Jacob Lew Quotes

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

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#3. 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.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#7. Most Americans want health insurance.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#9. The reason to deal with Social Security is that it is a system where we have a tradition and history of making sure it is solidly funded for 75 years. At the moment, we look out and we see it is solidly funded until 2037.

Jacob Lew

#10. 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.

Jacob Lew

#11. 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.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#15. 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.

Jacob Lew

#16. 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.

Jacob Lew

#17. 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.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#19. 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.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#21. Congress should get the job done.

Jacob Lew

#22. There are lots of ways to work together.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#24. 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?'

Jacob Lew

#25. We obviously would like to get unemployment as low as we possibly can.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

#27. Europe is trying to get its fiscal house in order.

Jacob Lew

#28. 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.

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew

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

Jacob Lew