Federal Budget

ALAN SIMPSON, former Republican US Senator from Wyoming and co-chair of President Obama's debt commission, to Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union": "If you hear a politician get up and say, 'I know we can get this done. We're going to get rid of all earmarks; all waste, fraud and abuse; all foreign aid; Air Force One; all congressional pensions.' That's just sparrow belch in the midst of the typhoon. That's about six, eight, ten percent of where we are. So, I'm waiting for the politician to get up and say, 'There's only one way to do this: You dig into the big four -- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense.' And anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat, and give them the green weenie."