Kent Conrad: “Senator Byrd, a member of this Committee and somebody who has forgotten more about the rules than most of us know.”

The consequence of failure has to be made clear.

We tried to include some of these ideas in our Social Security reform package, to actually provide incentives in the system for people to continue to work.

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 thought he was an outstanding Committee Chairman, and my former intern has succeeded him in his Congressional seat.