It just doesn't occur to an American that someone else will solve their problems. Americans take pride in solving problems for themselves. And if we fail, we get back up and try again. It's what we do. It's who we are.

Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition.

Where we are now is we have resolved the revenue issue and the question is what are we going to do about spending. I wish the president would lead us in this discussion rather than putting himself in a position of having to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to discuss the single biggest issue confronting our future.

We didn't make much progress on the country's agenda. And in my view it's because the Senate basically hadn't done much of anything, with a couple of exceptions, for the last four years [of Barack Obama's presidency]. And that's going to change.

I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this - it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.

79 senators, including that great conservative Elizabeth Warren, said they didn't like the medical device tax, so we will go at that law - which in my view is the single worst piece of legislation passed in the last half century - in every way that we can.

We all know that Social Security is one of this country's greatest success stories in the 20th century.