Kent Conrad: “I believe strongly in an economic recovery package. I have got issues with this one.”

The surviving spouse provisions are especially important with regard to offsetting some of the unfairness that exists elsewhere.

It was incredibly important that we not only made Social Security solvent, but we lifted the bottom 20 percent dramatically.

We owe it to these men and women to strengthen our retirement system.

You know, we did have discussions. One of the things on this commission, because of its makeup and the diversity of views on this commission, and the extraordinary difficulty of coming together on Social Security, which we thought was the…