At last fall's Reason in DC conference (October 26-27), former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) talked about how champions of free markets should focus on the need for smaller and better government.

In this excerpt from his talk, Armey, now the head of Freedomworks, a nonprofit that promotes "lower taxes, less government, more freedom," takes a bold stand for one of the most pilloried populations in these United States: Illegal immigrants who come here to make a better life for their children and themselves.

The Congressional Budget Office did a big favor to pro-immigration forces this week by announcing that the Senate bill would have actually generated more tax payments for the federal government than it would have cost. The bill would have been a net $5 billion revenue raiser over the next decade.

As the No. 2 man in the Republican-controlled House for nearly eight years, then-U.S. Rep. Dick Armey of Texas never hesitated to assail Democrats.

But three years after leaving Congress, the former House majority leader is now savaging conservatives in his own party for what he calls “knee-jerk” opposition — “emphasis on jerk” — to the Bush administration’s efforts to create a temporary guest worker program and overhaul the immigration system.