Speeches

It is a gross dereliction of that duty – and an insult to those men and women – to tack on a military authorization to this must-pass spending bill, just so members of Congress can hurry back home.

At some point today or tomorrow the Senate will hastily consider – and likely pass – a massive, hodgepodge spending bill to fund every last department and program within the federal government… even those we know don’t work. The alternative – if you can call it that – is to deny funding for every last department and program within the federal government… even those we know are essential.

“Attention all citizens! To assure the fairness of elections by preventing the disproportionate expression of the views of any single powerful group. The government has decided that the following associations of persons shall be prohibited from speaking or writing in support of any candidate.” This is a statement that I have taken directly from a dissenting opinion issued by associate justice Antonin Scalia in a case called Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. A 1989 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States.

It is my distinct privilege to welcome all of you to the inaugural – and hopefully first annual – Utah “Solutions Summit.” In future years, the theme of the conference will change, but the purpose will stay the same. We want to bring together Utah’s leaders – in business and civil society and all levels of government – to discuss what we can do together to meet the greatest challenges facing our state and our country.

My first real exposure to the Reagan Administration occurred when I was about ten years old. My father, the late Rex E. Lee, served as the Solicitor General of the United States during President Reagan’s first term in office. It is the job of the Solicitor General to serve as the federal government’s advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court. Like every lawyer, the Solicitor General has a client—it’s the federal government, and specifically the presidential administration in power. As a practical matter, that meant that my dad was President Ronald Reagan’s voice in the Supreme Court.

The situation at the border is heartbreaking. Tens of thousands of single adults, families and children have made an incredibly dangerous journey north from countries like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. They are leaving theses countries because they offer too little opportunity and are mired in poverty and violence. No one begrudges them for wanting to find a better place to live. Americans are compassionate and generous. The American people always have extended and always will extend a helping hand to every corner of the world. And even as the number of illegal border crossings has exploded over the past

We are here today because our federal highway policy status quo is not working. And it hasn’t been for a long time. This is the sixth time American taxpayers have been asked to bail out the Highway Trust Fund since 2008. None of those patches – $52 billion worth of bailouts in seven years – fixed the problem. And neither will the $10.8 billion authorized by the bill before us today. It will buy us only a few months before we are right back where we are now.

The most extraordinary feature of the bill before us today is the incongruity between its title and its content. The title—the “Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act”—is clear and straightforward. It suggests the bill is aimed at the important and worthy goal of protecting women’s health. But the text of the legislation plainly demonstrates that the true objective of the bill is to circumscribe Americans’ religious liberties within the narrow confines of the Democratic Party’s partisan agenda and the whims of politicians and bureaucrats.

Our ultimate goal is to enact conservative policies that restore the proper role of government, reenergize our economy, and create the conditions in which all Americans have a fair chance to pursue happiness—and find it.

The Senate is in the process of considering one of the most important presidential nominations of Barack Obama’s second term. Sylvia Burwell, the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was nominated by President Obama to replace Kathleen Sebelius as the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It is now the Senate’s responsibility to review Ms. Burwell’s candidacy and then vote to confirm or reject the President’s nomination.