Kent Conrad: “I was extremely encouraged by the President's Inaugural Address yesterday and by his comments obviously prior to that.”

The one thing I know for sure is that what is happening now is not working.

It lifts the bottom. It asks those of us at the top to take a little less of an increase than we might have expected.

We admire that, and I can say on both sides of the aisle, people recognize the job he did as Budget Committee Chairman.

The consequence of failure has to be made clear.