Paul Ryan

“I am a pro-growth, constitutional, limited government conservative. So I'm going to speak out for what I believe in - the kind of inclusive, aspirational, optimistic politics which unites people.”

“Everyone is equal. Everyone has a place. No one is written off, because there is worth and goodness in every life... That is the Republican ideal. And if we won't defend it, who will?”

“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.”

“We want to have a system where people can come here and work - go back and forth if they want to... so that we have an open door to the people who want to come and contribute to our country, who want to come and make a difference in their families' lives and our economy.”

“My mom's now enjoying Medicare. She's already retired. She earned it. But for those of us, you know, the X-Generation on down, it won't be there for us on its current path.”

“President Obama clearly cannot run on his record. All he's offering is more of the same. That's not good. Look at the economy. It's stagnating. And so, what they're now going to try and do is bring this campaign down to little things, distractions, distortions, smear, fear, anger, frustration.”

“What we need is a safety net that lifts people out of poverty - that helps them earn a good paycheck so they can support themselves.”

“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.”

“Activist government overreach and ongoing economic stagnation have shown us why Washington should not try to displace what is best left to civil society.”

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

“I think its rather peculiar. It's not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision. But I'd guess you'd have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform. There sure is a lot of mention of government, so I guess I would put the onus on them to answer why they did all these purges of God.”

“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.”

“We wonder if we will be the first generation in American history to leave our children with fewer opportunities and a less prosperous nation than the one we inherited.”

“People have a constitutional right to have semiautomatic rifles.”

“This debt crisis coming to our country. The wall and tidal wave of debt that is befalling our nation. Medicare and Social Security go bankrupt within ten years, we have a debt that is looming so high that in the last year of President Obama's budget just the interest payments on our debt is $916 billion dollars.”

“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.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“Hope and change? We're not doing that anymore. They're doing attack and blame. And so, I just think people are going to see through this. They want real leadership. They want us to get this country on the right track.”

“That's what we do in this country. That's the American Dream. That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.”