The people who are having the hard time right now are middle-income Americans. Under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried. They're just being crushed. Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a tax in and of itself. I'll call it the economy tax. It's been crushing.

This is a nation of immigrants. We welcome people coming to this country as immigrants. My dad was born in Mexico of American parents; Ann's dad was born in Wales and is a first-generation American. We welcome legal immigrants into this country.

China can be our partner, but that doesn't mean they can just roll all over us and steal our jobs on an unfair basis.

When the President is making it harder to mine coal, to use coal, to take advantage of our gas resources, to make it harder to get our oil resources - all those things combine to make our cost of energy higher than it needs to be, and it drives away enterprises from this country. It sends it to places that have lower-cost energy.

I have seen a lot of people, by the way, who were pro-life become pro-choice. No one seems to have any difficulty with that at all. That's easily accepted. But, if you are pro-choice and you become pro-life, there are a lot of folks, particularly in the media, who find that unacceptable.

People from both political parties have long recognized that welfare without work creates negative incentives that lead to permanent poverty. It robs people of self-esteem.

We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts. I support them. I won't chip away at them. I believe they help protect us and provide for our safety. I'm sure my positions won't make me the hero of the NRA.