what senator mikulski was quoted as saying in the opening. and it's also surprising that they're being joined by a number of republicans including perhaps not quite so sew siff rousely, some republican candidates. the president is under a lot of pressure. >> woodruff: bill kristol, what does it look like from the republicans? >> i don't believe many republicans believe we should fight this war to win it. everyone understood there should be some drawdown. people were resigned to all 33,000 surge troops going out by the end of 2012 12-and beginning of the 2013. the president is going to announce they'll be end of the summer of 2012, before his reelection date... >> you're conceding his reelection? (laughs) >> well, before the date which he stands for reelection. and i regard this as really... i think the only reason you could say why did he pick the end of the summer? every military commander says give us the 2012 fighting season. we need to consolidate the gains in the south, go to the east and deal with the threat there is that we've barely b

you have heard what barbara mikulski said. she disliked doing lots of the things that she had to do but she was willing to do it for the good of the country. leader mcconnell, speaker john boehner have to face that lesson or we will face disaster. [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> we need revenues, we need revenues to contribute to deficit reduction. grover norquist does not want to contribute one nickel to deficit reduction. >> [inaudible] there would be money [inaudible] >> we're hoping that senators feinstein and others could come together for an agreement. whether they do or do not and i will not get into the details, that is between them. i am for research into cellulosic methanol. we will have to billion dollars for deficit reduction and probably a greater amount without a. let's hope they can come to an agreement. >> let me make one final point. the speaker has used the word, tax increases. they're trying to convince the ordinary american with an ordinary income that there is something intentional to increase the taxes. you

mikulski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i come to the floor today to really talk about the crisis that america is facing, and we really are facing two crises. we're facing a significant debt crisis, and we are facing a significant political leadership crisis. we need to deal with both, and we need to be sure that all things are on the table and all people are at the table trying to find sensible, pragmatic solutions to be able to move our country forward and stablize our economy so that we can grow our economy. now, i want to talk first about the debt crisis, then i'm going to talk about what we need to do to act like americans. mr. president, i'm for a more frugal government, and we have been voting on cuts in discretionary spending. i supported the ban on discretionary spending earmarks. you were a reform their that area. i joined with you in that area. i also voted for 41 billion cuts in the continuing resolution. in april i voted for $78 billion more in cuts. i wanted to avoid a tea party shutdown and work fo

you heard what barbara mikulski said. she disliked and doing lots of the things that she had to do. she was willing to do it for the the of the country. the leadership of the republican party has to learn that lesson or we will face a disaster. i cannot hear you. i am sorry. >> [inaudible] >> we need revenues to contribute to deficit reduction. grover norquist does not want to contribute one nickel of revenue to deficit reduction. >> [inaudible] >> look, we are all hopeful that senators feinstein and club charge can come together for an agreement. whether they do or do not, i am andresearch into celluosic ethanol. that is the way to go towards the future. i am for helping the research. we will have a minimum of $2 billion for deficit reduction. let's hope they can come to an agreement. >> let me make one final point before we go. the speaker has used the word, tax increases. they use that all the time. they are trying to convince the ordinary american with an ordinary income that there is some intention to increase that american's taxes. you have a responsibility to make clear that

democrats is very much, senator mikulski -- >> thank you very much, senator mikulski. senator chambliss. >> you mentioned your west. cali, general alexander -- west. colleague -- west point colleague. i think your leadership is a great example for those who serve us. i think the questions of my colleagues have been good and do not need to be repeated. there are a couple of things i would like to pursue. i want to talk a little bit about drones for a minute. as i told you in my office a couple of days ago, i am very supportive of the decisions the president made regarding about a bad -- about a body -- have a abbottabad. one of the decisions was to " i think we can talk about what i want to talk about -- we were able to leave with information in addition to the principal goal, which was just as for osama bin laden. what i want ask in a general context is, what kind of evaluation could go -- should go into that decision of how much information might be there? will you use a drawing or not? do you make the decision to try to -- use a drone or not? how do you make the deci

don't think that is a very good mix of. >> norm, fred said it doesn't matter much if your name is mikulskir murkowski. did it matter much if your name was obama or bush? in other words, he is taking -- i have been accused of this. an example in universalizing it to up imply that elections have no consequences and are not important to people because they have private interest. of course they also care about what they pay in taxes, whether their child will be well-educated and what they're breathing into their bodies. >> i disagree with that and of course if her name is murkowski, lisa murkowski was bumped off the ballot from running as a republican despite her enormous popularity in the state because a small fringe group of extreme voters decided that they didn't want her to have the nomination. there's a real difference it seems to me if your name is rob bennett, a very conservative figure but his instinct was to try to solve problems are the man who has replaced him, mike lee who is less interested in working to solve problems then and scoring points. i think it does matter and i should n

