Angus King

What bothers me, Mr. Chairman, if there is an attack--and I don't think it's if, I think it's when--and we go home, and I go home to Maine and say, well, we couldn't really defend ourselves because we had four committees that couldn't get…

To me, the most chilling finding of the board was--and this is a direct quote-- 'The unfortunate reality is that for at least the next decade, the offensive cyber capabilities of our most capable adversaries are likely to far exceed the…

I understand that President Bush forbade Karl Rove from even going to National Security Council meetings, let alone being on it.

You shouldn't be welcome at these meetings; you should be part of these meetings.

I want you to, because there is going to be a moment when you're going to have to say: I don't need this job, because I'm being asked to do something that I shouldn't do.

To put a point on this, the three most serious foreign policy mistakes in my lifetime are the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and the invasion of Iraq.

But war does not always necessarily--when you use the term 'war,' you are not necessarily, at least in this day and age, talking about nation states.

You cannot kill an idea with a gun.

Should we not also be talking about a much more vigorous, strong, focused information war with this Islamic terrorist faction that is so dangerous?

All of you have testified in one way or another about one of the important features of a new strategy is the dispersement of assets, a distribution somewhat across the country.

If you cut the State Department budget, you are going to have to buy me more ammunition.

My concern is that you are significantly cutting workforce training and research, both in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) but also particularly in the Department of Energy.

So is it your testimony that these changes in the rate of reimbursement for Medicaid will have no effect on elderly, children, disabled people who are now beneficiaries?

I think that is fair.

Providing IRS with additional money will eventually produce more revenue.

Silicon Valley will not deal with the Pentagon. The small and innovative companies just do not want to be bothered.

We have really got to have some kind of systematic review of how we do procurement.

Well, not to mention the fact that processing an electronic return is about a tenth as expensive as a paper return.

I am interested to note that your estimate on improper payments, 75 percent are in three areas: Medicare, Medicaid, and the EITC.

I would like your recommendation as to how we might further--not in detailed implementation, but is there some structural way that we can get at the problem of lack of implementation of your very good suggestions?

My experience is that unless someone has the responsibility for making these things happen----

$406 billion a year of undercollections, about $145 billion of improper payments, add those together, it is almost--well, it is slightly above this year's projected deficit.

We have got veterans in Maine that want and need care, and we have got a program ready to go.

We are, as you know, paying about twice per capita for health care as any other developed country in the world.

Because I think that is important, because that is a principle that drives a lot of the debate around here, and I think we ought to try to get to the data that underlies it.