Kent Conrad

It is going to take bold strokes to deal with this challenge. It is going to take big ideas and it is going to take political courage.

I think all of us know the financial systems and internal controls at DOD need improvement.

If we don't have a plan that all of us basically think has got merit, it will be abandoned.

I personally applaud you for doing that. I think Senator Gregg has been very clear about our concerns about this not being done in the past.

We are on a collision course with reality, and the reality is we cannot afford as a Nation all of the things that we are doing.

I will tell you, I don't know what is happening as a culture, but when we have the national news media obsessing on Michael Jackson and obsessing on side issues...

I hope is not waiting around for the health care bill, which has a lot of important building blocks in it, to pass.

I hope there will be an opportunity for the Congress to reconsider its rejection of the Conrad-Gregg proposal.

It would be a profound mistake not to have a plan to deal with this longer-term debt challenge.

These things contribute to the economic strength of the country or the depletion of our strength.

There is going to have to be serious money spent there so that the energy needs of the country can be met efficiently.

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

The recommendations of that commission will be brought to a vote in the Senate and in the House.

I think we do have an extraordinary challenge, and the question for all of us: Are we up to this challenge?

I have just gone through an exercise to get the deficit down to 3 percent of GDP by the fifth year of the budget period and to balance by the end of a 10-year budget window.

Spending has got to be adjusted, and yes, that means Social Security and Medicare have to get on a lower growth trend.

I wish we had been more successful in persuading our colleagues to have a bigger package.

We have got the lowest revenue as a share of the economy in 60 years, the highest spending as a share of GDP in 60 years.

I can't speak for Senator Gregg, but he and I have gone on this effort to have a commission, because we have been convinced you have got to have an overall plan for the longer term.

I believe the risk to Medicare and Social Security recipients is a failure to act in a timely way to deal with the long-term debt trajectory that virtually every expert that has come before this Committee says is unsustainable.

My calculus tells me that me that this year we will hit gross debt to GDP of just over 90 percent.

We can't have a circumstance in which dollars, precious dollars that are being allocated for the nation's defense are wasted.

We are also a major energy State.

It is really hard to find something, I think, that works better than these Build America Bonds.

Nobody believes that that is sustainable.