Jim Talent Quotations

Uniquely with methamphetamine, the drug isn't just used and sold in our neighborhoods and communities, it's made in our neighborhoods and communities. We're hoping this will throttle local labs because they will not be able to get the pseudoephedrine they need ... but that does not mean it's going to throttle methamphetamine altogether.

Working with Troop A, we were successful in getting the Senate to approve a plan that would protect our first responders and prevent highway fatalities, ... Dozens of police officers and fire fighters have lost their lives in accidents that should have been avoidable. Our initiative instructs the Department of Transportation to develop model legislation that will increase awareness and help save lives.

There are people walking around guilty of murder.

Sen. Feinstein and I worked closely with law enforcement on this bill because we wanted to address the problems they are facing on the ground. As a result, the legislation we passed is the toughest, most comprehensive anti-meth plan ever considered by the Congress.

Missouri is going to be better off because we've kept these jobs in Missouri.

One of the lessons of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is the clear need for local, state and federal responders to train together so they can be better prepared in the event of a disaster that requires widespread relief efforts,

I'd like the chance to vote against this.

I don't know why there weren't plans, ... If there had been and they were inadequate, I'd be inclined to say nobody's perfect - but it just seemed like they weren't doing anything.

I believe voters want a fair and vigorous investigation; they don't want a cover-up from the party involved. And they don't want the other party to gloat over it,

I am very disappointed in the commission's decision, not only in their failure to take these installations off the list, but because in their decisions they failed even to address the arguments Missouri made on a bipartisan basis, ... The St. Louis region, especially the men and women whose jobs are on the line, deserved better.

For me, the issue is service ? do our producers have convenient access to an FSA office? That's the key to me. That's more important than any particular number of offices, ... Now, I am concerned about closing that many offices and the impact that will have on services.

I expected I would have senators in states where this is not yet an epidemic come up to me and say, 'Look, why should we take the equivalent of half an aisle of cold medicines behind the counter in my state where this isn't a problem?' ... And I was going to tell them, 'It's a problem in your state, you just don't know it.' But they've not come up to me and said that.

I think Iran needs to know that that option is there, and then we can hope that, you know, Security Council action or negotiations of some kind will work. So yeah, I think it?s essential that it be an option.

I was especially concerned because the office closure plan was issued with little or no consultation with our local offices and producers,

I think we're being played for a bunch of suckers, ... chumps.

I will come with independence and a fresh perspective. I have life experience and public servant experience that will serve (Missourians) well.

I will come with independence and a fresh perspective.

I think Roy probably came into Congress with more experience and accomplishments than the average congressman. It helped him hit the ground running in a lot of respects. He was never really a freshman.

It is clear Women's Business Centers are a valuable asset to a growing sector of our economy,

We ought to be using the confluence, celebrating it and using it for its historical preservation value, for its tourism value, and for raising the visibility of the area.

With only 41 percent of the small businesses surveyed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses taking action or planning to take action to address their potential Y2K problems, something must be done to make becoming Y2K compliant more affordable.

The governors' plan is simply unacceptable. It misses the point of what real welfare reform is all about.

We need to function as a team, and I've always thought of Denny as the coach. I think he'll do that extremely effectively.

cross the goal line and immediately offer the more than 5 million uninsured men, women, and children the opportunity for health care coverage.

The 'Women's Business Center Amendments Act' will improve this important program and help the existing centers prosper and expand the opportunities for women-entrepreneurs to start and run their own companies,

Predators routinely represent themselves as someone else on the Internet to entice kids and our law enforcement should be allowed to represent themselves as someone else to protect kids, ... If a predator thinks he's meeting a minor and a law enforcement official shows up instead, federal law should allow for a conviction. Our legislation makes clear that law enforcement can patrol the Internet to help make it safer for our kids.

Despite the heroic efforts on the local level by our sheriffs and our chiefs and our deputies and our officers, this is not a challenge that we have, by and large, been succeeding at defeating. Now it sounds like it's different here in Kirksville, and that's great, but we have been losing ground in most places.

A major earthquake is no time for on-the-job training.

