What most Americans mean when they say "the end of the recession" is, "When will it be back to normal? When can we get jobs? When will the employment rate be back to 4 percent or 5 percent?"

The important lesson of the deficit is - and the national debt - is we have to be careful about how we're spending money.

What you measure affects what you do. If you don't measure the right thing, you don't do the right thing.

Governments can enhance growth by increasing inclusiveness. A country's most valuable resource is its people. So it is essential to ensure that everyone can live up to their potential, which requires educational opportunities for all.

I grew up in a family in which political issues were often discussed, and debated intensely.

I find it scandalous not only that there was so little discussion of the costs of the Iraq war before we went to war - this was, after all, a war of choice - but even five years into the war, the Administration has not provided a comprehensive accounting of the war.

If you get a flow of credit increasing, as we've seen in the last few years - that flow of credit didn't go to more wealth accumulation as we normally use the term in economics, as capital goods. What you got is an increase in bubbles of one kind or another.