Your week in political quotes

(LIN) – Another showdown was avoided as congressional members reached a deal to extend the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits.

" It's a very good deal for the country."--Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., announcing the initial details of the payroll and benefits bill. The legislation costs almost $150 billion and would extend the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for 160 million American workers through 2012.

" We're moving forward."--Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., on his take of the developing news. Both Baucus and Camp were the top negotiators on the legislation.

"We can cut back on the things that we don't need, but we also have to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share for the things that we do need."--President Barack Obama, speaking at a community college after unveiling a $3.8 trillion budget for 2013.

"It seems like the president has decided again to campaign instead of govern and that he's just going to duck this country's fiscal problems."--House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., after Obama released his budget plan.

"It was this Congress that mandated, on a bi-partisan basis, that we reduce the defense budget, and we need your partnership to do this in a manner that preserves the strongest military in the world."--Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, defending his department's slimmed-down, $614 billion budget plan, telling senators that it's time to step up and show they are serious about reducing the deficit.

"I am here to engage with a broad section of American society to help deepen the friendship between the Chinese and American people."--Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, at a state dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. Xi wanted to see the American heartland during his trip because of its agricultural similarities to China.

"He's more interactive than past Chinese leaders. He looks you in the eye, and you feel he's conversing with you."--Jeff Bader, East Asia policy director during the first two years of the Obama administration, speaking about Xi.

"The General Assembly is dangerously close to making Virginia the first state in the country to grant personhood rights to fertilized eggs."--Tarina Keene of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, after a Republican supermajority muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the Virginia House.

"Iran is behind these attacks and it is the largest terror exporter in the world."--Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, blaming Iran for bomb attacks on its diplomats' cars in India and Georgia, heightening concerns that the Jewish state was moving closer to striking its archenemy.

"As I was looking at some of the really industrial-size locks, I was thinking about the fact that I am the father of two girls who are soon to be in high school and it might come in handy to have these super-locks."--Obama, in a trip to Wisconsin’s Master Lock Company to tout his economic plans.