Yes, the deficit doctors have their scalpels out all right, but they're not poised over the budget. That's as fat as ever and getting fatter. What they're ready to operate on is your wallet.

Freedom is indivisible - there is no "s" on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep "some freedoms" while giving up others.

Where others fear trade and economic growth, we see opportunities for creating new wealth and undreamed-of opportunities for millions in our own land and beyond. Where others seek to throw up barriers, we seek to bring them down; where others take counsel of their fears, we follow our hopes.

For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

With our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.

Don't let the doom criers and the cynics persuade you that the best is past.

The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual.