Transcript provided for Roy Blunt address to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

Thank you all, I am pleased to be here. I know some of you got up at five this morning to be here to see the president. I'm glad to be here with you.

I was pleased, Mike, for that generous introduction. Better than when I got on a plane about two months ago. When I go to my district in southwest Missouri I change planes somewhere - and about 40 or 45 times a year, I change planes in Memphis to get on the airplane to the Springfield/Branson airport.

And as I'm getting on the smaller plane, I start to sit down by a guy in those two little seats - he's right there in the seat by the window, I'm going be in the one by the aisle. And even before I can turn to sit down, he said, "I just want to thank you for everything you do for us." And I hear that sometimes - as most people in elected office do. I said, "Well, I'm glad to get to do it. I appreciate you saying that." And as I'm turning around to sit down, he said, "You know, it must just really amaze people when you get elected and you do everything you said you were going to do when you ran for office."

Now, frankly, I don't hear that all that often, so I said, "Well, I try my best - glad you said that." And he said: "You must be the bravest political guy I've ever seen." And I said, "Well, I'm really not all that brave." And he said, "And I think you're the best governor we've ever had." And so, right away, I was straightened out.

So I said, "No, I think you have me confused with my son Matt." He didn't immediately figure it out, then he said, "Yes, congressman, I think you're right. ... I guess you're doing OK too."

Now, actually, these days in Congress, "OK too" is fairly high praise. And Matt Blunt, who's in his fourth year as governor, in his first six months, eliminated collective bargaining for public employees by executive order. Signed, as the first Republican governor in our state in 82 years to have a Republican legislature - signed real tort reform. Real workers' compensation reform. A new school foundation formula. Moved Missouri from number two in percentage of the state budget going to Medicaid to number 19. And took a billion dollar deficit, and 18 months later, turned it into a $600 million surplus. So I guess Matt Blunt was doing better than I was doing in Washington.

You probably heard on Super Tuesday, every time they talked about Missouri, they talked about our state being the "bellwether state." We voted for the winner in every presidential election since 1956. And, except for 1956, we voted for the winner in every election since 1904.

Of course, they didn't understand that whether you're the bellwether state in November really has very little to do with the people voting in the primaries. But you know, they say in Washington that the pundits commit suicide by diving from their egos to their IQs. And this election year has proved that, if any election year ever did.

Now my part of Missouri is more conservative. As Mike just said, hard-working southwest Missourians. Twice as likely to serve in the military as Nancy Pelosi's constituents. An average income that's below the national average - but every dollar of that average income is worked for. And we appreciate it.

And we're pretty conservative. I used to say, in fact, that the part of Missouri that I'm from when I ran for statewide office successfully in the 1980s, I'd say where I'm from in Southwest Missouri, particularly in regard to the federal government, we believe the job of the federal government is to defend the country and deliver the mail. And after that, we're prepared to argue about every other single thing as to whether that's the best thing for the federal government to do.

I will tell you, we're not quite as strong on believing the federal government's the best group to deliver the mail anymore. But we still believe the one thing the federal government has to do is defend the country - and do that well.

Jim Nussle was just here talking about the president's budget. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but every single year, every president submits his budget - and then we have the National Prayer Breakfast. It seems to me there's a correlation there. It's like the chaplain of the Senate one time famously said when asked if he prayed for the Senate. He said, "No, I don't pray for the Senate. I look at the Senate, and then I pray for the country."

I liked being the majority whip better than being the minority whip. But frankly, you learn things in life and in politics when you lose that you don't learn when you win. And I hope as you've watched our minority over the last year, you've seen Republicans who are acting like Republicans again.

You know, one of the lessons I learned as the whip in the majority, I think there were probably a few days when we were just a little too good. We probably should have known a little more about when we should be willing to lose, rather than stretch our principles too far.

Getting the work done in the majority became, on occasion - not often,
but on occasion - became more important than the absolute quality of work. And one of the things we take back to the majority if we're successful - as I think we can be this year - is that our principles are more important than getting the work done.

And if you've watched the fights of the last year, I think there's plenty of evidence for that. The SCHIP fight. Why would I possibly be opposed to the 'State Children's Health Insurance Program'? Why would I possibly be against that? I'm a Republican. I'm a federalist. I believe almost in every instance that the closer you can solve the problem to where the problem actually is, the better the solution is likely to be. In Iraq, General Petraeus just proved that the generals in the field are better than the generals in the Congress. And the states are the place to solve many of these problems. So that should be fine with me.

Children? I've got children. I have plenty of grandchildren. Health? I like health. I think insurance is a good way to insure health. Why would I not have been for the State Children's Health Insurance Program? A program that Republicans designed to help those kids from families that made a little too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough that they were likely to have or be able to afford private insurance. This is not a bad idea: to encourage the states to help that group.

