"We have to give the American people a referendum. We will win this referendum if we have it now. If we wait and delay five or six years we will lose this referendum. The public is way ahead of the political class. They get that things are broken. They get that we're spending their kids' inheritance and mortgaging their future. They are ready to be talked to like adults and not like children. So when they see the demagoguery that is directed toward people or ideas that are sincere and are real, it doesn't work anymore. The Democrats are going to come at us with their old playbook. They're going to tap into the emotions of fear, anger, and envy. But that's not aspirational. That's not hope and change, and I don't think it's going to work anymore."

“It's a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and of the concepts of liberty, freedom, and self-determination. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. He believes that the pie is fixed and that he needs to more equitably divide up the slices.”

“We don't have a tax revenue problem in Washington, we have a spending problem in Washington.”

“On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan's speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.”

“I think Paul , for example, the head of the Budget Committee, has looked at the budget and has made a serious proposal. I've read it. I can tell you what's in it. And there's some ideas in there that I would agree with but there's some ideas we should have a healthy debate about because I don't agree with them. The major driver of our long-term liabilities, everybody here knows, is Medicare and Medicaid and our healthcare spending. Nothing comes close. That's going to be what our children have to worry about. Now, Paul's approach, and I want to be careful not to simplify this, I know you've got a lot of detail in your plan, but, if I understand it correctly, would say, we're going to provide vouchers of some sort for current Medicare recipients at the current level. No?”

“I find what happens is both parties speak to their party bases to win their primary elections, but what I think is necessary to have a national election worthy of being a majority party, we have to sell converts to conservatism. We have to go out and explain why our principles apply equally and universally to everybody and why our ideas are better than the alternatives.”

“But I also see a problem where a lot of people don't believe in the American idea anymore. The condition of your birth doesn't determine the outcome of your life. This is America, you can make it. You work hard, play by the rules, you can rise, you can do well. That's what we're taught, that's what we believe, that's what we think of as America. Problem is, there are just generations of people in this country who do not think that.”