To me it begs the question, you are not up to date on your taxes, you no longer have a clearance, period.

I believe that this is an important issue that we have to get at.

I kind of see this as a multitude of problems. I mentioned in my opening statement we overclassify, which is a problem for the American people because that means it is not transparent.

To me this is not a political issue. This is an issue of us failing to do our job in a proper way when it comes to security clearances.

The American people ought to be asking what in the world is going on.

Let me give the American people a little taste of what we spent in the last week. In the last week, the State Department spent $5 million on new glassware for all our embassies. Was that something we needed to do? No. Was it an absolute…

I understand that the order of the day is that time is divided equally until 7 o'clock, with the majority setting a limitation of 10 minutes but no limitation on the minority? The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

I rise to speak about the issue in front of us. I want to spend a few minutes putting things in context. I won't repeat things I have said routinely on the floor, but I think it is important for the American people to understand where we…

I will spend some time tomorrow then going through what this is. But it is solving our problem in such a way that it doesn't kick the can down the road, which is what we are getting ready to do. What I would say in conclusion is by…

I would ask for just a short period of additional time if my colleague from Delaware would allow it. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.

Nobody wants to harm people who are disabled and unable to work.

My request was for 30 minutes when I came to the floor. Evidently, that wasn't made. Is the order of the day 10 minutes? The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is.

Somehow the President has to make it crystal clear that he is willing to negotiate.

I thank the Chair. I truly thank my colleague. He is a great colleague to work with. People are always telling stories about how people don't work together. I can tell my colleagues that the Senator from Delaware Mr. Carper and I work…

I don't want you to waste my money.

We need to do more. But we cannot do more unless we do entitlement reform.

I would just inquire if there are other speakers after Senator Carper. The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no apparent order of speakers, and if there is no objection, the Senator from Oklahoma can take an additional 20 minutes.

I appreciate the time to be on the floor. I want to continue talking about what I think are the real problems with where we are today. What we are hearing in the press is that there is no agreement on a continuing resolution, that there is…

I thank the Presiding Officer. It is going to require that we reform Medicare, that we fix Medicaid, that we control how the Federal Government buys and uses things. It is going to require us to eliminate multitudes of duplicative programs…

I will finish. Would the Chair let me know in about 28 minutes? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

I have listened very carefully to the two previous speakers on the floor, and I understand a lot of their frustration. We are where we are. I think we have two big problems. Actually, we have two major problems. One is our country is…

We have a credit card. I want you to think about your own personal life that if, in fact, you have a limit on your credit card and your financial situation worsens, you are still paying the payments, but you are not bringing down the…

Let me describe also what is going to happen in about 20 years, maybe 10. If we don't address these problems, it won't matter what the debt rating agencies say; we will have developed a pattern that says we think we can continue to borrow…

In hindsight, did you make a mistake signing those RFCs?

All right. That is all the questions I have for you. Good job.