America was founded on majority rule, not supermajority rule. Somehow, over the years, this has morphed into supermajority rule, and that changes things.

It is vital that we provide North Dakota's children with nutritionally sound diets. That means ensuring that they are getting plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and are developing good eating habits for their future.

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'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.

So I put that all together and I find it makes it hard to justify a filibuster.

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.