Kent Conrad: “I argued strenuously for at least $200 billion on infrastructure.”

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.

The surviving spouse provisions are especially important with regard to offsetting some of the unfairness that exists elsewhere.

The consequence of failure has to be made clear.

It was incredibly important that we not only made Social Security solvent, but we lifted the bottom 20 percent dramatically.