Jim DeMint

The State Department's failure to issue a construction permit for the Keystone XL pipeline... is estimated to create over 13,000 high-wage manufacturing and construction jobs.

By the Obama Administration's own standards, its stimulus plan has failed spectacularly to create jobs.

The only sure-fire training and skill development program I know of is actually having a job.

On taxes, spending, trade, and regulation, every signal from federal policymakers to job creating businesses and entrepreneurs is that success will be punished.

Every news report about ongoing debt limit negotiation reaffirms the Administration's insistence on new taxes.

The liability of doing business in America seems to continue to increase, and periodic episodes like the National Labor Relations Board going after a company like Boeing just tell us that it appears that this Administration, and even this…

Somehow, we have to resolve this duplicity.

My question is about the environment you'll be working in, and whether or not you'll have the courage to speak up against some of the most anti-business policies I think we've ever seen in our country.

Why does President Obama have an obsession with raising taxes?

It is frustrating beyond words to see the excruciatingly slow progress in employment growth, especially while President Obama pursues policies that obstruct economic activity and job creation.

There is no excuse for this dismal job performance.

It took years of painstaking work to create the pivotal moments when U.S. forces descended upon bin Laden's compound and flawlessly executed their mission making the world a much safer place.

Since the late-breaking announcement on Sunday evening that Osama bin Laden had been killed, the Nation has been riveted by the valor and courage displayed by our troops that led to his demise.

This bill has not been vetted properly by a committee, and again, it undermines our whole system of the rule of law. So I am compelled to object.

There's maybe a degree of naivete in our State Department, that our friendliness and willingness to trust is seen in many parts of the world as weakness.

What would you do in Afghanistan?

I have seen an unwillingness at the State Department to address seriously religious freedom and religious persecution issues.

We are not going to have economic and political freedom where no religious freedom exists.

I don't think there's much, if any, disagreement in this room that not only will the administration demand results from the U.N. and from the administration itself, but this committee will demand results.

Are you willing to cut funding for these missions where women and children have been abused?

The United States should examine these cuts and take similar actions.

I feel very good about your nomination.

Programs that duplicate each other, and outdated mandates, must be streamlined, eliminated, and merged.

Americans end up paying for programs that do not align with our national security and foreign policy objectives.

The United Nations has been unacceptably slow to reform.