As much as I hate to say it, what I'm coming to realize is that all we're really able to do is put the brakes on. Imagine going real fast in a Flintstones car, and my heel is out there. I went to Washington to change the world, and all I can do is put my heel out.
We've got the power of the purse in the Congress.
Census data influences decisions made from Main Street to Wall Street, in Congress and with the Federal Reserve. Not to mention, the American people who look to, and trust, the data the government releases on our nation's unemployment, state of our economy, and health insurance coverage.
I will continue to fight to secure our borders and implement common sense policies aimed at reducing violence and the flow of illegal narcotics, firearms, people, and money across our borders.
I'm a Texan - my idea of gun control is hitting what you aim at and nothing else.
I feel like my mandate when I was elected was to go reduce the size of government, lower taxes, and increase freedom, and freedom isn't free, and sometimes you have to make a small sacrifice to move forward with what you're after.
The census should not be political.
Human trafficking robs victims of their basic human rights, and it occurs right under our noses. Many efforts have been focused in other regions of the world, but this is a major problem here at home.
Companies that are hosting Web sites or do a lot of teleconferencing need a lot of bandwidth going both ways.
I sit on the House Judiciary Committee, where we've been actively working on concrete solutions to fix our nation's immigration policy, piece-by-piece.
Drug testing for recipients of various welfare programs - I really think that's something that needs to be considered.
I've already composed and written a letter to the House administration telling them to withhold my paycheck in the event of a lapse of appropriations.
If you are just using the service to look at Web sites and download e-mail, then a DSL line may be cheaper. It is when you have more data going out that wireless can make a difference.
I think a fair amount of my votes were 'not-for-Ortiz,' votes and I'm going to have to work hard to earn the 'for Blake' votes.
My subcommittee will be thoroughly investigating this issue and demanding answers from Census officials on allegations that the Census Bureau is changing the wording of survey questions used to determine our nation's annual report on health insurance coverage.
It's said that you can tell a lot about someone by who opposes them. In the case of liberal pundit Bill Maher - a man who called America's actions cowardly in the wake of 9/11 and who mocked WWII veterans who wanted to visit the monument built in their honor - I wear his disapproval of me as a badge of honor.
Why should guns be treated different than toasters? If your defective product injures somebody, you're responsible for it.
I've been through several of his campaigns, and I can tell you nobody can out-campaign Rick Perry.
I went in with the youthful vigor that I could single-handedly change the world. But you fast come to the realization that you're 1/435th of one-half of one-third of the government.
Nobody in the Washington regulatory bureaucracy gets fired for saying no.
