Jason Chaffetz in Obama Q+A at the 2010 House Republican retreat

On Budget & Economy: No earmarks in any bills

Pres. OBAMA: We didn't have earmarks in the Recovery Act. We didn't get a lot of credit for it, but there were no earmarks in that. I was confronted at the beginning of my term with an omnibus package that did have a lot of earmarks from Republicans and Democrats whe we had to make a whole bunch of emergency decisions about the economy. So what I said was let's keep them to a minimum, but I couldn't excise them all. I think all of us are willing to acknowledge that some earmarks are perfectly defensible, good projects; it's just they haven't gone through the regular appropriations process in the full light of day. So one place to start is to make sure that they are at least transparent, that everybody knows what's there before we move forward.

On Government Reform: Disallow lobbyists in senior administration positions

Pres. OBAMA: I can stand here unequivocally and say that there has not been an administration who was tougher on making sure that lobbyists weren't participating in the administration than any administration that's come before us. Now, what we did was, if there were lobbyists who were on boards an commissions that were carryovers and their term hadn't been completed, we didn't kick them off. We simply said that moving forward any time a new slot opens, they're being replaced. There have been a handful of waivers where somebody is highly skilled--for example, a doctor who ran Tobacco-Free Kids technically is a registered lobbyist; on the other end, has more experience than anybody in figuring out how kids don't get hooked on cigarettes.

On Health Care: Healthcare debate should all be televised, as promised

Pres. OBAMA: If you look at the health care process--overwhelmingly the majority of it actually was on C-SPAN, because it was taking place in congressional hearings in which you guys were participating. Now, I kicked it off, by the way, with a meeting with many of you, including your key leadership. I take responsibility for not having structured it in a way where it was all taking place in one place that could be filmed. How to do that logistically would not have been as easy as it sounds, because you're shuttling back and forth between the House, different offices, different legislators. But I think it's a legitimate criticism. So on that one, I take responsibility.