The American people want a balanced budget. They want Congress to stop this barbaric practice of perpetual deficit spending. It really, if you think about it, is a form of taxation without representation. We fought a war over that issue and we won that war.

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.

When you have less revenue coming in the door, you have more money going out the door. You have to find ways of trimming.

The USA Freedom Act does not propose that we abandon any and all efforts to analyze telephone data, what we're talking about here is a program that currently contemplates the collection of all data just as a routine matter and the aggregation of all that data in one database. That causes concerns for a lot of people... There's a lot of potential for abuse.

Limited government must come politically, not judicially.

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.

I think I was about 30 before I realized that not every family talks about the presentment clause on a regular basis.