This opportunity – to make it to the middle class or beyond no matter where you start out in life – it isn't bestowed on us from Washington. It comes from a vibrant free economy where people can risk their own money to open a business.

We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.

I believe that the bigger problem is that we're seeing people who arrive from Cuba and a year and a day later are travelling to Cuba 40 times a year, they're staying, and that's hard to justify. The problem is not that I want to deny anything to anyone; it is the need to justify those laws.

Let us agree here today to adopt among ourselves a simple and unwritten rule. We will not rise to criticize someone else's idea unless we are prepared to offer an alternative idea of our own.

Ultimately, my proposal isn't intended to increase or decrease the amount of federal spending spent on antipoverty programs.

Americans chose a free enterprise system designed to provide a quality of opportunity, not compel a quality of results. And that is why this is only place in the world where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home.

For many of us who were born and raised in this country, including me, it's sometimes easy to forget how special America really is.