You can do a lot of damage if you try to answer a question part-way.
— Mike Lee
The founding generation would be amazed. It would be surprised. I think it would be very impressed by what has happened since then in terms of our exploding population; in terms of the success of this country economically and otherwise.
It is not nothing to ask someone holding an election certificate in the United States Senate to provide his or her vote.
Do we want more of the same regulatory mission creep that has helped to harm America's poor and middle class? Do we want more of the policies that have stifled growth? Or do we want something else, something different, something that focuses on the need to reevaluate the size, the scope, the cost, the reach of the federal government?
A lot of people feel left out by a government that taxes too much and regulates them too heavily and seems to result in a set of circumstances where economic and political incumbents benefit at everybody else's expense.
My purpose is to call on my colleagues, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, to get behind the agenda of trying to reform the government and make it work for the people rather than the other way around.
Whether it's a penalty or a tax, it's all one in the same. It's coming out of somebody's hard-earned money in their pocketbooks and that's the point. So in some ways, to me, it's a distinction without a difference.
The Tea Party movement as I perceive it is all about recognizing the difference between state and federal powers. And that there are limits to federal power that need to be respected.
When you have less revenue coming in the door, you have more money going out the door. You have to find ways of trimming.
We can't legislate the creation of jobs, but we can legislate things that will allow jobs to be created.
I would vote against raising the national debt ceiling. Again, this is about mortgaging the future of unborn generations of Americans. It's a form of taxation without representation. I don't think we can do that.
The American people want a balanced budget. They want Congress to stop this barbaric practice of perpetual deficit spending. It really, if you think about it, is a form of taxation without representation. We fought a war over that issue and we won that war.
I'm someone who has a hard time turning down a conversation. And an even harder time starting a conversation and ending it abruptly - ending it before it's over.
When people were subjected to the impeachment and removal process, Aaron Burr was right there, looking out for their rights, even though it wasn't in his political interest to do so.
We have brought down emissions in this country through our legal system and through technological innovation. We can do this on our own. We don't have to have the permission of countries all over the world to do that.
We've got tax and regulatory policies in this country that are driving a lot of businesses overseas, and so I think there's a lot that we can do using principles of constitutionally limited government to help address people who share these concerns.
What I am saying is that Donald Trump can still get a lot of votes from a lot of conservatives like me, but I would like some assurances on where he's going to stand his ground. I'd like some assurances that he's going to be a vigorous defender for the U.S. Constitution.
The best thing we can do when we want to elevate civil dialogue in our American political discourse is to do whatever we can to make sure we treat others kindly with dignity and respect, and that's what I intend to do.
I'm nobody's deputy. I am who I am. I'm my own person.
My political views have since I was a kid someway or another reflected the concerns of Tea Party movement.
The Tea Party has an important voice in the country and now they have a voice in the U.S. Senate.
You know, in a business, you have to operate on the basis of voluntary investment by individuals in a cause. With government, there is no voluntary effort to invest capital. It's just taken and invested. And the same accountability is not at play. The same natural forces in the economy are not at play.
When you have a country that's been accustomed to government spending at a certain level, it is really hard to ratchet it back.
I think declaring a no fly zone over foreign soil is tantamount to an act of war.
There's a lot of bipartisan rancor, a lot of excessive delegation of legislative power from the legislative branch to the executive branch.
At any given time, when there is a Republican president, typically we regard that person as the leader of the Republican Party.
We can't give excessive, unfettered power to a president to act alone, to bind an entire country to a set of principles, a set of rules that the president, him or herself, makes.
You have six of the ten wealthiest counties in America surround Washington, D.C., and the poor and middle class are getting squeezed while people at the top and people with influence in government seem always to be doing better.
If we were all to chase every squirrel that comes running along in the form of a personal dispute or a mischaracterization of someone, or someone's integrity or intent, we'd be very busy doing that and not focusing on the government, on that which we need to reform internally.
I tell the story of eight forgotten founders, people like Canassatego, an Iroquois Indian Chief, who taught Benjamin Franklin about federalism, about the idea that you can form a confederacy in which the central power has only limited powers and local control is retained.
We ought to have more people who believe in constitutionally limited government. We have to have more people come to Congress with that mindset. I think we can make this a better place, if, when elections happen, we support candidates who share that philosophy.
I think I was about 30 before I realized that not every family talks about the presentment clause on a regular basis.
It is simply science fiction fantasy to say that, if you do not raise the debt ceiling, that everything is going to collapse.
I don't want a government shutdown. I don't think anyone does.
I want to be one that is willing to do things that are not easy but that need to be done.
