Jack Lew

“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.”

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

“I think the thing that the American people want is for the divisive debate on health care to stop.”

“Taxpayers can go online and find out more about the way their government works than ever before.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“We have to reduce the burden placed on our economy by years of deficits and debt.”

“Social Security is something that we need to deal with, because people who are working today, who will retire in the future, people who are retired today, they have a right - and it's part of the compact that they can depend on their benefits. We should fix the long-term funding problem of Social Security because that's the right thing to do.”

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

“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?'”

“I've been really privileged to work for two presidents - President Obama and President Clinton - who are both people of faith, who value faith, and who respect that others have the same feelings in their own lives.”

“There's a lot of trust being built up. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

“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.”

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

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

“We obviously would like to get unemployment as low as we possibly can.”

“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.”

“Congress should get the job done.”