Jim DeMint

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.

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

I believe there was as much planned expansion of long-term government spending and place markers for ever-expanding government programs in the package as there was government actions to actually try to stimulate spending, production, and…

I am concerned about overreach by the Administration on expanding the size of government and setting up costly and most likely inefficient programs that will stay with us forever and be paid for by hard-working Americans.

Of course, debt eventually has to be paid off, and that means higher taxes for our children and our grandchildren.

Until recently, there was not much debate on whether the New Deal helped or hurt efforts to recover.

What lessons can Congress learn from the New Deal that can help drive our economy today?

The one lesson we should draw is the United States did indeed recover from the Great Depression, and we will indeed recover from today's recession.

We cannot draw lessons from every aspect of the Great Depression or from FDR's response.

The fact remains that Afghanistan is a critical front in what will continue to be a global war on terror.

How do we not end up with antiquated technology, and so forth?

I share a concern of the Chairman when I heard what Mr. Wright said, and compared to Mr. Krakowski, that the working relationship might not be what we want.

Modernization is much more critical today as we see congestion, not only in the air, but on the roads.

We need to figure out how we can be flexible enough as a country to constantly improve and upgrade technology.

I believe that the U.S. use of force in Kosovo was both lawful and the right thing to have done.

I particularly appreciate the fact that in a role with Iraq that it was very important to honor the bravery, the sacrifices of our troops over many years.

The number of cell phones in state and Federal facilities across the country is continuing to rise at an alarming rate.

Now is clearly not the time to increase taxes.

We need to prevent speculative and highly leveraged excesses from threatening the stability of our entire national and global financial system.

That means private gains on the upside and public losses on the downside. And that is not a desirable or acceptable system.

It is probably easier to get $1 trillion out of Congress than it is to get any good policy out of Congress.

I appreciate you being here today. On a day when we passed a $1 trillion stimulus and you announced another $1 or $2 trillion for a financial bailout, the stock market is down nearly 400 points.

It's important for us to win the hearts of those people before other people with bad intentions win their hearts.

I've heard of what kind of dysfunction it creates when you have hundreds of folks on this side sending multiple projects.

We don't need the Federal Government now to deal with secondary roads and bridges.