Susan Collins

It is evident to me that you are going to get more information over a lengthier period of time than you are over just a few days.

But you did have the authority to deploy people to these high-risk posts.

It is a point that has been of great concern to the Chairman and me for some time.

I think it is very troubling that it was not and that three key intelligence officials were not asked their opinion.

Good intelligence is clearly critical to our ability to stop terrorist plots, and that is why I am very concerned about the decision to quickly charge Abdulmutallab in civilian court.

We dodged a bullet in the skies above Detroit on Christmas Day.

That is not how I read the law.

We know that those interrogations can provide critical intelligence, but the protections afforded by our civil justice system as opposed to the military tribunal system can encourage terrorists to lawyer up and to stop answering questions.

We did not choose this war. It was thrust upon us by terrorists who are determined to destroy our way of life.

I know it is probably not realistic to promise the American people that we will stop every attempted terrorist attack on our homeland, but I feel very strongly that must be our goal.

The law is clear on who is in charge of the intelligence community.

The President must empower his senior officials to use every authority available to them to defeat the terrorist threat.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 fundamentally changed our intelligence community.

The government should immediately identify and suspend the visas of all persons listed in the broadest terrorist database.

Our government's efforts to detect and disrupt terrorist plots must be strengthened.

It sounds deja-vu all over again.

The sooner we act, the lower they can be.

I think people ignore trillions of dollars worth of debt which is real.

I know there are many who are concerned about the no amendment provision.

To paraphrase the Senator for whom this building is named, a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you are talking about a real fiscal catastrophe.

I want to join you in commending Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg for their extraordinary leadership in this area.

Thus, our decisionmaking must begin by reconsidering spending that, although popular, simply cannot be justified during this fiscal crisis.

What do economists believe is a level of debt as measured by a percentage of GDP that is acceptable versus worrisome?

The basic problem is that government has promised more than our citizens can afford to pay.

I cannot help but observe the irony that we are having this debate about what to do with the unsustainable debt load of this country at a time that we are debating on the Senate floor a huge health care bill that is, in essence, creating a…