We will lower the tax burden on middle class Americans by asking the very wealthy to pay their fair share. Middle class taxpayers will have a choice between a children's tax credit or a significant reduction in their income tax rate.

When I first came to Washington in the 1960s, even at the height of the Vietnam War, until the end there in '68 there was a certain climate of cooperation. And then in the late sixties and in through the seventies, politics began getting more mean. And then from the eighties on it seemed to be institutionalized, this personal attack business. And I just hate it.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

If you look at what's happened to the stock market, if you look at what's happened to housing values, if you look at what's happened to bank loan portfolios because the value of their other assets that they've already issued loans against were going down, there was a pretty good argument for trying to pass something at about this level of investment with the divisions as they were - unemployment, food stamps, and tax cuts, aid to education and healthcare, and job creation.

No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again

Nobody is right all the time and even a broken clock is right twice a day.

We need to help younger people recognize their own capacity to do good, and help them discover the rewards of generosity.