You can't want reform more than a country itself does.

If having a separate vote on tax cuts turns out to be a means of getting a bipartisan balanced-budget agreement, we're open to that.

but I'm actually quite confident that we will iron it out and ? that we will have a more formal agreement quite soon.

In the end, there will be a successful launch of this round. The differences that exist now will get ironed out in the late- hour negotiations.

In the last three months, the economic performance was disappointing for middle-class families and below expectations -- the results that have become the norm for the economy under President Bush.

If you look at what is clearly in their plans, it will cost a lot of money. We have not seen the details and ... are claiming that by all accounts it is being paid for with the largest amount of gimmicks, supply side growth, and double counting in history.

If you care about progress in market opening, you are going to have to have more ambitious compacts for sharing the downside costs as well as the benefits of open trade, ... As economists, we talk about how the benefits of lower prices are broadly shared. But the costs are very heavily concentrated.

It's targeted toward people on welfare for a long time. It is not likely to just reward companies for people they would have hired anyway, but rather to provide those companies who are trying to do the right thing.

A tax cut that is $800 billion or $500 billion is an irresponsible tax cut that would threaten our ability to pay down the debt, secure Medicare, Social Security and education, ... Fox News Sunday.

They're trying to turn their focus on cuts to important domestic programs that weren't even part of the problem.