The American people want us to stop spending. And so let's just give them some certainty. Let's extend the tax - the existing tax cuts. And then let's give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large. And then maybe the American people will have some confidence.

I think that it has to be a very humane approach to this issue, and we have to come up with solutions to it. But we also have to do something about the drugs that are coming across our southern border that are killing our kids... I think there are some people who want to leave this country and return to the country they came from, but obviously it requires a broader solution that that, and we all know that.

The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book.

There is no moral equivalent between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel Vladimir Putin and the United States of America, the country that Ronald Reagan used to call a shining city on a hill.

I say that the United States of America is a unique experiment in history. I believe in American exceptionalism. I wasn't for sending ground forces into Libya. It would have been counterproductive, but we are an inspiration to these people. I know because I've looked them in the eyes, and they looked at me. They look to America for inspiration and leadership.

I am a Republican. I'm loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.

While I support a more comprehensive bill and hope a more extensive package will eventually past the Senate, I also am a realist and know that we must not let the perfect bill be the enemy of real reform.