The problem is that the economy isn't growing fast enough to accommodate the level of spending produced through the democratic process.
The reason prescription drugs are so important at the state level is because they're eating up the Medicaid budget.
Raising the debt limit on some levels is a ministerial act. It doesn't involve any new spending.
Presidents Truman and Nixon left office under dark clouds of scandal and with abysmal levels of support, but with the passage of time, both have been reassessed far more positively.
If you're a journalist - and I think, on some level, I'm a journalist, and proud to be a journalist, or a documentarian, however you want to describe it - part of what I do has to be the pursuit of the truth.
I think it's in human nature to want to have more, to compete with the other and, at some level, to be dissatisfied if someone else has more than you.
Above all, in comedy, and again and again since classical times, passages can be found in which the level of representation is interrupted by references to the spectators or to the fictive nature of the play.
Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
What I do believe in is other worlds and spirits. There is some other power in control - levels of energy that perhaps we don't see.
But I believe we have a higher level of mentality within us, but we have to use the power in the right way.
I think that the relationship between two top-level athletes who are rivals is one of the most fascinating human relationships to explore. It's always one atom away from being a tragedy.
Every relationship has its own language. It takes a long time to evolve and read one another. Just as it's true for people, it's also true on a national or cultural level.
There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.
For someone who's had the level of success I've had, there's been very little critical review of my work, which is pretty fascinating.
But once I went for it, left my inhibitions aside and saw its eventual success, it made me much more comfortable and eager THIS time around to take it to a whole new level.
My career has suddenly started to be the one that I'd always wanted, not in terms of level of success, but in terms of - and this is what I've been banging on about - playing different parts in different media.
What has marked Chinese society is its level of cruelty, not just revolutions and wars. We ought to reject it totally, otherwise in another upheaval there will be further cruelty.
I didn't go to university. Didn't even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.
When it comes to hockey, it's been in my blood since I was 3 or 4 years old. I love coaching the kids, especially at that level.
Baseball is about talent, hard work, and strategy. But at the deepest level, it's about love, integrity, and respect.
I don't want to waste my energy in other things; instead, I would put all that in reaching the next level in a craft that I love the most.
