We must prepare for everything.

Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning.

I think this is the biggest lesson a president or any of us who has responsibility to govern have to learn: There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction.

We can't ... take that piece of reality in this business and set that aside and say, well, that doesn't count. And the Republicans on my side understand that the majority is in fact up for grabs next year. So there's not a decision made up here that doesn't have that factor coursing through that current.

Well, let's go back to the original intent of Social Security. It is an insurance contract.

This current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to form a unity government with the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia. We have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to do that but we can't dictate to them.

This is a complicated time to govern in the world today because of so much going on and it's coming at us at such an unprecedented rate.