Quotes from Jim DeMint

It has always been my plan not to serve more than two terms.

We have this kind of revolving door, we don't have a permanent class of millionaires in America like a lot of other countries.

The message is pretty clear: Americans are sick and tired of the doubletalk coming out of Washington, of us going home and saying we're conservative and then coming up here and voting for 10,000 earmarks. We can't fool America anymore; the media is too good. They're reporting what we're really doing.

Well, we lost a lot of our independence already. We are dependent on China for credit. We are dependent on Middle Eastern countries for energy supplies. And many Americans are dependent on the government for their income, health care, education of their children, food stamps.

One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad.

Motorists who want to save money on gas will demand and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. We should not limit their freedom with more government regulations.

Quantitative easing prints money & causes inflation.

I don't need to be asking for money for local museums and other projects just to make me look good back home.

Not federal government's job to do good deeds.

Government-run schools can't instill morals and character.

I would support a devolution of power out of Washington for education, health care, transportation.

We know from our own history that democratic institutions take decades to mature, and we know from past conflicts that freedom is not free.

So, the point I'm making is, we are not going to cut spending in Washington if we think it's the job of every congressman and senator is to pave local parking lots and build local sewer plants. These parochial interests are getting in the way of the national interests.

California is going to take themselves off the cliff culturally and economically, fiscally. They are going to be at the trough in Washington wanting a bailout.

I don't have the support inside Washington or even inside my own party.

I have no plans to run for president.

If you remember you just have one constituent, and that's God himself, and if you try to please him I think you usually come with a lot steadier pace and a lot more peace in your life.

I'm a conservative first, and I believe that, if we do a better job of helping Americans understand what we're trying to do, to showcase every place in the country that our ideas are working at the state level, that that will help those at the federal level who want to carry those policies.

Ideas are more powerful than people.

The Heritage Foundation is the premier think tank, research organization. The premier idea group for the conservative movement.

Sometimes people credit me for the Tea Party. It's actually the other way around.

The Tea Party doesn't like politicians.

If a person wants to be publicly gay, they should not be teaching in the public schools.

I want to find the candidates who understand the principles of American exceptionalism and have the character, the courage, and the confidence to actually lead the greatest nation in the world.