Paul Ryan Quotes

Ultimately, the law will collapse under its own weight. Until then, we have to start building a better health care system in its place. And we need to start with a new principle: Put the patient in the driver's seat. That's how we can build a healthy economy.

That's what the Romney plan is all about, how to get jobs created, how to get this debt and deficit under control, how to revive small businesses so we can create jobs, and how to bring growth and opportunity to society instead of this class warfare, instead of speaking to people like they're stuck in some class or station in life.

That's the real secret to job creation - not borrowing and spending more money in Washington.

Yes, absolutely because we think there is a way to do this through earned legalization without rewarding people who have come in with undocumented status, illegally. We don't want to give them an advantage over those who came here legally and we think that there's a way to do this while still respecting the rule of law. It's clear that what the President is talking about does not do that ...

Only by taking responsibility for oneself, to the greatest extent possible, can one ever be free, and only a free person can make responsible choices - between right and wrong, saving and spending, giving or taking.

Working together, America's military, Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people have won a major battle in the war on terrorism.

If borrowing and spending all this money led to more jobs than we would be at full employment already.

What's missing is leadership in the White House. And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago - isn't it about time he assumed responsibility?

Film is the packaging of information in cans. Videotape is involved with the feeding back of process. Film rips information away from the situation for use elsewhere. Videotape can be fed back into a given situation and enrich experience. Film extends man as a spectator. Videotape extends man as a cybernator. Film imports information. Videotape implodes indigenous data.

So, in Europe, they're cutting people's retirement and health benefits. And that's what we want to avoid from happening. They're raising taxes, entering a recession. That's the kind of economic program that President Obama has put in place.

When it comes to jobs, President Obama makes the Jimmy Carter years look like good old days. If we fired Jimmy Carter then, why would we rehire Barack Obama now?

We're saying no changes for Medicare for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current seniors who've already retired and organized their lives around this program, you have to reform it for the next generation.

Take a moment to imagine a world led by China or Russia. So we must lead.

Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now. And I hope you understand this too, if you're feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.

I don't consult polls to tell me what my principles are or what our policies should be.

The moral case for individual initiative in a free economy holds that people have a God-given right to use their creativity to produce things that improve our lives.

Free enterprise empowers entrepreneurs who have ideas and imagination, investors who take risks, and workers who hone their skills and offer their labor.

I live on the same block where I grew up. We belong to the same parish where I was baptized. Janesville is that kind of place.

PACs corrupt the system. They handle vast amounts of money and the money corrupts.

I learned a good deal about economics, and about America, from the author of the Reagan tax reforms - the great Jack Kemp. What gave Jack that incredible enthusiasm was his belief in the possibilities of free people, in the power of free enterprise and strong communities to overcome poverty and despair. We need that same optimism right now.

Mom was 50 when my Dad died. She got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison. She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business. It wasn't just a new livelihood. It was a new life.

When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.

Americans are better off in a dynamic, free-enterprise-based economy that fosters economic growth, opportunity and upward mobility instead of a stagnant, government-directed economy that stifles job creation and fosters government dependency.

We will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles.

Our founders got it right when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature's God, not from government.

The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, 'In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.'

Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program, and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate.

We believe that the government has an important role to create the conditions that promote entrepreneurship, upward mobility, and individual responsibility.

When you take a look at the problems our country is facing, debt is No. 1. The math is downright scary and the credit markets aren't going to keep on giving us cheap rates.

Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn't even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we're going to stop it.

Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life. Half of them can't find the work they studied for, or any work at all. So here's the question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?

I never asked for stimulus.

The problem with our deficit is not because Americans are taxed too little. The problem with the deficit is because Washington spends too much money. We have got to stop spending money we don't have.

And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism-that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism-you can't find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.

No, I'm not one (of those) people who votes for something then writes to the government to ask them to send us money. I did not request any stimulus money.

Our two party platforms were emphatic about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. For the Obama administration to remove this language from the Democratic Party platform drives a wedge into one of the few issues that our two parties agreed on.

Either we have the government forcing us and telling us what we have to do, where we have to do it and how much we have to pay for it or we put ourselves in charge - we as consumers, as patients.

The secret to understanding me is, I'm not trying to be anybody other than who I actually am. People want candid, refreshing leadership. And I've always tried to go with solutions. You know, I've always tried to say, here's how we get our economy growing, here's why we get our debt under control. That's what Mitt Romney is offering.

Hey, I'm a Catholic deer hunter, I am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion.

In a justly organized community, however, government exists to secure the right to life and the other human rights that follow from that primary right.

The tax code is 10 times the size of the Bible with none of the good news.

Are we interested in treating the symptoms of poverty and economic stagnation through income redistribution and class warfare, or do we want to go at the root causes of poverty and economic stagnation by promoting pro-growth policies that promote prosperity?

You're going to hear a lot from President Obama and yes, from Joe Biden, you're hearing a little bit about Medicare these days. What they will not tell you is they turned Medicare into a piggybank to fund 'Obamacare.' They took $716 billion dollars to pay for the 'Obamacare' program.

We can't keep measuring success by how much money are we throw at programs. We have to measure success as, 'Is it working?

And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly.

Elections have consequences. And I fundamentally believe - this is my personal opinion, I know it's a slightly partisan thing to say - to really do what we think needs to be done, we're going to have to win some elections.

Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt 'unpatriotic' - serious talk from what looked to be a serious reformer. Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.

I'm very proud of my pro-life record, and I've always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life.

I think it is inflationary. I think it actually is counterproductive in many ways. You end up costing jobs from people who are at the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney.

Look, of course people are scared of entitlement reform because every time you put entitlement reform out there, the other party uses it as a political weapon against you.

We will not spend four years blaming others, we will take responsibility.

But just because we can't fix Obamacare doesn't mean we can't start to get rid of its worst features. On Thursday, the House will take up a bill to define 'full time' as 40 hours per week, so more people can work full time.

Class is not a fixed designation in this country. We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups.

I see myself as more of a policy maker than a political leader.

I voted to send people to war.

What did the taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt. That money wasn't just spent and wasted - it was borrowed, spent, and wasted.

I don't have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math.

If somebody is going to try to paste a person's view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don't give me Ayn Rand.

Obama is trying to paint us as a caricature, as if we're some bizarre individualists who are hardcore libertarians. It's a false dichotomy and intellectually lazy. Of course we believe in government. We think government should do what it does really well, but that it has limits.

We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead.

We need to stop spending money we don't have.

Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores - these didn't come out of nowhere.

My Dad, a small-town lawyer, was also named Paul. Until we lost him when I was 16, he was a gentle presence in my life. I like to think he'd be proud of me and my sister and brothers, because I'm sure proud of him and of where I come from, Janesville, Wisconsin.

If you're running for president, you've got to do a lot of things to line up a candidacy. I've not done any of those things. It's not my plan. My plan is to be a good chairman of the House Budget Committee and fight for the fiscal sanity of this nation.

The rate of return on Social Security for people nearing retirement is about 1.5 percent. By the time young children like mine are ready to retire, that rate of return will be a negative percentage.

In Pennsylvania, 38 percent of Pennsylvania seniors chose to get their Medicare from a plan called Medicare Advantage. It's their choice. Forty-seven percent of them are going to lose it under 'Obamacare' according to Medicare by 2017.

I'm a person that can get along with people. I like people who believe passionately in things even if they're not the things I agree with.

There's no reason that patients can't have electronic access to their complete medical history ... Just as people can check their bank account information online or using their ATM card, patients who want to should have electronic access to their medical records ...

With all their attack ads, the President is just throwing away money ... and he's pretty experienced at that.

Republicans have offered dozens of comprehensive healthcare plans many of which achieve comprehensive healthcare reform without breaking what's working in healthcare. We want to fix what's broken in healthcare.

By failing seriously to confront the most predicable economic crisis in our nation's history, the President's policies are committing us and our children to a diminished future.

I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault.

I really don't have tremendous political ambition. I have policy ambition.

Throughout human history, the American Idea has done more to help the poor than any other economic system ever designed.

I'm as pro-life as a person gets. You're not going to have a truce.

Here's the problem if you keep raising tax rates: You slow down economic growth.

We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence.

Big-government economics breeds crony capitalism. It's corrupt, anything but neutral, and a barrier to broad participation in prosperity.

I have never seen opponents so silent about their record, and so desperate to keep their power.

We don't have a tax revenue problem in Washington, we have a spending problem in Washington.

When our opponents on the Left have no serious ideas of their own, they resort to emotional appeals that play up Americans' fears about the future.

Do we believe that the goal of government is to promote equal opportunity for all Americans to make the most of their lives? Or, do we now believe that government's role is to equalize the results of peoples lives?

The belief that recipients of government aid are better off the more we spend on them is remarkably persistent. No matter how many times this central tenet of liberalism gets debunked, like Brett Favre, it just keeps coming back.

While President Obama shirks his responsibility to advance solutions to our fiscal challenges, he can no longer hide from the merciless math of the balance sheet. Conservatives have made certain of that.

Life is short, you better make the most of it.

In a clean break from the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. That is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.

I accept the calling of my generation to give our children the America that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old - and I know that we are ready.

The president has declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. That will come as news to the millions of Americans who will elect Mitt Romney so we can repeal Obamacare.

A free economy and strong communities honor the dignity of every person, rewarding effort with justice, promoting upward mobility, and building solidarity among citizens.

Politics has become a blood sport that goes beyond just the person whose name is on the ballot.

What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our Commander-in-Chief, what we heard today was a political broadside from our Campaigner-in-Chief.

I've been really clear about this. If you want to be president, you should run for president. We should select our nominee from among the people who are running for president. Clear and simple. So no, I am not going to be the president. I am not going to be the nominee.

College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and of the concepts of liberty, freedom, and self-determination. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. He (Obama) believes that the pie is fixed and that he needs to more equitably divide up the slices.

We must promote upward mobility, starting with solutions that speak to our broken education system, broken immigration policy, and broken safety-net programs that foster dependency instead of helping people get back on their feet.

When Governor Romney asked me to join the ticket, I said, 'Let's get this done' - and that is exactly, what we're going to do.

A bold reform agenda is our moral obligation. If we make the case effectively and win this November, then we will have the moral authority to enact the kind of fundamental reforms America has not seen since Ronald Reagan's first year.

The debt and the deficit is just getting out of control, and the administration is still pumping through billions upon trillions of new spending. That does not grow the economy.

I think you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I think you can oppose the president on some issue that you fundamentally disagree with, but also work with the other party on issues you do agree with.