American businesses are likely to spend at least $50 billion fixing Y2K computer glitches,

This may in the minds of predators create a loophole, and I think we should try and plug that loophole as quickly as possible by any means possible.

It's a question of fairness, ... Small and family businesses deserve to have the same deduction for health-care costs as Fortune 500 companies.

It's unfortunate that the Senate is once again compelled to defend the Pledge of Allegiance because of the actions of a federal court.

that has forgotten the real problems that people in Houston face.

It will very substantially reduce the number of local labs that are out there because it throttles the ability of the cooks to get the pseudoephedrine that they need to make the methamphetamine,

Once caught in Superfund liability, it becomes much more difficult for a small business to attract capital, make investments and, therefore, grow and create jobs.

The federal government didn't come to grips with it until the disaster was clearly in its third or fourth day, ... It's really hard to explain why they seemed paralyzed for several days after the levees broke.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for anything. We're going ahead with what we think we need to do on our end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

If you put your finger down on that, it will choke off the local labs, anyway,

I don't think the administration is where they need to be on that,

The home next door may be making methamphetamine. They make it in cars and vans.

Each of us should take personal responsibility for our diet, and our children's diet, and the government's role should be to make certain it provides the best information possible to help people stay healthy.

When we get the private sector going through job creation and growth, then the governments at all level have revenues to do the things that they need to do. And that's why it's so important to get this economy moving, to get jobs created. We can't keep going on with this anemic recovery.

It's traditionally not federal policy to fund state and local salaries. It's done sometimes on a temporary basis or a grant basis. But it's not often done. And the reason is clear, because the federal government can't continue in perpetuity these programs.

When the private does well, there's revenue for the public sector.

We should not allow wealthy people, including corporate criminals, to hide their assets and avoid paying their bills.

We need a defense budget that's big enough to sustain an increase in the size of the Army.

If we hold true to our ideals and our commitment to freedom, this generation of servicemen and women will have extended liberty to the Iraqi people, just as previous generations of Americans have all across the globe.

I've always believed the two best anti-poverty programs are work and marriage.

The old welfare system was hurting people by discouraging work and marriage. Welfare reform, and now this legislation, will build on the understanding that work and strong families are the foundation upon which we build our future.

Governor Romney is a good debater.

The elections in Iraq are a victory for freedom and the Iraqi people, and a blow to the transnational network of terrorists who have tried to prevent this day from happening.

I've been very active in Missouri.

I just think that the independent voters are going to take their time and look at both candidates.

General McChrystal had to go. Whatever his virtues as a strategist and commander, the 'Rolling Stone' interview fatally compromised his ability to represent the United States in dealing with allies and to act within the circle of people who must make decisions in Afghanistan.

Now Speaker Gingrich says interesting and insightful things. He can explain them well. On many occasions he also says outrageous things that come from nowhere and he has a tendency to say them at exactly the time when they most undermine the conservative agenda.

Gov. Romney is a proven and effective leader with vast experience in the business world, in the non-profit world and in government. And in every capacity in which he has ever served, he has been effective as a leader.

Well look, I don't begrudge anybody in the voters and their views.

I would love to be able to serve in office in some capacity with Romney as president.

This economy is not getting better and the president's policies are the reason.

The unemployment rate has effectively not gone down from where it was at the peak of the recession. The only reason it's gone technically from 10 percent to 8 percent is so many people are discouraged and have quit work.

People are working harder and harder than ever before and barely staying in place.

It's like doctors can't save all their patients, but, on balance, Bain under Gov. Romney created well over 100,000 jobs, which is certainly more than has been created in the Obama administration because we're down over 500,000 over the last three-and-a-half years.

Given Mr. Obama's lack of experience as an executive, and his past performance in crises such as the oil spill, it is reasonable for those of us who support the effort in Afghanistan to worry that he will not be up to the job.

General Petraeus is not a miracle worker. He can not be successful unless the president creates greater confidence within his own team about the decisions which the president has himself made.

Replacing General McChrystal with David Petraeus was a good first step, but more will be needed.

The problem is not that America does not have energy. The problem is that our government - alone among the governments of the world - will not allow its own people to recover the energy that they possess.