I did not support the tax deal at the end of last year. That was a big number in the wrong direction.

I believe this debt threat is an imminent threat to the Nation.

I do not think Congress, the House or the Senate, are going to be very interested in bailouts to States.

the Congress and the policymakers, we have to walk and chew gum at the same time.

there is nobody that could have participated in this process that did not conclude this tax system that we have is just completely out of date.

We are on an unsustainable course, and we have an obligation, we have a very serious and somber obligation to come up with a plan and to do it sooner rather than later.

100 percent of GDP is too high.

it is, I think, patently unfair to people who have all of their income exposed to taxation at whatever level of income, to have some who are avoiding everything that they owe through these kinds of tax dodges.

If we just use the historical average for revenues, at no time in the last 40 years would we have balanced the budget, not one time.

I did not see the kind of leadership I hoped for in the State of the Union.

That is not a realistic world.

But that is 19th century tax policy and energy policy at a time when we need to focus on the 21st.