Underscores what i think is a far more fundamental solution. We need to abolish the irs. [applause] let me tell you something. In washington, d. C. , there is a technical term for what i just said. Thats called crazy talk. Outknow, its the people there on the fringe. Why . There is an army of lobbyists on k street to make a living putting exemptions into the irs code. There are more words in the irs code than there are in the bible. Not a one of them is as good. Anyone know the shortest scripture in the bible . There has been a lot of weeping because of the irs. Listen. If you have to depend on elected officials in washington, the irs will not be abolished. There is only one way that we will actually succeed in abolishing the irs and that is the same way we won the drone fight in the gunfight. There is no politician in washington who can win this fight. I cannot win it. Chuck cannot win it. The only people who can win it are the men and women across america. If millions upon millions of americans come together as grassroots and demand of our elected officials to stand for principles. Stop going down this road that is bankrupting the country and threatening the future of our kids and grandkids. Thats the anything that can do it the American People demanding it. Im working very, very hard to encourage and mobilize the American People to do exactly that. The third way we restore Economic Growth is Regulatory Reform, reducing the army a regulators, like locusts. Actually, locusts are more friendly. [laughter] you can use pesticide against them. It does not work nearly as well against regulators. But to stop the army of regulators who are destroying Economic Growth and there is no Regulatory Reform more important and repealing every single word of obamacare. [applause] now, i am here right now to enlist your help. We are getting ready to have an epic battle on obamacare. You may have Read Congress has voted 38, 39, 506 times two repeal obamacare but none of those votes were binding. None of them are passed into law. Its one thing to vote when its a symbolic gesture and you can save that you voted to do it. Its another thing when you can actually get it done. This fall, we have an opportunity to defund obamacare. [applause] in september, the continuing resolution that funds the federal government expires. I have publicly pledged along with a number of other senators but under no circumstances will i vote for a continuing resolution that funds one penny of obamacare. [applause] our framers knew what they were doing when they crafted the legislation. Thomas jefferson said it is chains to bind the mischief of government and one of the most important constraints they had was congress had the power of the purse and it is a very effective restraint to restrain an outofcontrol executive. If we do one of two things, if we hold 41 republicans in the United States senate or 218 republicans in the house of representatives, we can defund obamacare in september. I will point out that this is the last fight we will have on this before it starts going into full force in january. Just a couple of weeks ago, as you know, president obama unilaterally and, in defiance of the law, decided to postpone the employer mandate until conveniently after the 2014 election. I will make two points about that. The fact that they moved it until after the election, and i suggest the timing is done accidental, is an incredible omission. If obamacare were a good thing, they would do it before the election. If it was working, as harry reid said on sunday, obamacare has been wonderful for the American People, if that were true, why move it after the election . It is an admission from the president that just as the lead author of obamacare, max baucus, said, its becoming a train wreck. The wheels are coming off. Secondly, with the Obama Administration did was postpone it for Small Companies with 50 employees or more. Why is it that a corporations get benefits that hardworking families and taxpayers not given . Thats why we need to defund every bit of it for every american. Is this going to be easy . The two things i just put out there abolishing the irs and the funding obamacare i dont know if any of you and the Business Consultant world have heard of the phrase bhag . Hairynds for big, audacious goals. These are big, hairy audacious goals for the American People. If either of those came to a vote right now in congress, we would lose. We dont have the votes in the senate or the house. I will tell you as well theres nothing i can do to change it. I can argue until im blue in the face and its not within my capacity to persuade 41 Senate Republicans or 218 House Republicans but you can. The way we get this done is the American People stand together, we come together as grassroots activists and we demand of our elected officials enough is enough. Stop talking. Start acting. Im reminded of back in 2001 i worked in the department of justice and my boss, john ashcroft, said the following. If im ever accused of accused of being a christian, i would like there to be enough evidence to convict me. I think the same thing is true. Demonstrate that we are with you by standing up and acting and the only way that will happen is if the grassroots demand it of our elected officials. I want to close by sharing with you this is a room of men and women who love this country, love liberty. Notall of us, liberty is some abstract concept we learn and read about in a high school textbook. It is something that is real in our own lives, something that means something to beach and everyone of us and and it has something to do with all of our collect stores. That is very much true. My dad is from cuba. Born in cuba, grew up in cuba. He started fighting in the cuban revolution. He spent four years fighting in the revolution and he was thrown in prison and tortured, beaten almost to death. To this day, his front teeth are not his own because they were kicked out of his mouth in a jail. In 1957, my dad fled the regime and came to texas. He had 100 sewn in his underwear which i dont advise. He got a job washing dishes. He did not have to speaking english. He made . 