Jacob J. Lew: “The reason we call this a down payment is because we do agree that we need to get beyond stopping the building up of the…”

I don't think Social Security and Medicare should be cut, you know, to take away from people what they need and what they have been promised.

I do not think that there is anything more important that we could have done to deal with poverty in this country.

I believe that the letter states correctly that, having over the last week raised this issue with 10 of the 11 negotiating partners, the reason they are willing to have a conversation on currency, in part, is because of the firm knowledge…

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.