Angus King

But all of you said in one way, shape, or form the current system is working, why change it?

The current system is it is 20 years or nothing. Isn't that correct?

But I think this is important. The way I read the math, you are not reducing their benefits.

We cannot make a mistake because it may be 10 years before it manifests itself.

A fundamental difference in the military system than in the private sector is that in the military system, you have to grow your talent.

How is that fair or appropriate? Don't we have to do something about that?

Well, you are showing $30 billion in savings. Like I said, it is not coming out of the air. It is coming from somewhere.

Well, thinking long term it seems to me a simple solution is to cap the amount of exports as a percentage of domestic production.

If there's no limit here and there's no definition of the public interest in the statute that these guys are administering, I'm just saying let's define it.

I subscribe to President Reagan's admonition, 'Trust, but verify.'

Accept a cap on the export so that we don't end up with Australia.

I think this moment will be looked back at, at a time when Americans say what were you thinking when we have, what I call, America's second chance at manufacturing, but we're going to give it away.

I cannot understand this discussion that will inevitably lead to higher energy costs.

I think long-term debt and deficits are unsustainable and are, in fact, burdening future generations and the interest rate.

If you put a balanced budget amendment on top of that situation, with the mandatory rise caused mostly by health care and demographics, and that is all you do, you squeeze the shortfall down into the discretionary budget and essentially…

The arithmetic does not work. And, I think of the No Tax Pledge as a kind of ratchet that only works in one direction.

It is much easier to spend than it is to tax. So, deficits are almost hard-wired into the system unless there is a discipline.

I just think we have got to do something about this, and we have got to do it in a comprehensive way.

It is our generation being unwilling to pay our own bills. And we are borrowing from our kids.

Poverty, because of good work of people like Senator Sanders, has dramatically decreased among seniors over the last 50 years.

I think if Tom Brokaw wrote a book about our generation, it would be called 'The Great Skedaddle' after the first Battle of Bull Run.

If you cut taxes when you are in a deficit situation and borrow to make up the difference, all you are really doing is shifting that tax to the next generation.

Problems put off rarely get easier to solve with the passage of time.

I am touched by your faith in bipartisanship to solve difficult problems, but not fully confident.

I do not in any way, shape, or form want to see cuts in disability benefits.