Social Security was always supposed to be basically, in theory, an insurance program where you pay in and then you get out.

I think, like everybody else in New Hampshire, when I pull up to fill up my car and I pay $50, I get upset. And I'm wondering if these prices are legitimate.

This nation is on a course where if we don't do something about it, get federal situation, the fiscal policy [under control], we're Greece. We're a banana republic. Our status as a nation is threatened by what we’ve got coming at us in the area of deficit and debt. And it’s only a few more years, at the most, that we have to work with here before the market says, ‘Sorry, your currency is something we can not continue to defend.’

The government has made $44 trillion in promises we can't afford to keep. We must get serious now about our long-term budgetary problems, recognizing that the sooner we act, the less painful the choices will be.

I've always been a strong supporter of environmental protection and initiatives in that area. But I'm willing to set priorities. If we have to make reductions in one place, we'll have to-in order to increase another place, I'm willing to do that.

I have never been opposed to earmarks.

There are people who wish to do us harm in the most heinous way. They want to kill Americans simply because they are Americans. They wish to destroy our culture and Nation because they don't like our freedoms, they don't like the fact that we are prosperous.