WATTS: We shouldn't just say it, we should live it. And so we have made it our mission to limit the claims and demands of Washington, to limit it's call for more power, more authority and more taxes. Our mission is to return power to your home, to where mothers and fathers can exercise it according to their beliefs.

So let me tell you three actions the Republicans will take in the coming year. First, we can help our country by bringing back the knowledge, the ancient wisdom that we are nothing without our spiritual, traditional and family values. The Republicans will take action to give those values a bigger place in solving America's problems. After all, our values are more important to our future than any so-called bureaucratic breakthrough. Think about your life and how you built it.

I didn't get my values from Washington. I got my values from my parents -- from Buddy and Helen Watts in Eufaula, Oklahoma. I got my values growing up in a black neighborhood on the east side of the railroad tracks where money was scarce, but dreams were plentiful and love was all around. I got my values from a strong family, a strong church and a strong neighborhood.

I wasn't raised to be a Republican or Democrat. My parents just taught by example. They taught me and my brothers and sisters that if you lived under their roof, you were going to work. They taught us if you made a mistake, as we all do, you've got to own up to it, you call it what it is, and you try to turn it around. They taught us if you spend more money than you make, you're on a sure road to disaster.

I was taught to respect everyone for the simple reason that we're all God's children. I was taught, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and from my uncle Wade Watts, to judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. And I was taught that character does count, and that character is simply doing what's right when nobody's looking.

My parents also taught me I could do anything if I applied myself and understood sacrifice and commitment.

Now if you agree with those things my parents taught me, and that I'm trying to teach my children, then friends, we have common ground. It is the Republican Party that has been trying to return these values to government, and it hasn't been easy because for a long time, the government has acted as if it didn't have any common sense.

Here's an example. For the past 30 years, our nation spent $5 trillion trying to erase poverty. And the result -- as you know -- is that we didn't get rid of it at all. In fact, we spread it. We destroyed the self-esteem of millions of people, grinding them down in a welfare system that penalizes moms for wanting to marry the father of their children and penalizes moms for wanting to save money. Friends, that's not right.

Last year, the Republican Congress moved to reform the welfare system, and for the first time in my lifetime, we are helping people climb the ladder of economic opportunity.

Let me tell you the next step. A number of my colleagues and I, my Republican colleagues and I are working on a package called the American Community Renewal Act.

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