Angus King

2033 is going to come, and what I fear is we will have taken a series of steps... and we will have run out of places to hide.

If you add the Balanced Budget Amendment and the No-Tax Pledge, it creates a ratchet effect that you will never solve any of these problems.

We have to look at the structural health care costs.

We are doing a woeful job of underfunding our infrastructure at this time.

The biggest economic stimulus program of the Federal Government in the history of the United States was the G.I. Bill after World War II.

The best way to get out of this mess is through economic growth, and there are several strategies for economic growth that involve spending money.

The debt and the deficit is a serious problem, and to me, lowering the deficit is progress, but it is not an answer because the hole is still getting deeper.

If we are running huge deficits at a time of relative non-crisis and then when we have a legitimate crisis, we do not have any well to go to.

I think it is just too easy to say, 'Oh, we are just going to do this for 5 years.'

We have to get control of health care costs, which we spend twice as much per capita than anybody else in the world.

The debt is a problem and the interest rate is a looming serious problem.

To think that we can solve it entirely by cutting programs that are benefitting people who we made commitments to is unrealistic.

Sequestration was designed to be stupid.

You cannot turn on and off the industrial base.

The sequester is like invading Brazil after Pearl Harbor.

When you have to delay a multiyear procurement, for example, you end up paying more in the end.

Americans' lives are being put at risk by this policy.

Interestingly, illegal immigration from Mexico has declined over the last several years, mostly because of improving economic conditions in Mexico.

Talking about history. Would you all agree--and I don't need lengthy answers--that leaving Afghanistan prematurely would be a major strategic mistake for this country?

I think that also is a recruiting poster for them, if we do that. This cannot be a war between the West and Islam.

General, I just hope what you said today and that analogy is a headline tomorrow, because we have to deal with this issue.

I do not consider the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] a social program or the Department of Homeland Security or NIH [National Institutes of Health] or the infrastructure of our country, law enforcement across the country.

I hope you would concur with me that this should be one of Congress' highest priorities, to deal with this cyber-threat and develop our cyber-strategy.

Well, particularly when we finally have a leader in the country that we can work with and has some hope of real political leadership in the country.

This is a very important deal, one based on verification and sound science.