Bernie Sanders

But isn't that a sensible way to proceed?

In the world that we lived in, it would be the contractor would have to pick up--'Sorry you screwed up, guys. You have to eat it.'

Unfortunately, it was the taxpayer who had to pick up the difference.

Does cost-plus, for the laymen here, mean I am going to give you a $2 billion estimate, but if it costs me more, I am going to bill you more?

The recent tax bill that was passed, supported, I believe, by almost every Republican, will increase the national debt by $1.9 trillion.

The answer is not to cut benefits, but at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, to ask the people on top to start paying their fair share of taxes

If you lift the cap on income of $250,000 or more, which is just the very highest income earners in this country, Social Security will be solvent for the next 60 years.

Mr. Gibson, would it be fair to say that we have not been terribly successful up to this point, that virtually every major defense contractor has had to reach settlements or has been fined for fraudulent activities?

What are we going to do after giving CEOs of these defense companies huge salaries, tell them that they cannot continue to rip off the American people?

You have just created a situation--not you; the President must take responsibility for this budget--created a situation where people will go cold, some may freeze to death, and that is not what we should be doing in America.

Is your argument that most of these cost overruns are the responsibility of the DoD who has changed the nature of the contract?

What are we doing to deal with these outrageous cost overruns?

Are you concerned that virtually every major defense contractor----

This is an enormously important issue, and the DoD must be run cost-effectively and efficiently.

Your job is to tell the American people how our tax dollars are being spent.

I would hope that nobody here believes that just because this is the Department of Defense, we will defend an enormous amount of bureaucratic waste.

I do not think there is any debate among anybody here that we want to be able to defend our country.

The Department of Defense receives far more money from the taxpayers than any other governmental agency.

Explain to me the morality of a process by which we give the third wealthiest family in America... over $1 billion a year in tax breaks and yet we cut a program which keeps children and the elderly warm in the winter.

In the United States of America, the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people, we should not be making a very bad situation worse by throwing tens of millions of people off of health insurance.

When you throw 32 million people off of their health insurance, tens of thousands of them will die.

I worked hard and successfully with others to make sure that workers who work with Federal contractors get at least a minimum wage above $7.25 an hour.

Who is our enemy? Who are we spending--we know that there are threats out there.

I think that might be an issue that you might want to raise.

Does it make sense to you that we pay the Secretary of Defense $200,000 or less and we give a contractor... $18 million of taxpayer money?