Kent Conrad

I also greatly appreciate the support of Senator Conrad from North Dakota as a cosponsor of this legislation.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 6:20 p.m., adjourned until Tuesday, July 24, 2012, at 10 a.m…

Today the majority leader filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 3412, the Middle Class Tax Cut Act. If no agreement is reached, that vote will be on Wednesday. ____________________

I thank the Senator. I look forward to reviewing her proposal and, hopefully, together we can find a way to get something passed that will further protect our country. The Economy

I want to indicate, while listening to the remarks of the Senator from Texas about the introduction of a bill apparently on cybersecurity, how critically important that is to the country. I am a relatively new member of the Intelligence…

Can I just say in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, to me one of the biggest challenges we confront in Medicare reform is dealing with this risk of cherry-picking.

Any prudent person, I think, would say, we are going to have to make some changes.

I think you have it about right with respect to the revenue side of the equation. I think you are headed in the right direction on entitlement reform.

I served on Simpson-Bowles. In many ways I think your work product is actually somewhat superior to ours.

These people have been born. They are alive today. They are going to be eligible for Social Security and Medicare.

And you are talking about a revenue level, in 2022, of 20.6 percent of GDP. Is that correct?

We do not need to throw the baby out with the bath water, we do not need to shred Medicare in order to save it.

I will tell you, it is extremely impressive. It is being carefully done.

Since 2005, we have gone down from 60-percent dependent to 45-percent dependent last year.

One thing I learned about Senator Nickles is his word is absolutely gold.

I personally believe we are going to have to reduce tax expenditures, broaden the base.

We need to lower the corporate rate to be more competitive.

When you are borrowing $0.40 of every $1, that cannot continue much longer.

We have provisions right now that encourage us to invest, and we need to invest heavily in the Bakken.

It is incredibly important to the economics of the country that we make further progress.

This plan has massive tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. This plan cuts discretionary spending $2 trillion below the Budget Control Act that cut $900 billion. This plan ends Medicare in 2 years. This plan repeals health care reform…

This is another unbalanced plan. There is very little in the way of revenue to reduce deficits and debt but deep spending cuts in priorities such as education and energy. In fact, this proposal cuts discretionary spending $1 trillion below…

This budget plan, the House Republican plan, ends Medicare as we know it. All the while, it provides $1 trillion of additional tax cuts to the wealthiest among us. It gives millionaires, on average, an additional tax cut of $150,000 a…

I would ask Senator Sessions, if I might, for 2 additional minutes because of the time Senator Leahy consumed?

This might be a useful time to get another consent. If we can have Senator Harkin for 4 minutes, how much time does Senator Johnson need?