the American people need to understand this is going to be difficult, it's going to be more expensive, more lives are going to be lost, but I hope we understand, as a Nation, the consequences of losing.

I hope our allies understand that the outcome in Afghanistan is important to them, just as it is to us.

I think it was a miserable failure and that we now are having to take that job upon ourselves.

I look forward to working with you to clean up what is, quite frankly, a mess.

The point is, whatever relationship we have with Iraq is yet to be determined, I think that's a fair answer.

your testimony, quite frankly, has been more reassuring than the budget and, quite frankly, it has been more reassuring to me than the President's speech to the Congress a couple of weeks ago in the area of nuclear power.

I want to applaud you for beefing up the environmental management budget so that people like South Carolina's Savannah River site, who have done some pretty aggressive things to reduce their waste footprint, will not be left hanging.

if you are serious about climate change solutions, there is going to be some increased cost.

I just do not believe that is enough money to fix housing and banking, and I just wish you would say that.

I think the money was largely wasted.

To me, that is a good thing. You are doing that, right.

Let us try to make a budget here because I have got to go back to South Carolina and everyone here is going to go back to their respective States and give people some idea of what we are doing, how much all this is going to cost, and when…

the President spoke to the Congress a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned energy independence and climate change as two big issues for the administration, and he gave a list of solutions. He did not mention nuclear power.

we are not going to do this a bunch more times.

When it comes to the financial institutions, I think the first $350 billion was wasted.

the politics around energy are sort of like agriculture politics. They do not break along party lines many times.

With that amount of money, you have got to do a bunch of things.

I voted for it the first time. Do you think the first $350 billion was wisely spent?

the $50 billion to support a more aggressive loan guarantee program was taken out of the stimulus package.

I think this is, quite frankly, a reckless move at a time when our nation is very much at threat.

I am convinced that of this $838 billion, a lot of it is going to go to things other than creating jobs in the first year or the next 18 months.

But you are confident that second option saves the taxpayer money?

I think Republicans and Democrats have to embrace things that we would never embrace before.

The bottom line about the stress test is that we are going to put some of these banks under stress and see if they are adequately capitalized.

if we do too much too quickly, we are going to drive people offshore.