Over the past two years, the Obama Administration and USDA have worked to build a foundation for sustainable economic growth in rural America. At the center of our vision is an effort to increase domestic production and use of renewable energy.

It's how you make decisions that matters, and that ought to be the question that people ask of any candidate for any executive office, whether it's mayor, governor or president. How do you make decisions? Who do you want in the room helping you make those decisions?

When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be reconnected and re-engaged in society.

I think a lot of people don't understand the makeup of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program population, of the food stamp population, 80 percent senior citizens, people with disabilities, children, and those who are actually in the work force working. The folks who are not - who are able-bodied, who are adults, who don't have dependents, there's a desire to make sure that they get to work and that they aren't basically gaming the system. But the reality is, they have a responsibility to either be involved in work or education, or they're limited in terms of their benefits.

The future of healthcare security should include flexibility from the federal government to allow us to serve the state's most vulnerable citizens.

What Republicans have done in my view is that they are systematically dismantling a sense of community in America.

I think we all share the same goal, which is a United States of America that inspires people and leads.