I have yet to have a small business person sit at that table and say that they felt that we did not have any effect.

the real elephant in the room is the fact that we don't have enough revenue to continue to build a business model that would make sense in the private sector.

Now, I am understanding some of the people that I represent, some of their increases are going to be 38 to 40 percent.

I come from the private sector, and I was not here whenever the healthcare law was debated and then passed, but I can tell you as a person who actually provides insurance for the people that I work with, we have seen premiums--this is for…

When you take in $1 in premium and pay out $1.20 in claims, that is not a sustainable business model.

When you indulge in deficit spending for too long a period of time there is no bright light at the end of the tunnel other than maybe a freight train coming at you.

You are calling out things that you see on the horizon, kind of sending out warning flags of, look, we are not going to be able to sustain this kind of program if we don't do something dramatic soon.

So all the revenue we collect comes out of working people. And we have seen a very low labor participation rate.

This program that we say is solvent, we don't have to worry about it, in over 80 years we have built some type of a surplus, it is a paper surplus.

We have such an opportunity, but we have got to be stronger. If we are a strong country, we are a strong country.

What I think bothers me is when we are the most attractive market in the world, why did we end up with such lousy trade agreements?

Well, the clock is running out on all our businesses. This is the thing that bothers me.

It is wrong. You know it is wrong, and the people you work with know it is wrong.

Just because it is the law doesn't make it right.

What was so obvious then that is so clouded now?

This is extortion. The practice of obtaining money, property, or services through coercion, force, or threats is synonymous with a shakedown.

We just keep talking about this for so long.

You need champions that are going to rise up to say, 'You have hurt our people. You have done terrible wrong to our people, and it has to be remedied.'

We have to have a committee meeting to talk about people who are being wronged.

These are not people who are terrorists. These are not people who are running some kind of a drug chain.

When we can get to the point that we look at each other and decide we are going to do what is right for the American people.

We have a lot of food pantries... and we need more of that because there are a lot of people who really want to help people.

You know who couldn't give a damn about it? People in the IRS. They don't care how much they crush you.

I think they more than deserve a little bit better return on that.

But without a baseline we don't know.