Americans don't think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.

It just doesn't occur to an American that someone else will solve their problems. Americans take pride in solving problems for themselves. And if we fail, we get back up and try again. It's what we do. It's who we are.

I think there were two messages in last year's election. One is pretty obvious. People were mad as hell at the president [Barack Obama] - and wanted to send a message. We all got that. Our new members were also hearing, and I was hearing as well, that people didn't like the fact that the Congress was dysfunctional. Now they may have been confused about where the dysfunctionality was cause the president kept pointing to the House. Factually, that's not accurate. The dysfunction was in the Senate.

By their own admission, leaders of the Republican Revolution of 1994 think their greatest mistake was overlooking the power of the veto. They gave the impression they were somehow in charge when they weren't.

Americans don't think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.

It took us in this country 11 years to get from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution.

As the leader of the Republicans what I'm telling that we elected the president to be president. It's time for him to step up to the plate and lead us in the direction of reducing our excessive spending.