Wayne County Tax Day Tea Party

Today, we reclaim America. The strength of this nation is its reliance on the common man and his consent to be governed under known rules applicable to all. Unfortunately, this consent is rapidly being gutted by governing elites at the Federal level who view the common man with condescension. This new aristocracy isn’t much interested in how we, the fly-over people, think. It speaks for us. Today, we rise to speak for ourselves.

The economist Milton Friedman said “the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem” and “if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.” He understood the importance of freedom and how easily it could be lost when man’s conceit took over, when some men assumed they could improve on freedom by imposing their own designer solutions. The history of man is one of repeated attempts by some to organize society around themselves at the expense of liberty. Each has ended in disaster. This time will be no different if we do not step forward, as the governed, to say “enough.”

Many suggest we are victims of financial greed, but such greed has always been with us. The solution is capitalism, which punishes greed with failure. The greed to fear is the greed for power. We have thrown out our Constitution and given unprecedented power to unelected officials to spend not only everything we have, but everything our children and grandchildren can ever hope to have, on winners picked by Washington elites.

The U.S. government and Federal Reserve have, without authority, spent $12.8 trillion dollars we don’t have. We can’t even hope to borrow it if the Chinese won’t buy our bonds. That’s $103,000 per household. It’s over 90% of the entire value of every single thing this country will produce this year. We don’t know how they’re spending the money, but we’re assured it’s necessary by those doing it in our name. Worse, we’ll never know just where the money went because the Federal Reserve, the mother of all banks, is not even subject to an audit. But, of course, that’s the way Washington works - accountability for us, power for them.

We are also dealing with a national debt of $9 trillion or $72,000 per household before we started bailouts. And, this is not all. We have $46 trillion of unfunded Social Security, Medicare and Federal pension liabilities, some $371,000 of additional debt. And, they now want to take over health care and fund control of non-existent global warming at a minimum cost of another $1.3 trillion or $10,000 per household annually. Add it up. We now owe $556,000 per household. Soon we’ll all be millionaire debtors. It’s one gigantic pyramid scheme, like Bernie Madoff’s, except he talked people out of their money - the government just takes it.

Unfortunately, Federal greed isn’t limited to taking our money and spending it on someone’s else’s priorities. It’s already telling us what light bulbs to use, who gets a mortgage, how much we can earn and what we can say before an election. It plans to tell us where to live, how much we can travel, where to set the thermostat, what car we can buy, what we can do for a living, what radio we can listen to and what we can teach. It hopes to control our medicine and, when we’re seriously ill, decide whether we live or die. All this is in our name. No one’s asking our permission – they know we won’t approve. We are treated like someone’s flock of nameless, hapless hens.

We face an ever-growing Federal government knowing no bounds. Our Constitution has been turned inside out, from a guarantee of individual liberties into a mandate to control our every activity. We must take it back. We must go on offense. We’re told not to complain unless we offer a better program. I don’t want better programs, I want fewer of them. I want the government to be backed off, forced down and shrunk to its proper size. Let’s get back to Jefferson’s principle - the government that governs least governs best.

We need a balanced budget amendment, limits on taxation, rights of recall, audit of the Federal Reserve, 10th Amendment sovereignty, sunset legislation for all Federal programs and an end to these hideous bailouts. Most of all, we need to squelch the idea public service is getting yourself a lifetime job as a politician. We need to revoke our consent and restore a citizen legislature by forcing term limits on Congress and judges. Let’s issue pink slips in Washington, cut the pay of those we keep and send them home to work. Let us say to our governing elites - you have failed, now go. If we have not the will to do so, we will lose this country. We’re too great a nation for that. If America is lost, all is lost. Let’s not lose her.