Welfare reform happened with reconciliation; half the Democrats voted for it. The Bush tax cuts happened with reconciliation; twelve Democratic Senators voted for it. You didn't have a real partisan issue on those times that it was used.
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!
Reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It won't work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation; it was designed for deficit reduction.
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.
Anybody who has stood on the prairie in North Dakota has felt the force of the wind and knows that our state has an inexhaustible supply of wind power. The potential here to create jobs and draw millions of dollars in new investment to North Dakota is enormous.
Governments can inflate their way out of debt, but that has consequences, doesn't it?
We shouldn't just live for today; we should prepare for tomorrow.
I've had lengthy discussions with European farm leaders. It is clear they have an agricultural strategy to support their producers and gain dominance in world agricultural trade. They're gaining markets the old-fashioned way - they're buying them.
Certainly Social Security needs to be reformed.
