Our fiscal ruin and resulting loss of world leadership will, in their [liberals'] eyes, be not a tragic event but a desirable one.

If freedom's best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come

There is nothing inconsistent about having a conservative outlook and being vigorous.

The president wasn't dragged anywhere, ... In reality, I think, it was his opposition which was dragged upstairs one step at a time from zero to this number that was very close to what the president proposed.

Sure, things could always have been done better, but I just wish people would drop their political hammers for a few weeks, as happened in 2001, and work on the problem at hand

We are tasked to rebuild not just a damaged economy, and a debt-ridden balance sheet, but to do so by drawing forth the best that is in our fellow citizens. If we would summon the best from Americans, we must assume the best about them. If we don't believe in Americans, who will?

We believe it wrong ever to take a dollar from a free citizen without a very necessary public purpose, because each such taking diminishes the freedom to spend that dollar as its owner would prefer.