Senator King. General Shelton, during the hearing you mentioned that the SpaceX Falcon 9 will likely only be able to support 3 of the 10 configuration types that the Atlas V currently supports.

the short answer is that sequester would affect what we are talking about here today, whether it is planning for a new engine or the launches or the acquisition of various launch vehicles.

You see it as part of the appropriations process, in effect.

This strikes me as a low-risk, high-consequence kind of situation.

Are we not worried about that anymore, or is that no longer a factor?

I understand block buys are better than one off and you get a better price, and you have gotten that better price. But I think as a general principle, competition is where we ought to be heading.

I believe that we need to move toward competition as rapidly and efficiently as possible just from the common sense competition is better than monopoly approach.

Clearly in an ideal world, we would want to make our own engines and have control of that piece of the industrial base.

There may not be a short answer to this, but clearly one of the other things we have to ask about is the cost implications of developing our own engine.

I think having a sole supplier creates risks for the country, not necessarily national security risks, but certainly financial risks.

Senator, you mentioned this was a record-breaking hearing, and it is for me because it is the longest SASC hearing that I have been to where the word 'sequester' has not been mentioned.

a few years ago Tom Brokaw wrote a brilliant and important book called ``The Greatest Generation,'' and he described our fathers and grandfathers and mothers and grandmothers and what they did for this country by coming through the searing…

I withhold my suggestion. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina. ____________________

Medicare ought to say, if you do not have Electronic Medical Records that are interoperable by, you know, July 1, 2014, we do not pay you anymore.

I do not understand, Madam Chairman, why Medicare does not say, any hospital or provider that does not publish their data by July 1, 2014, we do not pay anymore.

I am saddened that our veterans have been forced to wait for the healthcare they need and deserve, so until the VA can solve this problem I, like many other Texas veterans, want to help care for them.

I am not taking the job to be popular, Senator.

You have got to be the guy that says no, and it is not--and I think that is an important--the President has to be the one that enforces budget constraint.

I believe in markets and I believe in transparency, and that is what I wish to speak about today. I think markets generally are the best allocators of goods and services, but in order for markets to work, people who…

I wish to associate myself with the comments of the senior Senator from Maine. I, too, am proud to commend the Aroostook Aspirations Initiative, AAI, and the Gauvin County Scholarship Fund for their efforts to increase educational and…

Everybody talks about sequester and yet nobody does anything about it.

It is entirely self-imposed, and we act like everybody around this committee, both parties, talks about how terrible it is.

If we do not accept your recommendation, then that is $2.1 billion a year, $30 billion over 5 years that has to come from somewhere else.

We do not have the luxury of saying, 'oh, well, we will just add to the budget,' unless we are able to do something about sequestration.

there is an ominous tide rising in this country. It is not water. It is not oil. It is not any kind of substance. It is dollars. It is cash. It is a tide of dark money that is flowing in and threatens to dominate our political system…