We’ve got to have major health care reform because that is the 800-pound gorilla. That is the thing that can swamp the boat fiscally for the United States. Kent Conrad Read Quote
One reason the Founding Fathers thought that states should have two senators was so that smaller states wouldn’t get run over and could bring their interests to the attention of the Senate more broadly. Kent Conrad Read Quote
America was founded on majority rule, not supermajority rule. Somehow, over the years, this has morphed into supermajority rule, and that changes things. Kent Conrad Read Quote
When Republicans used reconciliation in 2001 for the Bush tax cuts, they used it to increase the deficit. The whole purpose of reconciliation is for deficit reduction! Kent Conrad Read Quote
When you’re borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that you spend, that can’t continue much longer. I think everybody really does understand that, and it’s going to require all of us – those who are the most fortunate among us – but it’s really going to require every American to contribute to a solution. Kent Conrad Read Quote
The President is not squaring with the American people as to the seriousness of our nation’s fiscal condition. It is time for people to stand up and tell the truth. Kent Conrad Read Quote
Reducing our dependence on foreign energy – that is critically important to America’s economic future. Excellence in education – if we’re not the best educated, we’re not going to be the most powerful for very long. Kent Conrad Read Quote
The only possible role that I can see for reconciliation would be to make modest changes in the major package to improve affordability, to deal with what share of Medicaid expansion the federal government pays, those kinds of issues, which is the traditional role for reconciliation in health care. Kent Conrad Read Quote