50 an hour in paid his way through the university of texas, got a job, started a small business, worked towards the american dream. Inay, my dad is a pastor dallas. Hes been my hero my whole life. Please stand up. [applause] when i was a kid, my dad would say to me over around over again, when we face oppression in cuba, i had a place to sleep. When we lose our sleep, where do we go . Wheree lose our freedom, do we go . We have nowhere to go. Thats why we are here. You know what i find most incredible . How commonplace it is. Thisve a story just like whether it is us, our parents, or our great, great grandparents. We are all the children of those who risk for freedom and i think that is the most fundamental dna of what it means to be an american, value freedom and opportunity above all else. That is what we are fighting for. Thats why we are here. I will tell you im incredibly honored and blessed to have the opportunity to be sidebyside fighting together to take our country back to restore that shining city on a hill that is the United States of america. Thank you and god bless. [applause] and now i am happy to answer or dodge any questions you like. [laughter] and appreciate your goals you being here. One topic thats important to me that you failed to mention is in light of Edward Snowdens revelations it has become abundantly clear that america is running a police state that is more sophisticated than Heinrich Himmler could have ever dreamed of. What are you going to do to protect my Fourth Amendment and hold the nsa accountable for all of this . I appreciate the question and i am concerned about a pattern across this government of collecting more and more information about private citizens, about lawabiding citizens. In terms of addressing it, we need to be cautious about the level of rhetoric we employ in the public sphere. There are enormous differences between what the federal government is doing and what nazi germany did and other dictators. It is critical we preserve our constitutional liberties. With edward snowden, i have tried very much to say lets take time to ascertain what exactly the government is doing, what the policies are, and there are twin objectives that i believe most americans want. The federal government has a responsibility to protect our National Security and, in particular, to combat radical islamic terrorists. I would note that it says something that we have a president of the United States who seems unwilling to utter the words, radical islamic terrorists. I have concerns about the approach of this administration on two fronts. One, it seems that they sweep lawabiding citizens into their sweep of information. They have been, on multiple occasions, less than effective in actually connect in the dots and after radical islamic terrorists. If you look for example at the boston bombings. We were notified by russia about these brothers, about there being potentially radical islamic terrorists and we went and investigated and by all appearances drop the ball. The older brother posted a Youtube Video that seemed to advocate jihad. That apparently raised no red flag. I have a real concern why it was our federal government was not able to connect the dots and prevent that horrific act of terrorism. In texas at fort hood, major hassan who murdered other soldiers, again there were red flags. You had a major in the army was communicating with a known terrorist asking about the permissibility of murdering fellow servicemen, who was giving a presentation to fellow soldiers about radical islam embracing jihad. Again, it seems we dropped the ball. Beview is that we need to vigorous protecting the National Security of the United States and that means finding and stopping radical islamic terrorism and the same time protecting the constitution of lawabiding citizens and i believe both of those are possible and indeed to serve the ultimate objective. [inaudible] [indiscernible] i share your concerns. The question was about immigration. Let me just address immigration more broadly. On immigration, i am both optimistic and pessimistic which may be a sign i have been in washington too long. Im optimistic because i think there is a lot of bipartisan agreement on many aspects of immigration. I think outside of washington there is overwhelming bipartisan agreement that the system is broken. Weve got to get serious about securing the borders and stopping illegal immigration. It does make sense in a post 9 11 world that we dont know whos coming in this country. There is overwhelming bipartisan agreement that we need to improve and streamline legal immigration. We need to remain a nation that does not just welcome, that celebrates illegal immigrants. American by choice, what president reagan referred to. If congress focused on an immigration bill focusing on those areas of a bipartisan agreement we would have a bill that would sail through congress. Why am i pessimistic . I dont believe president obama wants to pass an immigration bill. I think his principal object did is political rather than passing it. In particular, the most politically divisive element of this bill is a path to citizenship for the 11 Million People here illegally. If you look back in 1986, the last Time Congress passed Immigration Reform, the Congress Told the american a deal for you. Were going to grant amnesty to the the 3 Million People currently here illegally and in exchange we are going to secure the