I became a general contractor in my early 20s. I have been in the business for over 35 years.

Rather than waiting to restore fiscal responsibility after we pass legislation, we must work to ensure we remain committed to it as we draft legislation.

The National Flood Insurance Program is a valuable tool in addressing the losses incurred throughout this country due to floods. It assures that businesses and families have access to affordable flood insurance that would not be available on the open market.

The United States' gasoline industry, as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated, is remarkably fragile. And the process of how oil is pumped from the ground, turned into gasoline and distributed to consumers is complicated.

In 1973, America imported 30 percent of its crude oil needs. Today, that number has doubled to more than 60 percent. Gas prices are as high as they are now in part because we've had no comprehensive national energy policy for the past few decades.

An estimated 7 million illegal immigrants were residing in the United States in January 2000. This is double the size of the illegal immigrant population in January 1990 and constitutes 2.5 percent of the total U.S. population of just over 281 million.

Today more than 20,000 communities participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. More than 90 insurance companies sell and service flood service insurance. There are more than four million policies covering the total of $800 billion.

An American worker should not expect his pay to be cut because somebody comes to this country illegally and is willing to work for less than he or she should be paid.

In the United States, oil demand is projected to grow by 340,000 barrels per day this year and gasoline demand is projected to grow nearly two percent, averaging 9.3 million barrels per day for the summer.

A variety of factors contribute to the price of gasoline in the United States. These factors include worldwide supply, demand and competition for crude oil, taxes, regional differences in access to gasoline supplies and environmental regulations.

Today, currently, business owners can go out and find out if the person they are hiring is eligible to work here or if they are not. We need to think about how we are impacting workers.

In 2001, America 's hospitals provided nearly $21 billion in uncompensated health care services.

The Asian nation's oil demand is expected to grow this year by 800,000 barrels per day and represents more than one-third of the total growth in global demand, according to the Energy Information Agency.

Hospitals must provide emergency treatment to all who walk through the door, regardless of their citizenship status or ability to pay.

Many talk about a guest worker program. I think most reasonable people believe that a guest worker program in the farming industry, perhaps in the gardening and landscape industries, is reasonable.

Emergency health care for illegal aliens along the southwestern border is already costing area hospitals $200 million a year, with perhaps another $100 million in extended care costs.

California has the highest number of illegal immigrants residing in its borders. The estimated number of illegal alien residents in California was about 2.2 million, or nearly 32 percent of the total number of illegal immigrants in the United States.

The price of crude oil accounts for 55 percent of the price of a gallon of gasoline, driven by global supply and demand. The United States depends on foreign sources of oil for 62 percent of our nation's supply. By 2010, this is projected to jump to 75 percent.

Global crude oil demand is increasing, particularly in places like China.

Energy companies, such as Chevron and Shell, and oil producing countries, such as Kuwait and Venezuela, pump crude oil from their vast land holdings and sell it on the world market.

I became a general contractor in my early 20s. I have been in the business for over 35 years.

Hospitals must provide emergency treatment to all who walk through the door regardless of their citizenship status or ability to pay.

Natural resources are so vast that no single individual or business is going to protect them; they don't have an incentive to.

The bronze powder business, however, no longer required my personal attention, and was well managed by those I had chosen as the guardians of a secret, which was long and honourably kept.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

Howard Hughes himself was a regular at the restaurant, and in a way it became his headquarters, too. Howard had recently relocated to Las Vegas, so when he wanted to do business in Los Angeles, he went into the back of our restaurant to use the telephone.

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

We mean by "politics" the people's business - the most important business there is.

Slovakia's joining the OECD in 1999 is totally dependent on meeting economic reforms required such as transparency and legislation that permits fair and open conduct of trade and business.

The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

It costs a great deal of money to do a musical, and the more money involved, the more big business influences the artform.

It's a very hard and competitive business in which you have to fight every day in order to impose yourself.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

Chicago kept industry, attracted new business, became the center for convention trade and transportation.

I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

You have to be a star to be in this business.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it.

I have never had anything done. I've been asked if I had breast implants. Whether I did or not, it's nobody's business but my own.

You just can't get too focused on worrying about what's going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

They all went into the bar business. Which was a mistake, because they began to sip at the merchandise and it set them back, set us all back. Well, them more than I.

There was a time when I was wondering about this business of going public, so I visited about a half-dozen companies in the Boston area, all of them formed by MIT faculty and all had gone public.

A business of high principle generates greater drive and effectiveness because people know that they can do the right thing decisively and with confidence.