W. Todd Akin: “Well, I think that Ronald Reagan, you know, he had a way of putting complicated things in simple words. He said we are…”

“Well, I think that Ronald Reagan, you know, he had a way of putting complicated things in simple words. He said we are buying more government than we can afford. That is not a bad summary of the situation. And it hasn't gotten better since Ronald Reagan was here--we are buying more government than we can afford. I appreciate your historic examples. Of course, there is no way Congress can do the example of the postal roads that you made out when we are trying to basically do everything under the sun, be all things to all people. We are going to have to make some decisions saying this is a nice thing to do, but it could be done by a State government or it could be done by the private sector. We are going to have to make some of those choices and just say, look, there are some things that the private sector and the States cannot do and we better fund that first. Certainly, providing for the common defense is one that has to be up at the front end, because the other governments can't do that, and the individual citizens can't do that.”