"People don't trust private health insurance companies for all the right reasons."

"As a result of the digital age and the decline of first-class mail, there is no question that the Postal Service must change and develop a new business model."

"Let's be honest, dental care in America is extremely expensive, period."

"I'm not much into speculation."

"You know, let me be very clear. I supported Barack Obama originally."

"What the American people want to see in their president is somebody who not necessarily can win every fight, but they want to see him stand up and fight for what he believes, take his case to the American people."

"You want to know the way to raise money? Put a transaction fee on Wall Street, so maybe we can curb some of the speculation and raise some money."

"Of course the Republicans have long wanted to privatize Social Security and destroy it. But Social Security has been the most important and valuable social program in the history of the United States."

"I thought the Bush economic policy was a disaster. We lost 500,000 private sector jobs during his tenure."

"There is nobody that I know who believes that Bank of America is a human being who should be entitled for the same constitutional rights that the people of our country are."

"I think the American people in many cases want to transform our energy system."

"I am sure that there are some single payer advocates who think the only thing worth fighting for is single payer."

"I don't consider myself a pariah."

"I'm not a Democrat, I'm an Independent, but I caucus with the Democrats."

"I come from a rural state. People drive 50, 100 miles to and from work every single day. That is true all over America."

"The bottom line is that when Senator Inhofe says, 'Global warming is a hoax,' he is just dead wrong, according to the vast majority of climate scientists."

"CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make. That is not what America is supposed to be about."

"Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit."

"Social Security is a promise that we cannot and must not break."

"You've got the top 400 Americans owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. Most folks do not think that is right."

"Who do you think controls the Republican Party? Big money controls the Republican Party. This is where their campaign contributions come from."

"The Fed has got to become a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs."

"Washington is dominated by big money."

"If you look at the newspapers here - the Washington papers - most of the discussion deals with campaign gossip."

"These are the same people who believe, in some cases, the federal government should not play any role in providing health care to our people or protecting the environment."

"In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign."

"The Federal Reserve has a responsibility to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and to contain systemic risks in financial markets."

"The Federal Reserve needs to provide small businesses in America with the same low-interest loans it gave to foreign banks."

"We need an energy revolution by breaking our dependence on fossil fuels, polluting fuels... I am very, very confident our small state will lead this. We will be noticed by the country and the world."

"You go to Scandinavia, and you will find that people have a much higher standard of living, in terms of education, health care and decent paying jobs."

"I think it makes people in the Pentagon kind of nervous to know that chemical agents and environmental factors could cause so much damage in terms of what may happen in the future."

"What some of us believe is that it is possible that if chemicals are related to Gulf War illness that some of the more severe symptoms may not erupt until 10 or 20 years down the line."

"A president and a party that can provide insurance for 31 million more Americans is far preferable to most voters than a party that only says, 'No.'"

"Progressive activists are angry that a Medicare-for-all single-payer approach was totally ignored during the health care debate."

"It is incomprehensible that drug companies still get away with charging Americans twice as much, or more, than citizens of Canada or Europe for the exact same drugs manufactured by the exact same companies."

"You know, I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street. In truth that's not the case. The real truth is that Wall Street regulates the Congress."

"The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed's lending programs during the financial crisis."

"Danes pay very high taxes, but in return enjoy a quality of life that many Americans would find hard to believe."

"At its worst, Washington is a place where name-calling partisan politics too often trumps policy."

"What the Ten Million Solar Roofs Act does is provide consumer rebates for the purchase and installation of solar systems."

"General Electric, NBC's parent, is one of the largest corporations in the world, with an anti-labor history of outsourcing jobs and with financial links to military and nuclear power industries."

"In cold weather states like Vermont, where the weather can get to 20 below zero, home heating assistance is critically important. In fact, it is a life and death issue."

"The Postal Service is a vitally important institution for the American people. It must be saved."

"For better or worse, when Sen. Inhofe speaks, the Republican Party follows. And when the Republican Party follows, it is impossible to get real work done in the Congress."

"Two-thirds of the directors at the New York Fed are hand-picked by the same bankers that the Fed is in charge of regulating."

"There are a lot of smart honest, progressive people who I think can be good presidents."

"The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often."

"Yes, we become stronger when black and whites, Latino, Asian American, Native American, when all of us stand together."

"Today the biggest problem in caring for those with AIDS is no longer mainly a medical or scientific problem. The crisis is access to affordable drugs."

"Former Senator Al D'Amato in 1991 offered an amendment to cap credit card interest rates at 14 percent."