border, stopping illegal immigration, fix the problem and the American People by and large said they would take the deal. We all know what happened. The amnesty happened and the border never got secure. And now, three decades of letter instead of 3 Million People here, there are roughly 11 million. Among many of them are human tragedies. This is a terrible, broken system. I encourage anyone interested in immigration to come down to the texas border with me and visit with the farmers and ranchers on the border who no longer lock their homes because they have people breaking in desperate for food and water because they are on the brink of death. This current system, you have a women and children in trusting themselves to coyotes, dealers, being sexually assaulted, being left to die in the desert. Visit with one of these ranchers who regularly encounter the bodies of those who die desperately seeking freedom and trying to come to this country. Nobody who is interested in a humane system would want a system that encourages future illegal immigration. And the gang of eight bill, which i worked very hard to improve, and when they were not willing to improve it, to stop it, continues the same mistakes of the past offering the same deal offered in 1986, legalization now and sometime maybe in the future, we will secure the border. If that bill became law, 10, 20, 30 years from now the same discussion would go on. I think what the American People want us to fix the system. I think what president obama and the Obama White House wants for the bill to be voted down in the house of representatives because they want a political issue in 2014 and 2016. To my mind, the clarifying moment of the entire immigration debate occurred during the judiciary member market. One amendment to put real teeth in Border Security was rejected. One amendment to eliminate the path to citizenship. That amendment b underlying provisions that provided legal work permits after the border was secure. Senator Chuck Schumer responded. He said if there is no citizenship, there can be no reform. Opportunityook the to thank him for his candor. He has been very clear here today. He has stated he has one overarching political goal and that partisan political goal is more important than everything in this bill. He has stated that if he does not get 100 of his partisan political bill that he is willing to do nothing to secure the border, willing to do nothing to improve hightech immigration, nothing to help our farmers and ranchers and improve agricultural immigration. Most tellingly, his willing to do nothing for the 11 Million People here illegally. Stay in the shadows because if i dont get every bit of my partisan political goal, i will take my marbles and go home. It was candid but it was also profoundly cynical. This is not hypothetical. Then senator obama played a big role in sticking the knife in Immigration Reform than at the behest of the union bosses. Right now, congress is not working to actually fix the system. Thats what the American People want and thats what i hope the house does. I dont know if they will or not but im doing everything i can to encourage them to do exactly that. We have time for just one more question and then we will move down to the lower levels to meet with the media. Are think many of us willing to get going on grassroots. Im really excited about it erie it i feel like our hands are tied. We send letters to representatives. We call. We feel like we are going up against a black curtain and we dont know what happens. Can you give us some advice on how to get going, how to mobilize people, some suggestions of opportunities we can all participate in . Great question. One thing im trying to do is to help and encourage that. In the immigration fight, we started a website, secure borders now. We urge people all over to come and sign up to say secure the borders first, fixed the problem, dont repeat the mistakes of the past. Getting involved and engaged that way makes a difference. As you may know, im participating to abolish the irs and urging people to call in and sign up together to mobilize the grassroots. Let me give an example of what the grassroots can do. Helpmy and, im trying to facilitate and encourage but to be honest, nobody can do it as well as you can as well as each of you organically reaching out to people you know and trust, nothing has the impact like someone like someone you know, respect, and trust saying, heres the truth. Heres what we need to do. Let me give you an encouraging and hope. About a month ago, i was in new york speaking at the new York Republican Party annual fundraiser. We had three groups of protesters. We had one Group Protesting immigration, one Group Protesting because they favored gun control and then we had another that was protesting because i was willing to talk to the new york republicans who were not very stout in defending the Second Amendment. It was interesting to get protested from both ends. A group of liberal activists decided they were going to do what was called a twitter bomb. At the time i was speaking, there are going to launch a liberal activists all over the country to tweet, you cruz, you lose. In response, a group of conservative grassroots activists were going to do a twitter bomb of their own. At 5 30 p. M. Wednesday night, same time they were doing it, they were urging people to tweet cruz to victory. By 9 00, cruztovictory was trending number one in the u. S. And number two worldwide. [applause] the liberal attack did not make the top 10 list. That was entirely organic. We did not prompt it. We did not organize it. We did nothing. That came from the people. Some of you may have seen a senior republican sometime ago referred to me and rand paul. My response to that was not to reciprocate, not