147 Quotes by Leon Panetta

Just when we should be getting ready for the 21st century, our education system is beginning to fall down in terms of preparing our students for that future.

I think the bottom line is, this is one of the few BRAC rounds in history where California comes out doing very well.

I think the most important thing for this president to do is to focus on trying to get some things done -- limited things done -- over these next 100 days, ... If he can get education reform accomplished, if he could do something on campaign reform in a bipartisan way, then that could send a very important signal to the American people that he's going to try to get things done.

Over the last 10 or 15 years, there's almost been a deliberate strategy to push all the tough decisions to the very end of a Congress, with the hope that you can ram them through as members try to get away for the holidays.

That confrontation, I think, clearly was in the minds of those who were sitting down at the table,

I think they're facing the largest challenge I've seen in recent history, in terms of an administration having to decide whether they continue to borrow and spend, or whether they face up to very difficult choices that have to be made to discipline the budget. I think we'll find out in the next few months what that decision is going to be.

There is a tremendous lack of leadership in both parties to address this issue.

Both sides of the spectrum are really going to use the opportunity provided by Katrina to really begin to test some ideas that they otherwise couldn't test.

The public does not translate the deficit into something that really bites them. We are going to have to get public support for action on the deficit.