One way to stop illegal immigration is a border wall.

Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.

And the cornerstone of my economic policies, when I first got elected, was cutting taxes on everybody on who paid taxes.

Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.

Let me state the obvious. Illegal immigration is illegal, duh.

No nation should threaten its neighbors by massing troops along the border.

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can’t afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

Instead of giving corporations a big tax cut, let’s give the middle class a real, permanent tax cut.

We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

Part of the problem is there are people in Washington, D.C. in positions of power to whom the border is just a nuisance, and I think some of them believe that illegal immigration is a moral good. It is not. It undermines legal immigration.

The whole infrastructure of air travel was, and is, part of government policy. It is not a natural development of a free economic system – at least not in the way that is claimed. The same is true of the roads, of course.

The bottom line on the Hyde Amendment is that it is directly, in effect, targeting poor women and women who don’t have money.

I was standing on a ladder outside the Homestead juvenile immigrant detention center outside Miami, looking over the fence, and I saw children lined up like prisoners. They had been separated from their families and put in this private detention facility. It was horrible.

If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.

The Recovery Act is working, but it’s going to continue to work. It’s not over. A lot’s going to happen this summer. And even after the summer, there’s more to come with the act.

I don’t want to impugn the motives of my colleagues, but my attitude is, speaking just for me, you either believe in border security or you don’t.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.