social-economic standpoint, political standpoint to be engaged.

I mean, it's easy to look at the negative side of this--what's happening and say woe is us, and what's going to happen? There's also potentially a great upside to all this.