I would also advise you to watch out for OMB. We have received repeated evidence that OMB has become sort of the political bully boy influencing agency decisionmaking in very often I think inappropriate ways.

There is no likelihood, I think, of it getting better. It is likely to get worse, if anything.

The Union of Concerned Scientists pointing out systematic interference with EPA scientists, 60 percent of them indicating that they had been interfered with in their work for political purposes.

It is really bad process to begin with. And then it ends up with really unfortunate results.

Rhode Island, as the Ocean State, has a long tradition of environmental stewardship.

Oh, you have more. It would be more per person.

My information is that dispute does not extend to EPA. I think that the career people know pretty well what has happened to them in the last 8 years.

During the course of the Bush administration, the OMB has acquired the role and reputation of being the political fixer and hit man for the administration in agency regulatory proceedings.

But unless there is a lead time on the other one, we may not avoid it.

Your words, 'now' and 'as soon as possible.'

I applaud you for your intense focus on health care.

It is an absolutely critical choice that our country faces.

I fully support his efforts for preventive health care, for better pricing on prescription drugs, and for better use of medical technology and information technology.

The worry I have is that if we do not get started rapidly on those strategies...

I believe Eric Holder is the best person to be Attorney General of the United States. It is hard to overstate the significance of the work of the Department of Justice to the American people. It is hard to overstate how vital it is that…

I think I am making a slightly different point, thinking longer term about the health care problem per se, and that as that $35 trillion tsunami hits us, we cannot cope with that from a fiscal point of view, so we have to reduce the cost.

I wish to ask, through the Chair, a question of the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee with respect to the $10 trillion debt the country is now carrying. At the time the current administration that is leaving office came into…

We know every American deserves health care that he or she can afford. Senator Daschle knows that to do that we need basic systemic reform that will improve the way health care is delivered in this country. Senator Daschle has already…

So through the good times, we could have been laying money aside so that when this situation came, we would be in a strong economic condition. Instead, by squandering all those years, we have put the incoming administration in a very…

It strikes me that the problem here is that in order to achieve those large reductions, a considerable amount of executive management, of experimentation, of flexible and dynamic regulatory activity going forward is going to be necessary.

I appreciate it. I have gone over my time, which I was doing happily and willingly because I was at the end of the line here.

the Bush administration has added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt versus where the budget was planned to go.

Not likely to happen now.

I applaud the more honest picture that this budget presents.

I think we are headed into, I think, a fiscal crisis that is going to make the current economic problem look like a picnic.