Here are the highlights:

“Our government was conceived to protect our liberty in all its expressions, political, religious, and economic, and in many respects government provides services that are indispensable to us. But it was not intended to command our economy, or redirect its benefits to this or that interest group or subordinate its growth to the growth of government. Government’s constitutional obligation to promote the general welfare did not empower it to assume the responsibilities of individuals but to protect our right to exercise those responsibilities without fear or favor, and to profit from the results. Government should never ask from American families more than is necessary to do the things they cannot do for themselves. It should spend money as wisely as they would, and exercise its responsibilities as competently as they exercise theirs.

“When I came to Congress, Democrats were in the majority and they used government to make our choices for us. They took from us an ever greater share of our freedom and property to do the things American families and communities are better able to do for ourselves. They grew government for the sake of their own power, and used the American economy, the wonder of the world, to serve their ends not ours. They taxed it, regulated it, and injured it for the sake of partisan and parochial interests rather than liberate it, incentivize it and put it to work for all Americans.

“When Republicans won a majority in Congress, we did so with the promise to restore to Americans their freedom and resources that had been wasted extravagantly, to mind our accounts as carefully as American families minded theirs, to govern less but govern better. And we did some good things. We reformed welfare, we lowered taxes, we began to repair our national defense, and for a time, thanks to a growing economy and peace, we managed to spend no more than we took in. But we left some big things undone because they were too hard and too politically risky.

“Worst of all, we forgot who we were: tight-fisted stewards of the federal treasury who keep our priorities straight. We asked Americans to make us the governing party, and we rewarded them by becoming the party of government. As any new member of Congress quickly learns, there are really three parties in Congress: Republicans, Democrats and appropriators. And woe to the member who challenges the supremacy of the latter. No campaign promise, no political philosophy, no national priority is allowed to stand in the way of the prerogatives and priorities of the appropriations committees. When an appropriator says spend, we spend. We spend money on an indoor rainforest in the Midwest. We spend it to study the DNA of bears in Montana, without knowing whether we needed to solve a criminal case or a paternity suit. And we spend it to build a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Such spending might come natural to Democrats, but Republicans promised an end to such extravagances. We promised not to take your money to play pork barrel politics. We promised to be a party of principle, not a party of entrenched political power.

…

“The presidency has many powers. One of the most useful is the veto pen. I believe the President should have the line item veto as 43 governors have, and I’ll fight to get it. But I won’t wait for it. Give me the pen, and I’ll use it. I won’t just talk about it, or threaten it, or use it once and put it back in the drawer to gather dust. Give me the pen, and I’ll veto every single pork barrel bill Congress sends me, and if they keep sending them to me, I’ll use the bully pulpit to make the people who are wasting your money famous. You’ll know who they are, and you can hold them accountable. No is always the right answer to wasteful spending. Give me the pen and, I promise you, I’ll say no, and I’ll say it loud enough so everyone hears me.

…

“I’m not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things. I’m running for President to protect this country from harm and defeat our enemies. I’m running for President to make the government do its job, not your job; to do it with less, and to do it better. I’m running for President to defend our freedom and expand our opportunities. I’m running for President not to leave our biggest national problems to some unluckier generation of leaders, but to fix them now, and leave our grandchildren a safer, freer and more prosperous country than the one we were blessed to inherit; I’m running for President to make sure America maintains its place as the political and economic leader of the world; the country that doesn’t fear change but makes change work for us; the country that doesn’t long for the good old days, but aspires to even better days. I’m running for President of the United States, not a defeated country, not a bankrupt country; not a timid and frightened country; not a country fragmented into bickering interest groups with no sense of or dedication to the national interest; not a country with a bloated, irresponsible and incompetent government. I’m not running for town manager or school board member or corporate treasurer or surgeon general or head of the trial lawyers association or secretary of the local charity. I’m running for President of the United States, the most powerful, prosperous nation and greatest force for good on earth. And if I am elected President I intend to keep it so. Thank you.”

Read the whole thing.