I just wish to speak briefly to this amendment, which I hope might help answer the mystery as to why the first order of business of the new majority in the Senate is S. 1, a bill that allows a foreign corporation to run a pipeline across…

If less of America's income is subject to taxation than otherwise would be, the revenues for the program are less than they otherwise would be.

You have said before, Dr. Elmendorf, that health care is a very big part of our debt and deficit problem going out. Is that still true?

climate change is a wise fiscal--focusing on climate change is a wise fiscal policy, as well as for other reasons.

from the political perspective, if you are a lobbyist for a big special interest and you go to the Appropriations Committee to get some special deal for your client, you have got to fight for that every single year

My belief is that solving that problem with cuts while in a recession has been proven by experience to be a failed strategy.

when we open up with blaming the Obama administration for debt levels that relate back to a war he did not start, tax cuts he actually tried to overrule, and an economic downturn that caused him to take office at a time when the economy…

The predicament that Social Security is in some say has something to do with income inequality...

What are we going to do about the $1.2 trillion that goes out the back door of the tax code through loopholes?

I appreciate very much that the Chairman has been willing to work on this and has made it one of the priorities for this Committee.

If discussion of the debt and deficit is nothing more than a leverage point, a fulcrum to attack spending programs...

if we keep pushing on delivery system reform, the bipartisan SGR, the 'doc fix' that we have included, we have lots of potential to dramatically increase savings and lower cost growth in the future.

there is a quality of this just being a very seamy and disreputable side of the legislative business

there is nothing that I would be more pleased with than a nonpartisan conversation about the debt and the deficit.

We hear folks right in this committee and out on the floor who talk a really good game on debt and on the deficit.

health care cost is really what is driving our long-term debt and deficits.

The Department that Attorney General Holder inherited was in a very grave state of disarray.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and I be allowed to call up my amendment, Whitehouse amendment No. 148. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will report…

There are legal arguments and policies that fall outside a particular political ideology. That does not make them outside the mainstream.

It is a societal sorrow when somebody like that does not get the treatment that they need.

Now, both Social Security and Social Security disability are funded by the payroll tax, correct?

I suspect we all agree that a school that is dealing with a population with a very high concentration of poverty has a real problem on its hands and that if they're going to succeed for the kids, they need significant resources to overcome…

The testing has just run wild--to use their word--run wild in the classroom.

Rather than face an objection to my unanimous consent request, I will defer it until the chairman and her ranking member have a chance to go through that process, and I will come back at an appropriate time. I yield the floor. The…

I simply wish to make my amendment pending, and at a convenient time I would like to do that. There was a bit of an aura of good feeling on the floor when the distinguished chairman of the energy committee and distinguished Senator from…