I would suggest to you, as I suggested to Mr. Hensarling and Senator Crapo, that I could have come in, made my presentation, kicked back my feet up on the table, twiddled my thumbs, and not answered a single question.

We have made some really good proposals on how to change, for example, Social Security Disability Insurance, how to fix payments in Medicare to non-Medicare folks.

The good news is, I think the last time I looked at this, writ large, we were 16 to 1 for a while and then 22, 23 to 1 after that.

what they perpetuate is this myth that we can balance a budget or move toward balance without affecting entitlements.

we earmarked, for lack of a better word, I think it is $50 billion for things specifically like rural broadband

Roughly 1.8 trillion.

It is no more Armageddon and no more catastrophic than what we are doing right now, spending $1.5 trillion that we do not have every year.

There is no such thing as a deficit. It is simply a future tax increase delayed.

Is it easier to spend money than it is to cut? Absolutely.

We see the best welfare program as a job and we see a healthy economy as a way to push people out of poverty.

I think we have deemphasized the dignity of work for generations now and I think the budget starts to move things in a different direction.

I am sure that the country's debt is much worse than I ever thought. Allowing this figure to increase compromises U.S. foreign policy.

We need folks to go back to work. You talk about the dignity of work. You are absolutely right.

We took a lot of heat as an administration and you did as a legislature for passing the tax bill that supposedly would run up the deficit.

We absolutely believe that what we have done to try and fix the economy... is good for the government.

Our estimates are that an additional 1 percent increase in GDP over the course of the 10-year window reduces the deficit by roughly $3.25 trillion.

I continue to agree with the statement of the head of the Joint Chiefs several years ago that said one of the greatest threats to the Nation was the debt.

I do not think it is possible at this point, given what has happened in the last 12 months especially, to pay off the debt in 8 years.