Tom Vilsack People Quotations

If we can get people to focus on fruits and vegetables and more healthy foods, we'll be better in terms of our healthcare situation.

And sometimes people don't realize that 90 percent of the persistent poverty counties are located in rural America.

Rural Americans want leaders who help middle-class communities to plan and prosper over the long-term - not opportunists who reap the rewards for themselves, leaving nothing for the people who do the sowing.

Food is a fairly significant aspect of my life. I have struggled mightily with food. With my weight. And I'm conscious of it. So I have a sensitivity to people who struggle with their weight.

If you think of what food is, it's the energy we use to do our daily work. I want people to know about the USDA. This is a very important department. It's not fully appreciated as such.

I think the football coaches for Iowa and Iowa State would tell you they are some of the luckiest people in the world to have the job they have, ... Win, lose or draw, I'm sure they believe it's a great life. And that's how I feel about my job.

Every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are able to buy a little more in the grocery store, someone has to stock it, package it, shelve it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs. It's the most direct stimulus you can get in the economy during these tough times.

It was a little bit more frightening than the earthquake I was in, ... You could see the faces of people screaming at you.

If we used that fortress mentality and created a sense of security and security zones, and wait for the insurgents to come to us and don't go after them . . . and protect the people inside that zone, allow them to feel more comfortable and more confident and allow them to get an economy going . . . then at that point Iraqis are going to be more willing to assume the front lines of that fortress.

It's how you make decisions that matters, and that ought to be the question that people ask of any candidate for any executive office, whether it's mayor, governor or president. How do you make decisions? Who do you want in the room helping you make those decisions?

If we truly want an innovative and creative renewable fuel industry, then it needs to be challenged. And if we create a set of protections that allow it to not be as creative and innovative as possible, then we aren't doing a service to the industry or to the people of this country.