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"He's been a very effective leader," Bush said of DeLay when asked if he thought the Texas Republican had become a liability to their political party or its agenda.

"We've gotten a lot done in the legislature, and I'm convinced we'll get more done in the legislature. And I'm looking forward to working with him," Bush told the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Mr. DeLay: Well, I hope we can shed anybody's notion that that's where we are headed. First, in full disclosure, I voted against No Child Left Behind. But, that's the president's agenda. And he worked very hard to accomplish that agenda. We will revisit No Child Left Behind, look at its effectiveness and those kinds of issues. I know the president wants to extend it. But I think we have to see if No Child Left Behind is actually working before we talk about extending it.
    I'm not using it as an excuse, because I came here to limit government and reduce the size of government.

The rate of growth has gone from - I'll get you the numbers, but as I can recall - after the first year, in the second year - that's when Bush really had control and provided discipline - the rate of growth was about 5 percent. The next year, it was 4 percent. The next year, it was 3 percent. Last year, on discretionary spending, we increased spending ever so slightly, but you can say we froze discretionary spending.

    Mr. DeLay: Well, I'm not sure I want to go there. Let me put it a different way. What people don't notice is this House has led the way and has had tax relief - sometimes more than once in a year - every year since we've been in the majority. That's really important. Some of it actually has become law. More important than that is that it's been over 10 years since we voted to raise any federal taxes. How did we do that? We grew the economy. Through our policies, we helped the economy grow.

    The idea is to hold the line on spending and let the economy catch up. Balanced budgets can be done [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi's way. We could do that tomorrow. We could raise enough taxes to balance the budget. That's what they did in 1993.

    Mr. DeLay: That's certainly been the case. And the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce - you're absolutely right. But the opposite is also true. If I named anything I would like to get rid of, then my ability to actually get rid of it is over.

    Because the minute the press gets a hold of it, the tsunami comes in, and there's no way to make it happen.

    Mr. DeLay: No, no, no. Shrinking government and limiting government are actually two different things. Limiting the government in your life, regulatory, social issues and all that and shrinking the size of government or reprioritizing - or as I like to say it, 'redesigning' - government to reflect our values are very important.
    I know some may have opposed what we did in Medicare. I'm very proud of what we did in Medicare.

    Reporter Ralph Z. Hallow: Why?

    Mr. DeLay: Because if we didn't do anything, it would break this country. What we did, we instituted - not in a pretty way - but we instituted our philosophy and our values, bringing in competition, trying to eliminate third-party payments, bringing in co-payments ... now they are instituted. And they are part of the Medicare program.

    Mr. DeLay: Well, I hate to bias what I'd like to see. I think it's incredibly important - before we even look at guest worker or anything else - to convince the American people that we are protecting our borders. I personally think that we ought to use the eyes and ears of our military. You'll never build a wall high enough or deep enough to keep people from coming over the Rio Grande River. They're gonna come to feed their families no matter what you do. But you can build a seeing-eye wall. I mean, we can read your license plate from satellites. We can set up our systems with Predators [remote-control unmanned surveillance planes] and everything. We don't need these guys down there - and God bless them for doing it - to watch people coming over the border. We can use our military

Mr. DeLay: Not zealous. I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

"As I read his comments today, he wants the ethics committee to review his case, and he's willing to step up and talk to the ethics committee about it," Bush said. "And secondly, I'm looking forward to working with Tom. He's been a very effective leader. We've gotten a lot done in the legislature."

Bush laughed off an editor's question about whether he agrees with DeLay that the "liberal news media" are responsible for his troubles. "Of course not!" Bush exclaimed and then chuckled.