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Republicans and Democrats have used accounting gimmicks and competing government analyses to deceive the public into believing that 2 + 2 = 6. If our leaders cannot agree on the numbers, if 'facts' are fictional, how can they possibly have a substantive debate on solutions?
One of the great joys this year and the year before has been how all of the people in this body, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, have worked together so well with our chairman and the chairman of the full committee to address the issues of housing for our soldiers.
Republicans and Democrats are obsessed with making sure that illegal aliens are granted citizenship. The American people are not. They're concerned about jobs, the economy, debt. They're concerned about a plundering country. They're concerned about a decaying, dying country.
When Obamacare was introduced, Republicans and Democrats knew the status quo wasn't working. But Republicans rejected the notion that to help 2 million people with preexisting conditions get access to care, we needed a 2,000-page bill that transformed one-sixth of the economy.
I would say to Republicans that when you look at civil rights legislation that took place in the 1960s, it took a bipartisan effort to get those things done, and so what I would tell my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, is let's come together, and let's be for fairness.
This thing has been studied to death by Republicans and Democrats: several committees, including in Congress, that have all said, 'Yes, of course what happened was tragic, but Secretary Clinton was not in any way at fault,' and what you have here with these e-mails is basically a witch hunt.
One of the great things about technological innovation is that we haven't found out a way to make it partisan yet, and so we can actually bring Republicans and Democrats together to use innovative technologies to generate a cleaner environment, and we don't need excessive regulations to do it.
But, you know, we have these entrenched entities - and I'm talking about both Republicans and Democrats - who believe that when you're elected to office, you become some kind of member of the aristocracy, and that anyone who challenges you is attacking you and is unpatriotic. This is foolishness.
I remember George W. Bush, who spoke about bringing the country together. Here's a man who knew that he lost the popular vote but ended up with the Electoral College vote. He had lost that, and he spoke in a very inclusive way of bringing Republicans and Democrats together. It reflected what a president should do.
We are all better off when we raise skills in our state, and I know that Republicans and Democrats are going to hear from their communities, hear from their constituents, hear from the businesses in their areas about really making sure that we've got the workforce to make us competitive and raise wages in Michigan.
For decades now, Republicans and Democrats have shared the same mythology around the great American meritocracy. The only real difference was that republicans thought the American meritocracy was already perfect and Democrats believed it could be perfected if we just dealt with racism and sexism and other forms of bigotry.
I think the Tea Party movement is great. I think anybody who has been frustrated over the last few years with the Republicans and Democrats, when they were trying to grow government and have spending and we weren't focusing on creating jobs and get our private sector growing again, I think that's when people started to wake up.
You know, 'Professor Obama' has been a label applied to him by Republicans and Democrats alike. He's a very smart guy. But I think he'd be, you know, better served not to spend so much time trying to impress us with his particular position on an issue and understand that there are things upon which we simply have a disagreement.
I'm going to guess Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I'm sure most people think women should be paid the same as men if they're doing the same job. I think we all want good schools for our kids. If we made that list, we actually are in agreement on more things.
I think what both Republicans and Democrats need to do and the leaders on both sides is to recognize that if sequester takes place, it would be disastrous for our national defense and very frankly for a lot of very important domestic programs. They have a responsibility to come together, find the money necessary to de-trigger sequester.
I believe that what we should do first and foremost is seal the border. The Republicans and Democrats have both failed on this issue for decades. And one of the reasons why is I don't think we have stabilized the problem by taking credible steps to seal the border. Then let's discuss what we do with the population who is illegally present.
One thing I've learned - and I've said this to Republicans and Democrats - is, bees cannot sting and make honey at the same time. They have to make a choice. Either they are going to be a stinger or a honey-maker, and I contend that honey is a symbol of legislation and, the nuclear language used by members is the stinger, and you can't do both.