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The reason we have such a reform budget is because we've been thinking about these things for a long time.

We've seen more reform in the last year than we've seen in decades, and we haven't spent a dime yet. It's staggering how the Recovery Act is driving change.

What we do want to see is reforms that are going to have a permanent effect on the budget deficit.

If a budget is designed to show our values, it's clear where the majority stands: against opportunity, against education, and against America's hard-working, tax-paying middle class.

We could have a budget that brings Americans together.

A budget should reflect the values and priorities of our nation and its people.

The financial report makes it very clear that if we got into honest budgeting today, that in fact we would find ourselves with a much larger deficit than we have today.

I think that all areas of the budget have to be scrubbed. Clearly the entitlement issues have to be reformed and that's an issue that's going to require I think some strong bipartisan cooperation and leadership.

For those of us who want to accomplish something for the country, we need to come up with a list ... of anti-spending reforms which are locked into place so we are dramatically lowering the appetite of the federal government over the future.

We can't reform mandatory spending in this area until we first deal with ours. I tell my colleagues, 'Let's get the moral high ground and demonstrate that we want to make changes to our pension, and then we can deal with the big problems.'