The federal government cannot maintain a budget surplus any more than an alcoholic can leave a fresh bottle of whiskey untouched in the cupboard.

When things go badly, individuals look for scapegoats. I just do not believe that barbed-wire fences or guns on our border will solve any of our problems.

Some members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that, in a constitutional republic, the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the jobs of government officials easier.

If economy were good, there'd be no immigration problem.

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government, to protect liberty - not to run your personal life, not to run the economy, and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.

Without question, the true goal of some in Congress is to create a system of socialized medicine. It's politically expedient to slap a "patients’ rights" label on legislation that simply leads us closer to a complete government takeover of medicine.

We'd love it if we could all just come home and not worry about the rest of the world. But the problem is, they attacked us on 9/11. We were here; they attacked us.