Elections have consequences.

This nation is on a course where if we don't do something about it, get federal situation, the fiscal policy [under control], we're Greece. We're a banana republic. Our status as a nation is threatened by what we’ve got coming at us in the area of deficit and debt. And it’s only a few more years, at the most, that we have to work with here before the market says, ‘Sorry, your currency is something we can not continue to defend.’

I have never been opposed to earmarks.

I don't rule out anything in my future.

I think I could have worked for the Clinton administration.

Actually, I have been very supportive of a very robust stimulus package from day one. I think this economy has to have a major stimulus initiative because the only group with liquidity is the federal government.

Social Security was always supposed to be basically, in theory, an insurance program where you pay in and then you get out.