Every politician loves to say that America's best days are yet ahead and the sun has barely begun to rise on our country.

I agree with you entirely, there is no bigger scandal in this country than the way we are failing teenagers.

I did it for the following reasons: because I wanted to save America from the ramifications of failure.

I believe there is almost no gap now between the United States and China in terms of capability.

the only bill that really probably has an opportunity to really make a difference is the Simpson-Bowles Commission

I think there has been difficulty moving this into the political process is that people are not able to see what the ramifications of failure are.

If we go down that route we are going to end up with youth unemployment unlike anything this Nation has seen in its history.

I think this place is dysfunctional, I think it is absolutely a bipartisan dysfunction.

the political system is ineffective

some mechanism to make sure that whatever information we have would be published, but not a daily weather forecast.

if there was an early warning system, that we knew next year at this time we were going to be facing a drought in Somalia