Kent Conrad: “We have got to--our first obligation is to defend this Nation, and we have got to provide the resources to do that.”

It takes guts to do that, and Chairman Arrington, you have certainly led the charge on having a commission.

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…

Social Security's financial challenge affects nearly our entire society, and the solutions will require a broad-based approach.

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.