Kent Conrad

USDA has gotten the message, reducing travel, canceling bad loans, renegotiating the basic agreement on crop insurance.

I want to salute the Inspector General to have identified $256 million in potential savings, going after over-payments, going after recording errors.

When we are borrowing as a nation 40 cents of every dollar we spend, no taxpayer can be wasted and no program can be abused.

The water is going to come and stay.

This is unprecedented. On Saturday morning, we were given reports that looked as though we had dodged the bullet.

In Minot, North Dakota, more than 11,000 people have been evacuated since yesterday, and we face the worst flood in recorded history in my state.

I think it is a critically important one in the circumstances we confront.

Reserving the right to object, I am fine with that if we would have that time added on our side as well.

I am extremely concerned that we are headed in a direction where we could see disproportionate cuts to a part of the budget that, frankly, has not contributed to the deficit.

Look, we know agriculture has to take reductions, as does every part of the Federal budget. We are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. It cannot continue. But it should not be disproportionate.

The vast majority of funding in the farm bill does not go to directly support farmers and ranchers, but directly goes to support nutrition programs across America.

If we continue down this path of spending and borrowing recklessly, we will leave America weakened and diminished.

The President has yet to look the American people in the eye and explain the basic fact that we have run out of money.

We need honest budgeting. We have got to have that, facts-based budgeting, not fantasy budgeting.

Simply put, these claims are detached from reality, and they undermine efforts to tackle our growing debt danger.

We have got to get off the road of spending and borrowing and get on the road to a lean and productive Government.

I have rarely seen a witness who is better prepared or does a better job of defending his position than you do, and I just want to thank you for the leadership you have provided.

And if we are not investing in infrastructure in America, we are making a big, big mistake.

I think we have to apply the additional test now, is it being paid for, because we cannot just add to the charge card when we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend.

I think the test has to be, is it good for the country.

So we are not the individual States of America. We are the United States of America, and if we are going to be strong, I do not think the best can be, it has to be in my State or I am not going to support its funding.

We need to be careful not to cut education in a way that would come back to hurt the Nation's long-term economic growth and security.

I personally believe that education is the key to our country's economic future.

I believe the President's budget gets it about right.

I believe that history will record the steps that were taken at the end of the Bush administration and the initial days of the Obama administration were absolutely critical to averting a financial collapse.