Jacob J. Lew: “The sense that Government is behaving in the way that a reasonable set of institutions should behave adds to confidence.”

Well, for me, it comes down to two things: promoting American trade and restoring American leadership.

Over the past 7 years under the President's leadership, we have seen a sustained economic recovery and an unprecedented decline in the Federal budget deficit.

This agreement demonstrates that we have the capacity to find common ground on difficult issues and lays a foundation for addressing some of our long-term challenges.

When we took office, the projections were the debt was going to grow to over 100 percent of GDP.