We don't want to go back to the same policies and the same practices that drove our economy into a ditch, that punished the middle class, and that led us to this catastrophe. We have to keep moving forward.
But we are not going to stand by and go back to allowing people with preexisting conditions to be discriminated against, go back to the situation where people can be thrown off their insurance simply because they become seriously ill or you can't get on your parents' insurance after the age of 20.
I think that more and more you're going to see people of good will on their side of the aisle say you know what, we got to get off the bus here, this is not headed in the right direction.
I think those autoworkers whose industry would have collapsed if the president hadn't intervened are certainly better off.
We agree with Simpson and Bowles and others who have looked at this. What's necessary is to stabilize the debt and then work from there. You can't balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy.
You know, we - if, for example, Jerry Brown can withstand, you know, what will probably end up being $200 million of spending by his opponent and get elected governor of California, that will be a big victory in the nation's largest state.
We have to deal with the world as we find it. The world of what it takes to get this done.
No one wants to go back to a situation where, if you have a pre-existing medical condition, you, you can be deprived of coverage. No one wants to go back to a situation where, if you get seriously ill, you can get thrown off your insurance. Seniors don't want to go back to paying more for their prescription drugs.
I see my job simply as helping disseminate the message of Barack Obama, working with the communications team to make sure that we're true to the ideals and the values and the programs that he wants to advance in this country. And that's the extent of my involvement.
The place where we don't agree is on whether there should be some restraint on insurance companies and whether they should be allowed to run wild. We believe there should be some restraint; some on the other side don't think so.
I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher.
I think President Obama is a committed, practicing nonideologue. He's consumed by neither tactics nor ideology. He is more concerned about outcomes than he is about process and categorizations.
We've got ballots flying around, being counted by hand, arriving by truck and in God knows whose custody.
Any time you have loose ballots, you have to worry about shenanigans. It's a shame such a hard-fought election has to come down to something like this.
People understand we're on the doorstep of doing something really historic that will help the American people and strengthen our country for the long run.
We know that 10 million more people will lose insurance in the next 10 years if we don't act.
This marketplace where people can buy insurance who don't have it today - a competitive marketplace: That's an idea that both sides embrace.
But you say, does it represent change? The change is that we are fighting an insurance industry that has killed health reform for generations. They're spending tens of millions of dollars right now to defeat this bill, and we're on the doorstep of winning a great victory for the American people.
We can't have - we can't have a patchwork of 50 states developing their own immigration policy. I understand the frustration of people in Arizona. They want the federal government to step up and deal with this problem once and for all, and that's what we want to do.
This ought to be a season for cooperation in terms of pushing our economy forward, job creation, steadying the middle class, and laying the groundwork for a better future. And that's what we want to work on with Republicans and Democrats.
