I want to welcome everyone to the Senate Budget Committee today.

I do believe we can move toward more of a consumption base by moving toward what you might call the traditional flat tax.

the race to the bottom is what is going on in the world today, and if it is going to be stopped, it is going to take some leadership from the United States.

We had to do more on the spending cuts side of the ledger, substantially more, but that we also had to do something on the revenue side if we are going to bell this cat in some kind of fair way.

If we just use the historical average for revenues, at no time in the last 40 years would we have balanced the budget, not one time.

it is, I think, patently unfair to people who have all of their income exposed to taxation at whatever level of income, to have some who are avoiding everything that they owe through these kinds of tax dodges.

Senator Conrad, the disparity between taxes on capital income and taxes on wages has grown larger and larger.

the biggest threat to our national security is our national debt.

When we talk about there being $78 billion in savings here on a net basis, you know, it is from an inflated baseline.

We are hurdling toward it. That is one thing we know with certainty.

I argued strenuously for a VAT tax or a consumption tax in whatever form to be part of the package.