As a fiscal conservative, I believe one of the most important roles the federal government can play in assuring that our economy remains strong is to keep our fiscal house in order.
I believe that the free enterprise system is the greatest engine of prosperity the world's ever known. I believe in self-reliance and individual initiative and risk-takers being rewarded. But I also believe that everybody should have a fair shot and everybody should do their fair share and everybody should play by the same rules, because that's how our economy's grown. That's how we built the world's greatest middle class.
As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press. A free press ensures the flow of information to the public, and let me say, during a time when the role of government in our lives and in our enterprises seems to grow every day--both at home and abroad - ensuring the vitality of a free and independent press is more important than ever.
Unless there is free and fair competition, there can't be healthy economic development. And what we have in Burma now is not an open-market economy that allows free and fair competition, but a form of colonialism makes a few people very, very wealthy. It's what you would crony capitalism.
An accurate census is critical to our democracy and to our economy. It underpins fair representation in government and allows us to ensure that our communities receive equitable funding for schools, roads, health care, and much more.
I've voted for Republicans who were strong on defense, who believed in a free and open economy but who also understood that there's a place for government in our lives, that government has a responsibility to those of our citizens who are in need and those of our citizens who are needy of health care.
I believe that when we have millions of hard-working immigrants contributing to our economy, it would be self-defeating and inhumane to try to kick them out. Comprehensive immigration reform will grow our economy and keep families together, and it's the right thing to do.
Americans are better off in a dynamic, free-enterprise-based economy that fosters economic growth, opportunity and upward mobility instead of a stagnant, government-directed economy that stifles job creation and fosters government dependency.
Government is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that's at the state, local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look, at some point, you cease being a free economy, and you become a government economy. And we've got to stop that.
I believe that our economy is not a one- or two-percent growth economy; I believe it can grow at four percent, and we can revitalize our economy if we do the right things.
There's an inverse relationship between the size and scope of government and the health of our free-market economy.
All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.
Corporations are a good thing. But corporations should not be running our government... They have driven the American economy since its founding, and the prosperity of our country is largely dependent on the free operation of corporations. But some corporations don't want free markets, and they don't want democracy. They want profits.
A famous, very often quoted phrase says: "That government is best, which governs least." I do not believe this to be a correct description of of the functions of a good government. Government ought to do all the things for which it is needed and for which it is established. Government ought to protect the individuals within the country against the violent and fraudulent attacks of gangsters, and it should defend the country against foreign enemies. These are the functions of government within a free system, within the system of the market economy.
To look at long term trends in our economy, in our society, in the international sphere and using my best judgment, shape policies that will serve the American people, keep them safe, keep our economy growing, put people back to work.
We are shrinking the size of the federal government as a percent of our economy from over 21 percent of the economy to 19 percent of the economy. At the same time, we're growing the private economy.