The White House has a choice: They can change course, or they can double down on a vision of government that the American people have roundly rejected.

The bill that job creators and out-of-work Americans need us to pass is the one that ensures taxes won't go up - one that says Americans and small-business owners won't get hit with more bad news at the end of the year.

It's a shame that the president doesn't embrace the effort to reduce spending. None of us like using situations like the sequester or the debt ceiling or the operation of government to try to engage the president to deal with this.

Tiger Woods and John Edwards had a better year than the stimulus bill.

It's a shame that we have to use whatever leverage we have in Congress to get the president to deal with the biggest problem confronting our future. And that's our excessive spending.

The president feels not only do we need to change these rogue regimes, but even our friendly allies, who really basically have, sort of, benign dictatorships, need to get with the program if they want to have long-term security and prosperity from terrorism.

Are we still a country that takes risks, that innovates, that believes anything is possible? Or are we a country that is resigned to whatever liberty the government decides to dish out?