America is, and always will be, a shining city on a hill.

The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.

If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.

The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

I hope Americans will read and study the Bible in the coming year. It's my firm belief that the enduring values, as I say, presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation.

The American people aren't overtaxed. The government in Washington is overfed. The main difference between ourselves and the other side is: we see an America where every day is the Fourth of July. They see an America where every day is April 15.

If we miss this chance to make a fresh start, we may look back on this moment from some later vantage point and realize how much that failure cost us all.