Having a tax code that rewards companies that are shipping jobs overseas instead of companies that are investing here in the United States, that will not make us more competitive.

I think that dealing with guns is one way to handle the violent-crime issues that we have in this country.

So just to be clear, I'm not going to sign any package that somehow prevents the top rate from going up for folks at the top 2 percent.

We are committed to a world in which we keep America safe, but we recognize that our power doesn't just flow from our extraordinary military but also flows from the strength in our ideals and our principles and our values.

If you want a model for what is possible, if you want to see how to build a peaceful and prosperous and dynamic society, then look at Berlin and look at Germany.

The problem with all these tired excuses for inaction is that it suggests a fundamental lack of faith in American business and American ingenuity.

One of the gratifying things, I think, about the end of my presidency even though admittedly my successor ran against a lot of what we stood for, is when you look at the individual issues and the progress that we've made on a lot of those issues, we got the support of a pretty decent majority.