i want to thank paul ryan, our dinner chairman for helping pull this event together. and i want to thank him for the pivotal role that he's playing on our house republican team. i also want to thank pete sessions for the outstanding work that he's doing to build a stronger and more aggressive nrcc. you know, raising moin, recruiting great candidates and really going after the vulnerable democrats around the country and let me tell you, they're doing great work. now, i wasn't really going to talk about my senate colleagues because you know, this is a house-senate dinner. they do our thing, we do ours. let me tell you what, i could not have a greater partner in this town than senator mitch mcconnell. you know, there are an awful lot of those senators now who were former house members and friends of ours. let me tell you what, working together on behalf of our party, i think we're showing the american people the best of the republican party and the best that we can do on their baffle. behalf. i also want to thank newt for being here tonight, as well. newt is a true agent

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome congressman paul ryan. [applause] >> and good evening, everybody. thanks for coming to washington, d.c. we have a special guest tonight who would be emceeing a lot program. one of the most courageous acts in society today is for a hollywood actor to stand up and declare that he is a conservative republican. [cheers and applause] you know, what is even more surprising is that he keeps getting prominent roles. i am sure that is more a reflection of his gifts and acting and not his political beliefs. this friend of ours that is going to be with us this evening, ladies and gentleman, is our beloved actor john hoyt. [applause] -- ladies and gentlemen/ . he has a long and distinguished career as a leading man and as a character actor. he came to prominence in the 1960's with a performance in the 1969 best picture winner "midnight cowboy," , for which he won his first academy award nomination. the route the following decades, john hoyt has appeared in such landmark films -- throughout the following decades. he rec

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome congressman paul ryan. good evening, everybody. thanks for coming to washington, d.c. ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest with us tonight that will be emceeing our program. in our current culture, one of the most courageous acts in society today is for a hollywood actor to stand up and declare that he is a conservative republican. you know, what's even more surprising is he keeps getting prominent roles.

my thanks especially to paul ryan and has done an outstanding job as chairman of tonight's dinner.ulations and thank you very much. as you have seen in an earlier video, we have highlighted the american entrepreneur tonight. i would like to also recognize one person from pinellas county florida. with only a backpack and a several dollars, he came to this country as a young boy to seek the american dream. from retail worker to founder of a successful real estate investment company to mayor and public servant, he has built his american dream through hard work, innovation, and a steadfast belief of a free enterprise system. j., would you please stand for us. [applause] thank you for your inspiring example of on for new ships and service. i know -- inspiring example of entrepreneurship and service. we now want to recognize another person in our audience. as many of you know, bob was attorney journal of virginia, and he is our republican candidate for governor this year with an outstanding record of job creation, strengthening the free enterprise system, and building safer communities.

and i'm very honored to be here with you, and i'm very grateful for paul ryan's asking me to be here trusting me to express myself. so i would like to, if i can, do a shortened version that have speech just as a calling card so you know so the wider group of you knows where i stand. i started out by saying i guess we're all gathered here today and by the way, is this microphone good and everybody hears me properly? is it good? i guess we're gathered here to talk about ideas, positive inroads we can make to gain back our power, to become triumphant in the next election. we certainly know that the democratic party thinks our vois have been silenced. they boast that threat winners and we have nothing to say. well, we certainly know how they won. obama's path to the presidency has been thoroughly documented. we may want to look at some of those strategies as we build toward the 2010 elections. certainly, at the outset, the democrats fulfilled their mission to paint president bush as a warmonger, and once they were able to reach all the youth in colleges on the internet with this lie, pai

[applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the honorable paul ryan. >> good evening again, everybody. you know what? change has come to washington. this is not the kind of change i would argue the american people thought they were going to get. when they went to the polls in november for hope and change, they didn't think we were going to double and didn't think they were going to have the government-owned car companies, didn't think the government wold was going to take over the healthcare and energy sectors. and i want to thank you all for being here tonight to help us get the change back that we need. and why here tonight is not simply so that republicans beat democrats. that is not what this is about. what we are here tonight is to build and launch an effort to get our country back. [cheers and applause] >> we believe in the american ideal, the ideas that built this country: freedom, liberty, self-determination, free enterprise and entrepreneurship. that's what the american ideal is. you work hard, you play by the rules, you enjoy the fruits of your labor. that's what made this t

i think on the house side, the house republicans signed i think paul ryan is a guy that i really impressed with. he is a conservative that doesn't scare the kids. >> host: you hear a lot about him, he's having a moment. >> guest: use of wisconsin guy and i'm a believer that if we republicans are going to win outside the south that might be good two have leaders and don't talk with a southern accent. this comes from a guy who lives in atlanta, alabama, mississippi and florida and am a southern conservative. but right now we are getting routed in new england, the new west, the pacific northwest, because unpeopled think of the republican party they think of newt gingrich, george w. bush, tom delay, dick armey, guys with texas twang. >> host: what is wrong with that? >> guest: well, ronald reagan and barack obama both have been able to find in the middle of american political liability -- life and maybe it is a western sensibility. i'm not exactly sure what it is, but we just can't be confined in the south. you know, why did ronald reagan at venice summit people in europe? because of the time

one thing, out of tboth of the committees i serve on, i'll take a page out of paul ryan's comments here that is that one thing is a systemic risk is the unfunded debt out there. the numbers vary on that. interesting enough, we had expert after expert last six years come before the committee. they all say the same thing. and we hear it from both sides of the aisle. in the budget we got this year, unfortunately, it really isn't addressed. we spend more of the numbers you already said before, we're looking at a national debt double in ten year, and interestingly on those numbers, maybe somebody else referenced this, what happened over in the united kingdom with s&p's downgrading them, going from stable to negative, and their situation, and some economists say not as bad as where we are and our trajectory that we'll be worse than them. your comment already is that this is probably the looming largest issue that we need to address? >> i would say that's right. >> yeah. and i wonder, everything else we do besides that is just almost -- is almost that, besides the point. is that a correct -- >