I applaud the President for keeping in his budget a proposal to let all of the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent expire at the end of this year.

People are increasingly frustrated about income and wealth inequality in America.

And Congress can amend the law.

We bailed out our friends on Wall Street whose dishonesty and greed has resulted in some 17 percent of our people being unemployed or underemployed, a total economic disaster.

I think absolutely that in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression we have got to do everything that we can to put people to work and to make taxpayers out of them and to fight our way out of this horrendous…

I did not vote for the Bush tax breaks which cost $600 billion over a 10-year period without any payment for them.

We have 19 percent of our children living in poverty. That is the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world.

There is a lot of belief that a huge Pentagon budget which has significantly increased in recent years, that a lot of that money is not necessarily directed toward fighting the fights we are in right now against international terrorism.

I think the Wall Street bailout and the bonuses given to the people who helped cause the worst recession in the modern history of America is certainly an integral part of that appropriate outrage.

I get a little bit tired of being lectured about how serious the deficit crisis is today by, in many instances, the exact same people who caused the deficit crisis.

The last thing is the President, I think appropriately, understands that many senior citizens in this Country are hurting.

I really do not like being lectured on deficits when you and many members of your party helped cause the situation we are in right now.

I do not support, as Senator Gregg does, the repeal of the estate tax which would provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent over a 10-year period.

Do you believe that the American people have a right to know who received trillions of dollars, which financial institutions received trillions of dollars of zero-interest loans?

You voted for a war in Iraq which some people will think will cost two or three trillion dollars, but you forgot to pay for that war.

Will the administration come forward and say that is usury, that is immoral, that is wrong?

I did not vote for the war in Iraq for a number of reasons, not least of which there was no mechanism to pay for that war.

We have, as you know, Mr. Secretary, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth.

I did not, when I was in the House, vote for the insurance company and drug company prescription drug Medicare bill, which could have been paid for by negotiating pharmaceutical prices with the drug industry.

Let me also tell you that the stimulus package is playing a really good role in Vermont, putting people to work, doing just that.

It is, to me, basically insane that we are importing, every single year, $350 billion worth of oil from abroad, when we are sitting on technologies that can make us energy independent and substantially cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.

This is clearly a win-win situation.

What it is so important about that is, not only from a political--geopolitical point of view, but we create, over a period of years, millions of jobs, making our country energy independent and moving to energy efficiency and sustainable…

I agree with what the President has said, and I think you have said, that we are in a transformational moment.

I think that the evidence is pretty strong--and I want the Secretary to talk about this--that if you really want to make this country energy independent, probably the most cost-effective way is--going forward, is energy efficiency.