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My feeling about executive bonuses is that any candidate for a chief executive job who even raises the issue of bonuses should be dismissed out of hand.

I don't think bonuses are always bad.

I think it's unrealistic for public-sector employees to believe that they are immune from modifications to their pay and benefit packages.

It's easy: if you want to grow the economy, encourage job creation, and increase federal revenue, you support making bonus depreciation permanent. Permanency gives job creators the certainty they need to plan and invest in their businesses, including hiring employees.

Taxpayer dollars should not be used as a reward for contractor executives, especially when other segments of society are hurting.

For me, there can be no higher public service than serving as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

All taxpayers feel a tremendous sense of frustration as they see many tens of billions of dollars of bonuses paid to the same mega banks that were on the brink of bankruptcy and were only saved by massive government rescue money and support. We are not satisfied by the fact that many of them have paid the money back, nor should we be.

I always am a firm believer in you compensate people for their job, and so I did give them bonuses. We accomplished a lot in Congress, we passed health care reform. There were threats against their lives; they had a tough two years. They'd forgone any cost-of-living increase or any bonus before.

There is no dispute that judges need a pay raise.

As a prosecutor, I got a paycheck for coming to work every day. I didn't get a promotion when I won, and I didn't get a demotion when I did a bad job.