Ron Johnson

Here is finally a process within the administration with something that is subtractive.

I applaud this administration for focusing on that.

The biggest impediment to growth, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, is overregulation.

I have been tenaciously talking to CEOs, CFOs; they are very intrigued by the idea.

I want to also confirm what Senator Crapo and Senator Toomey were saying in terms of your engagement and your willingness to work with us.

If we want to solve this long-term deficit--so much of Government spending is involved in health care--we have got to really focus on restraining the growth in health care costs.

We have driven free market competition out of it.

If we do not want to pay $65 trillion in interest to our creditors, we better address Social Security and Medicare.

Over the next 30 years, we have a projected deficit of $129 trillion.

$14 trillion of economic growth yields more than $2 trillion of revenue.

The whole purpose of tax reform would be to rationalize our tax system so it incentivizes growth.

Let us talk about why you want to grow the economy. If you go from 2 percent to 3 percent growth, that is about $14 trillion over 10 years of added economic activity.

We have to look at what can we do--and, of course, we had an excellent hearing here with former Senator Phil Gramm.

America cannot be America without immigrants.

It would be a true Warren Buffett tax, by the way. It would eliminate double taxation of dividends.

I am highly concerned about the deficit. I think that is very harmful in terms of economic growth.

I think Government policies, I mean, to make it simple, we ought to do everything we can to make sure we have enough labor.

But again, the reality is diplomacy will not work.

They are not going to give up their nuclear capability. They are going to continue to improve it, develop it.

Short of military strikes against their nuclear facilities, they are going to continue to develop their nuclear capability.

I think both of you gentlemen are saying diplomacy is really not going to work. We are going to either have to defend ourselves or we are going to have to put pressure on the elite, create pain for them because, let's face it, this regime…

I would want you to work with us on that. I wonder if you would make a commitment to me today to ensure that we find a strong executive director for this council.

On regulatory reform, Senator Heitkamp is right. We have a great opportunity here. And it has been bipartisan, typically.

The good news for you is the President has set a pretty low bar, only a 75-percent reduction. Actually, I would call that a 'stretch budget.'

Just trying to be accurate.