But we went from a program for poor kids, and suddenly - we were just for a program for more kids. And not a program where you were going to find the poor kids first. The president had an executive order that would've been reversed, where before a state can even think about extending coverage to another group of kids, they had to go out and actively find 95 percent of the kids that should have been the real targets.

But Democrats didn't want to do that. And they wanted to reverse the reforms we had put in the law last year so that you had to prove citizenship to be eligible. They wanted to reverse that. They wanted to provide health insurance to families of four who made as much as $81,000.

Families of four that make that much in Southwest Missouri- we don't think the family next door ought to have to pay for their insurance. And so it was a great fight, and it was a hard fight - because the press from day one said, "This is the dumbest thing Republicans in Congress have ever done - to stand against a program with this good a title." And we proved we could fight against a good title on a bad bill, and convince Americans we were right.

And on the spending fight, which you all watched at the end of the year. Twenty-three billion dollars more than the president's spending number. And with all due respect to my friend, the president, and my friend, Jim Nussle: the president wanted to spend plenty of money. That number was plenty high. In fact, I thought it was a little bit too high.

But $23 billion, to hear the Democrats on the floor, or to hear the media say: "That's nothing, it's really no money at all." It's more than the entire budget of 37 of the states. But the Democrats were trying to convince every American through the media that we were fighting about nothing. We were fighting about a big thing. And we won.

So whether it's SCHIP, or spending, or the vote-after-vote we took this past year on raising taxes. Or the vote-after-vote we took on setting a deadline for telling everyone in the world when we were leaving Iraq. We won those fights. Those fights made a difference.

Government is the only place left in Americawhere we measure how much we care about something based on how much we spend on it. Only place left where we do that.

Everybody else in America, every single day, has to think: "How can we provide a better service tomorrow and spend less money on doing it than we did today?" Otherwise, they won't find themselves in business anymore. In this global economy, you have to use every advantage you have to provide the best service possible at less of a cost today - unless you're in thegovernment.

Our government is so far behind. This next president and this next Congress have to do everything we can to pull government into - if not the 21st century - at least the last half of the 20th century.

Northwest Arkansas is close to my district, and I was there on Tuesday with my colleague John Boozman. We went by the huge headquarters of Wal-Mart. And I was reminded that Wal-Mart, Target, any major retailer in the country - at any of their stores at this minute, they know if a roll of paper towels just left - or if a roll of toilet tissue just left. They know which door it went out. They know which register it went through. They know it's not there any longer. Our government doesn't know if the people legally visiting the country have left or not. I have pretty good access to finding out things, and I couldn't tell you within two or three weeks of whether someone who legally came into the country is still here of not.

When Wal-Mart and Target can keep better track of their paper towels than the government can of people visiting the country, the government must be way behind.

I've got a town in my district called Branson. We have lots of visitors there, lot of retired people, most of them come on buses. It's a fun thing to do; you should do it if you haven't. If you haven't been to Branson, your mother may have. And she had a good time - you will too.

But I was sitting about a year ago with the person who runs the hospital in Branson. He said, "You know, if you're a retired person, and you put your deposit down to come to Branson, and even if you've not been well, if you can get on the bus that day, more often than not you try to do get to on - just so you don't lose your deposit."

He said, "More times than you would think, the first stop the bus makes is at the hospital. And one or two people get off. And they don't remember their last procedure. They don't know the exact name of the exact pill they may have taken last month." It's not a negative thing, they just don't know.

Let me tell you: If you can draw your bank account down to zero in Zimbabwe, you ought to be able to have, with all the protection you need, a code that would let you find out at the hospital in Branson, everything you want the person dealing with your health right then to know about you.

It's ridiculous. We need to move toward health care IT. We need to move toward more transparency. You also ought to know how that hospital did last year. You ought to know what their success rate was, what their costs were - you have a right to know.



It's time the government caught up with the rest of the world. It's time we started measuring how much we cared about something by the service we provide, rather than how much we spend on it. And we have got to meet those challenges as we move forward.

We're working hard to earn back our majority. We may have earned a little of the minority, too - but we're working hard to earn back our majority. So watch us. Help us. Encourage us.

Republicans in Congress believe that families do a better job with their money than the government does for them. Republicans in Congress believe that people do a better job of growing the economy than the government does. Republicans in Congress believe that health policies need to be driven by patients and choice - and good for American taxpayers - rather than policies designed by some government bureaucrat.

Republicans in Congress believe we have got to prioritize the importance of the national security of the country. And every day in Congress, my friends, we vote over and over again on one single, simple question. And the question is, "Do we want more freedom and less government, or more government and less freedom?"

You'd have to look hard in America today to find a group more committed than you are - and than we are - to being for more freedom and less government.

Thank you for what you do. And thank you for letting me be here today.