we have done some of that with the bill that i sponsored with barbara mikulski, the democrat from maryland, with spousal i.r.a.'s. we have increased the amount that can you save and that a stay-at-home spouse can save and we have made some major good moves in the right direction, but that is different from what we're talking about today, which is social security. now, we -- i have written a letter to the vice president. i have asked him to include -- to put social security on the agenda because you -- when we finish all these discussions, they are going to come back with cuts in discretionary spending, but it can't be enough when it's less than 40% of our spending. we have got to look at entitlements if we're going to be responsible. now, madam president, since i have filed my bill this week and have had the opportunity with the heritage foundation and the media to talk about my plan, we're getting some good support. of course we're getting the people who say no cuts, no way, no how. we expect that. but it just is burying your head in the sand if you say no way, no how. so we're getting so

committee cybersecurity task force completed its classified report last july, authored by me, senator mikulski and senator snowe. so, we've been ready in congress. the administration has now weighed in with its own proposal, recognizing that we need cybersecurity legislation to make our nation safer and launching in earnest our legislative process. we have hard work ahead to find the best possible solution to this complex and grave challenge to our national and economic security. as we begin, i'd like to flag five issues that i believe must be addressed as this legislation goes forward. first, we need to build greater public awareness of cybersecurity threats going forward. what's the problem? the problem is the threat information affecting the dot gov and dot mil dough mains, the government domains is largely classified. and in the dot-com, dot-net and dot org domains, information is often kept proprietary by the victim business so as not to worry shareholders, customers and regulators or give ammunition to competitors. the result is that americans are left in the dark about the level of dang

senator mikulski? >> thank you, madame chair. general petraeus, it's a pleasure to welcome you and mrs. petraeus. i'm going to just echo my desire for continued service as my colleagues have said, and really come as someone who has a substantial number of military particularly -- to mrs. petraeus protecting them from financial predatory i enjoyed our conversation in my office in listening to the testimony here because as you know, in our conversation i wanted to know not about general petraeus, who i tremendously respect and admire, but who is going to be mr. petraeus? who is going to be dr. petraeus, and who the heck is going to be director petraeus? now, to insert a lot of those questions both with me and senator rockefeller's question that indeed the ceo of the cia, and i hope we would have time to elaborate on that, but we also talked about you as a reformer at the cia and the military, so let me get to a former question to you so much of the work of the cia over the last ten years has been contracted out. there has been a tr

senator mikulski. >> mr. chairman, secretary gates, admiral mullen. again like all of my colleagues thank you for your service. i think the enormous turnout of members and also the fact that we are actually staying, longer than you, is a tribute really to the high regard that we regard your service and your service, admiral mullen. we want to thank you for it from the incredible job that you have done in keeping america safe and your strong support for the military, your many trips to actually get out of washington and listen to the troops and talk to our allies. for me one of the special things was the way you always, always will be the way you responded ounflinchingly with the walter reed scandal and wait you took ownership, the way you ensured accountability and responsibility and corrective action. i want to just thank you for that. i just watched you with the troops, not only in uniform and so on, but in things like the army-navy game where you mingled with them and the wounded warriors. had such access to you. and the way that they felt that the

it seems like there is a disconnect from what senator mikulski was suggesting and what seems to be an opportunity here. >> of the president's decision on the posture in germany was that we would come down from four brigade combat teams to three. the uncertainty is in the army in terms of whether that fourth bct in 2015 and 2016 is simply disbanded, or whether in fact it comes back to the u.s. is the only milcon i am aware of in germany is the consolidation of command control communications, computers and intelligence in these badewiesbaden. half of that has been spent. there is no money in the fiscal year 2012 budget but there is another 150 million between 2013 and 2016 so we will take another look at that piece of it. the decision was not just made by the department of defense but the president that we would come down by one in germany. >> the original proposal was two and. in the interim time, we believed and i will speak for myself along the lines of what you talked about in europe last week. the germans had fewer than 5000 troops in afghanistan. they have rules of engagement that