I appreciate you being a partner in this effort to really get serious about our deficit and debt.

Make no mistake. We are at a critical juncture.

We can put together a credible, responsible, realistic bipartisan budget plan, and this year we need to finish the job.

The problem that we run into in a budget context is those bonds that Social Security holds that are real assets.

I supported extending the tax cuts. I supported extending all of them because I believed the economy was in such weak condition.

if we are going to take on this issue, it is going to require dramatic cuts in Government spending, but it is also going to require meaningful tax reform.

100 percent of GDP is too high.

I am in the Sessions camp on this.

We are not going to balance the budget on 12 percent of the budget, on 12 cents out of every dollar.

we saw a fundamental threat to the economic and national security interests of the United States if we failed to act.

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

If you have a flat tax that generates the same amount of revenue, it is a mathematical certainty that people at the top pay less and people at the bottom are going to pay more.