We want to have a system where people can come here and work - go back and forth if they want to... so that we have an open door to the people who want to come and contribute to our country, who want to come and make a difference in their families' lives and our economy.
— Paul Ryan
As Republicans, our challenge is to become a pro-market party and not be a pro-business party.
I am a pro-growth, constitutional, limited government conservative. So I'm going to speak out for what I believe in - the kind of inclusive, aspirational, optimistic politics which unites people.
I'm going to speak my mind. I'm going to defend conservatism as I understand it. I'm going to defend our ideas as the Republican Party.
The American people are ready for solutions, and Donald Trump offers a chance to move in a new direction.
Everyone is equal. Everyone has a place. No one is written off, because there is worth and goodness in every life... That is the Republican ideal. And if we won't defend it, who will?
I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country's interest.
We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.
Today, if you were raised poor, you're just as likely to stay poor as you were 50 years ago.
People have a constitutional right to have semiautomatic rifles.
My mom's now enjoying Medicare. She's already retired. She earned it. But for those of us, you know, the X-Generation on down, it won't be there for us on its current path.
This is what life is like with the Clintons. It is one scandal after another, and you never know what's coming next. They use the system to enrich themselves.
I've been really clear about this. If you want to be president, you should run for president. We should select our nominee from among the people who are running for president. Clear and simple. So no, I am not going to be the president. I am not going to be the nominee.
President Obama is the kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the record. But we are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but this economy as we are living it.
Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program, and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate.
The president has declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. That will come as news to the millions of Americans who will elect Mitt Romney so we can repeal Obamacare.
The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst.
America is more than just a country. It's more than Chicago or Wisconsin. It's more than our borders. America is an idea. It's a very precious idea.
I cannot and I will not give up my family. I may not be on the road as often as previous speakers, but I pledge to make up for it with more time communicating our vision, our message.
I believe that if we do not prevent Medicare from going bankrupt, it will go bankrupt. And that will be bad for everybody. We have to tackle our debt crisis. We have to tackle the drivers of our debt.
If you want to change a law, you have to pass a law. Presidents don't write laws. Congress writes laws.
Some of our best and biggest allies in this struggle and fight against radical Islamic terror are Muslims, the vast, vast, vast majority of whom are people who believe in pluralism, freedom, democracy, individual rights.
In America, aren't we all supposed to see beyond class, see beyond ethnicity? Are all these lines drawn to set us apart and lock us into groups?
I would sue any president that exceeds his or her powers.
I'm tired of divided government. It doesn't work very well.
What we need is a safety net that lifts people out of poverty - that helps them earn a good paycheck so they can support themselves.
We think there are better solutions to fighting poverty because we see what the War on Poverty has produced. It produced tens of trillions of dollars in spending. It has been a 51-year exercise, and yet the poverty rates in America today are not much better than when we started the War on Poverty.
There are a lot of regulations that are really just crushing jobs. Look at the coal miners in the Rust Belt that are getting out of work. Look at the - look at the loggers and the timber workers and the paper mills in the West Coast. Look at the ranchers or farmers in the Midwest with regulations.
This is our job as leaders: to offer positive solutions and empower people. Our duty is to tackle our problems before they tackle us.
The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we're going to stop it.
We have a plan for a stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years.
Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn't even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we're going to stop it.
Obamacare comes to more than two thousand pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees, and fines that have no place in a free country.
So here's the question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?
We see ourselves in the House as sort of the engine room of the ship of the Republican Party. We're down in the bottom... in the bowels shoveling coal into the furnace. And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with coal.
Freedom of religion is a fundamental Constitutional principle. It's a founding principle of this country.
We are in a global economy whether we like it or not. And we believe - I believe - that America should be at the table writing the rules of the global economy instead of China.
If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people's prejudices.
I saw Donald Trump give a spirited voice to those of us who don't like the status quo, and I see emerging in front of us the potential for what a unified Republican government can get you, which can be the solutions.
I want to go get trade agreements because if America walls itself up, if we address sort of an economic fortress America, we will lose.
When you question this war on poverty, you get all the criticisms from adherents to the status quo who just don't want to see anything change. We got to have the courage to face that down, just as we did in the welfare reform of the late 1990s, and if we succeeded, we can help resuscitate this culture and get people back to work.
Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.
I grew up hunting with Remington 7400s, which are semiautomatic rifles.
I actually think you should run for president if you're going to be president, if you want to be president. I'm not running for president. I made that decision, consciously, not to.
We have to bring relief as fast as possible to people who are struggling under Obamacare.
Obamacare rewrote Medicare... so if you're going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well... What people don't realize is that Medicare is going broke, that Medicare is going to have price controls... So you have to deal with those issues if you're going to repeal and replace Obamacare.
A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare, for my Mom's generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours.
Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores - these didn't come out of nowhere.
And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly.
What did the taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt. That money wasn't just spent and wasted - it was borrowed, spent, and wasted.
