Kent Conrad: “I think derivatives, while probably the vast majority of it is completely legitimate, the part that was not was the…”

All the talk in the world doesn't matter if you don't actually get something done in the real world.

Can I just respond quickly, Mr. Chairman, and say when Simpson-Bowles went down, a group of six of us in the Senate, three Democrats, three Republicans, were asked by leadership to see if we couldn't come up with a way forward to adopt the…

I wish I could look you in the eye and say, you know, if we just had the will, we could reverse this, and we could go back to a time when defined benefit plans were on the increase. I do not think that is in the cards.

We did a whole series of things in our Social Security reform not to discourage people from working, but to encourage them to continue working if they are able to do so.