Jim DeMint

It does appear that one of our best sources of leverage at this point is to put that pressure back on them.

It does send a message to them and the world and I think highlights what we know has been going on; continues to go on.

We in a sense rewarded bad behavior, hoping we'd create good behavior, and we got worse behavior than we had before.

It appears that this is maybe one of the few things we could do at this point that could actually put some pressure on them.

I appreciate you bringing up the law because that threshold of law was met by North Korea in both the Bush administration and the Obama administration.

will we respond or will we make the same mistakes again?

But this is a political bankruptcy and the government has been a part of picking winners and losers.

That's political decisionmaking there because this is a dealer who is selling a whole lot of cars and investing a whole lot of money.

I think it is starting to hit all of us in the face what government-managed economies feel like.

If we wanted to look at who to blame as far as how we ended up with two great companies in bankruptcy, we certainly have to look at management, maybe we look at the government policies, high levels of taxation at Federal and State levels…

That's what political decisionmaking does. Because that's not an economic decision.

We were told we had to vote for this TARP bill or the whole world economic system would collapse the next day.

To me this is not a mission creep. This is a stampede of any traditional understanding of constitutional boundaries.

It seems that we're in rare agreement here as a committee and everyone who has been in front of us that we need to move ahead with NextGen as quickly as we can.

Hopefully it will be bipartisan, not to serve our goals, but to serve those folks who trust us every day for their safety.

I think we are absolutely convinced and have indicated as much to the DOT and the Administration, that if we can find a way to have an additional $6 billion to $7 billion investment over the next few years, we can jumpstart this process…

We must not let the current peace cause us to let down our defenses.

if our NATO allies, particularly the older ones, know they have--that there's a real threat, if there's any kind of attack, that we'll be there, that our resources, our soldiers, they're there.

Our concern--our fear--was not that Europe was too strong, but that Europe was too weak.

Clearly, NATO is very important to the United States. I mean, it's the only cohesive group on the side of freedom right now.

The lack of unity and strategic focus could erode the alliance's willingness to defend the shared values that created NATO.

we are a superpower with global responsibilities, and we tend to, over time... implement our commitments.

In the long run, what are the countries who are most likely to have similar interests with us that we can build coalitions with and work closely with in the future?

I think it is prudent, important, and imperative that the alliance think through on how to deal with that threat.

I am especially concerned by the role Russia is playing inside the Alliance.