Jacob Lew quotes:

I think that for the next short period of time, our No. 1 priority is Congress needs to do its work and extend the payroll tax cut.

Every president since George Washington has taken executive privilege seriously. Every Republican president has.

I think it's very important not to confuse the importance of dealing with Social Security in the long term with these short-term deficit reduction challenges. They're different issues.

I've never seen a constructive Social Security debate that started with one side digging in, in one place and another side digging into another.

In the budget, the president will call for a five-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for national security. This will reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and bring this category of spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.

It is time for the general fund to pay the Social Security fund back.

I can't speak to the differences within the Catholic Church.

The budget is not just a collection of numbers, but an expression of our values and aspirations.

The transition from tyranny to democracy is very hard. The Syrian people have to handle this in a way that works in Syria. And the brutality of the Assad regime is unacceptable.

Businesses make decisions based on what they are seeing in their order books.

There is a very serious fiscal-policy question of, 'Are we running our overall fiscal policy such that we as a government can pay our bills?'

We cannot win the future, expand the economy and spur job creation if we are saddled with increasingly growing deficits. That is why the president's budget is a comprehensive and responsible plan that will put us on a path toward fiscal sustainability in the next few years - a down payment toward tackling our challenges in the long term.

Historically, the responsibility for voting on the debt limit has gone to the party in the majority.

I think there is a shared sense of urgency in Washington on fiscal issues.

If you have a student who graduates from college and they don't have a job, they are now able to stay on their family health plan.

Raising the debt limit on some levels is a ministerial act. It doesn't involve any new spending.

Europe is trying to get its fiscal house in order.

Most Americans want health insurance.

From the very beginning the president [of USA] had two very important principles that had to be reconciled. One principle is that every woman should have the right to all forms of preventive health care, including contraception. The other is that we need to respect the religious liberties which are the cornerstone of American life.

If you don't define the problem you'll never reach a painful solution.

If you look at the cost of providing health insurance, it actually doesn't cost more to provide a plan with contraceptive coverage than it does without.

It's going to be true that anything that reduces the federal deficit will have somebody unhappy.

I think there's no higher calling in terms of a career than public service, which is a chance to make a difference in people's lives and improve the world.

The most critical thing in a negotiation is to get inside your opponent's head and figure out what he really wants.

The challenge for any government is how do you do two things at the same time. How do you put money forward for things like the payroll tax holiday, for things like getting a jump-start on infrastructure, for building schools, and make the decisions for long-term deficit reduction.

The issue of providing women all forms of preventative health care has been and remains very important. The, the importance of protecting religious liberties in this country has been important to the president and will always be.