There are some tax expenditures that are there for very obvious and very important and very good policy reasons. Whether it's the charitable deduction or the deduction for homes, it's not a loophole.
To those like Mitt Romney who want to take us backwards, let's send a strong message in November: as we say in Brooklyn, 'Fuhgeddaboutit.'
If we say the Geneva Convention is obsolete, then what do others who have our soldiers say?
I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.
There are very close ties between the Jewish and Mormon people.
There are two tests in life, more important than any other test. On Monday morning, when you wake up, do you feel in the pit of your stomach you can't wait to go to work? And when you're ready to go home Friday afternoon, do you say, 'I can't wait to go home?'
You know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President.
My father, Abe, was a small businessman. For 32 years, he ran an exterminating company. That may explain why our family always associated the smell of roach spray with love.
The Tea Party is a rear guard, not a vanguard.
Democrats don't relate to middle-class people.
I'd like to see the health care professionals making decisions, not some bureaucrat in Indianapolis working for an insurance company.
Today, families like the one I grew up in still believe in that American dream. But as President Obama says, it's a make-or-break moment for the middle class. Mitt Romney's plans would make things worse.
As long as the Palestinians send terrorists onto school buses and to nightclubs to blow up people, Israel has no choice but to build the fence.
When Republicans say, 'The first thing you do when you do deficit reduction is reduce rates,' it would be like Democrats saying, 'The first thing you do when you do deficit reduction is provide free Medicare at age 55.' We'd like to do that! But it won't bring the deficit down. That's for sure.
In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.
You have to walk in the other guy's moccasins. You have to think what they think. If you want to bring somebody onto your side, you have to figure out what motivates them. What do they need?
Mitt Romney would move the Court even further right, putting landmark decisions like Roe v. Wade at risk. Some say Romney would repeat the past. I disagree - he'd be worse.
You have to show Israel that it's not going to be forced to do things it doesn't want to do and can't do.
Bigotry has always been the poison of America, and we oughta do everything to eradicate it with no excuses or explanations.
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, we know that neither this President nor prior Presidents of both parties did everything right or we would not have had a 9/11.
Well, the tough thing for them is that the Republican primary is pretty far over to the right, just as the Democratic primary is further over to the left than the average voter in each party.
Have kids; have a lot of kids. Start early and keep having them.
A devastating commentary on the war in Iraq is that we have been unable to spend money on infrastructure.
Well, I think it's too early to call Fallujah a failure.
Reclassification is the best way to for us to preserve the Internet as an unfettered tool for communication and the sharing of ideas.
I want to attract the best people into teaching.
What the public hates the most is when they think the politicians aren't listening to them. They understand that we can't solve all their problems with a snap of our fingers, but they sure want us to try because we are public servants.
To introduce a whole new tax regime, that would be modern tax reform. But that's too big a task.
I think teaching should be an exalted profession, not a picked-on profession.
But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.
The way to lessen the grip of the Tea Party on the electoral process would be to do what a handful have done and have a primary where all voters, members of every party, can vote, and the top two vote-getters then enter a runoff.
Barack Obama knows that to create an economy built to last, we need to focus on middle-class families. Families who stay up on Sunday nights pacing the floor, like my dad did, while their children, tucked in bed, dream big dreams. Families who aren't sure what Monday morning will bring, but who believe our nation's best days are still ahead.
You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want, but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact, as the majority of Israelis do, that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, we won't have peace.
Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it, unless we plug every hole.
When someone takes a private photo, on a private cell phone, it should remain just that: private.
Mitt Romney's only bottom line is the one at the end of his own bank statement. The problem is that he confuses his own narrow, self-interest - and that of people like him - with the national interest. He thinks as long as we do right by the Mitt Romneys of the world, America will be just fine.
Economic conservatives like immigration reform, and in fact, many of them supported the bill that John McCain and I put together in the Senate.
To do health care was a noble, good thing, and it will help America dramatically. I don't begrudge Barack Obama choosing it, even though if I were president, I might not have.
Middle class people, I think they realize that Romney is not for them because of his narrowness, but they want to make sure that Barack Obama is focused on them with things that will make a difference. They know he tried, but they also know that it didn't do as well as they would have liked.
The fundamental weakness in the Tea Party machine is the stark difference between what the leaders of the Tea Party elite - plutocrats like the Koch Brothers -want and what the average grassroots Tea Party follower wants.
Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.
I'm strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.
Every administration has this idea to talk tough to Israel and make nice to the Arabs and the Palestinians, and that's the way to bring about peace. It's counter-productive - it's actually the opposite.
Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that's not what any of us should want from our judges.
I made education the highest priority of my campaign - actually education and jobs - and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.
The vast majority of the people employed by Wall Street are the secretary who goes in to work on the Long Island Rail Road, who makes fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dollars a year.
Wall Street excesses helped lead to the Great Recession.
Inaction is perhaps the greatest mistake of all.
Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments - the American people really don't care.
