Kent Conrad

I want to thank you for that as well, because this budget really does reflect being responsible about how we get where we want to go to save dollars.

I commend you for having a budget that is a net tax cut for the middle class of this country.

I remember when our previous Vice President said that deficits don't matter, and, in fact, we all know that they do.

Why don't you go back to the Bush years when revenues were up to 18.9 percent of GDP?

If you are at 23 percent of GDP for spending, and you only get your revenues up to 18.2 percent of GDP, you have got a structural deficit of 5 percent of GDP.

You are exploding the size of health care spending on top of health care spending which already exceeds any other industrialized country in the world by about 5 percent of GDP.

You cannot claim that you are being disciplined if you leave off the table the most significant item that has to be addressed.

The outrage of people cannot be dismissed.

This budget extends the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for everybody earning below $250,000 a year.

On an overall basis, I see something quite different, and I think CBO will also conclude something quite different.

I certainly salute his transparency, putting on the table things we know are going to be expenditures.

I am very concerned about the second 5 years.

I have described the President's budget as a 'good beginning.'

It would be an utterly empty exercise around here not to get the votes to actually pass things.

There is going to have to be flexibility on how the funds are used.

The budget as is, in my judgment, just as it has been written, probably can't pass here.

We are essentially putting on our children's backs a debt which they can never get out from underneath.

This budget, as it is presently constructed, passes on to our children a Nation which they will not be able to afford and which will potentially drive this country into bankruptcy.

I have a lot of hope that we can find consensus on this issue.

I think what we have done is destroyed the ability of the Congress to come together.

If we had not done the first TARP, we would have faced an outright economic collapse.

We are on, as a Nation, an unsustainable fiscal course.

I believe that build-up of debt fundamentally threatens the economic security of this country. I believe it in my bones.

I have been part of a group that was dubbed by the media 'the Gang of 10'... that advocated a comprehensive approach to reducing our dependence on foreign energy.

We must also address climate change. The scientific consensus is clear.