I have been very outspoken in my opposition to cuts in what I would call the means-tested entitlement programs: Medicaid, food stamps, and all of that. I feel very, very strongly that those cuts as proposed are unjust, but I am not prepared to label Ronald Reagan a "sinner."It seems to me that when you invoke the adjective "moral" you must be careful to distinguish what it is you mean by that.

I think of Martin Luther King phrase a lot when I'm deciding public issues. He said: "Here I stand: I can do no other." It is basically an affirmation of my ultimate responsibility to obey my conscience in my acts as a public official.

Protecting all this land, working with the President to establish all these monuments, to, you know... I think the President has a land protection record that's second to no one in this century, maybe Teddy Roosevelt.

Taxes are the flip side of expenditures. The same issues apply on both sides. There are questions of fairness and justice as much in the way you take money away as in the way you disburse it.

We do not put enough emphasis on early childhood years. We neglect children in this society; as a society we're guilty of child neglect. If we could eliminate the vestiges of racism, if we could develop a more powerful agenda for child care, child development, and a more powerful education system, we could prevent a lot of the incapacities which in turn tend to generate structural unemployment.

I am one of those people who deeply resents not having been born in the 19th century, when there were still open places to explore.

I would argue that practices that destroy ecosystems always destroy jobs.