We can't give excessive, unfettered power to a president to act alone, to bind an entire country to a set of principles, a set of rules that the president, him or herself, makes.
I tell the story of eight forgotten founders, people like Canassatego, an Iroquois Indian Chief, who taught Benjamin Franklin about federalism, about the idea that you can form a confederacy in which the central power has only limited powers and local control is retained.
The founding generation would be amazed. It would be surprised. I think it would be very impressed by what has happened since then in terms of our exploding population; in terms of the success of this country economically and otherwise.
When people were subjected to the impeachment and removal process, Aaron Burr was right there, looking out for their rights, even though it wasn't in his political interest to do so.
I'm nobody's deputy. I am who I am. I'm my own person.
Do we want more of the same regulatory mission creep that has helped to harm America's poor and middle class? Do we want more of the policies that have stifled growth? Or do we want something else, something different, something that focuses on the need to reevaluate the size, the scope, the cost, the reach of the federal government?
My political views have since I was a kid someway or another reflected the concerns of Tea Party movement.
I think I was about 30 before I realized that not every family talks about the presentment clause on a regular basis.
If we were all to chase every squirrel that comes running along in the form of a personal dispute or a mischaracterization of someone, or someone's integrity or intent, we'd be very busy doing that and not focusing on the government, on that which we need to reform internally.
The Tea Party movement as I perceive it is all about recognizing the difference between state and federal powers. And that there are limits to federal power that need to be respected.
You know, in a business, you have to operate on the basis of voluntary investment by individuals in a cause. With government, there is no voluntary effort to invest capital. It's just taken and invested. And the same accountability is not at play. The same natural forces in the economy are not at play.
It is not nothing to ask someone holding an election certificate in the United States Senate to provide his or her vote.
I think declaring a no fly zone over foreign soil is tantamount to an act of war.
When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.
You have six of the ten wealthiest counties in America surround Washington, D.C., and the poor and middle class are getting squeezed while people at the top and people with influence in government seem always to be doing better.
It is simply science fiction fantasy to say that, if you do not raise the debt ceiling, that everything is going to collapse.
We can't legislate the creation of jobs, but we can legislate things that will allow jobs to be created.
My purpose is to call on my colleagues, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, to get behind the agenda of trying to reform the government and make it work for the people rather than the other way around.
I would vote against raising the national debt ceiling. Again, this is about mortgaging the future of unborn generations of Americans. It's a form of taxation without representation. I don't think we can do that.
I want to be one that is willing to do things that are not easy but that need to be done.
