Kent Conrad: “The Senator makes a very powerful point. As you can see just on the tax side of the ledger, the President's tax cut…”

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.

I do, and I made that argument to the commission, and others on the commission made some of the points that you are making now.

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

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…