Hello and how are you doing? Welcome to CPAC. Are you excited to be here? Especially in a presidential year?
You know, I'm loving this election. Aren't you?
It is all about change. It is about sending a message to D.C., and it is about getting this nation back on track. And what I really like about it is, people are kind of going back to school on politics. I have constituents who are reading the constitution, watching the debates with their families and most importantly of all, the people are the teachers this year, and elected officials are the students. And this is what they're teaching us:
They're tired of being taken for granted. They're tired of failure, they have expectations and those expectations are not being met. They want us to quit the talking and get to work on the big things. You know, things like preserving faith, family, hope, opportunity, those things that Thomas Jefferson wrote a lot about. Like the self-evident truths.
You know he turned often to Philosopher John Locke, and Locke, wrote so well about the purpose of the law. This is what he said, "the purpose of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to observe and enlarge freedom." Now, think about that in terms of what is happening in Washington, D.C. Do we really think that Washington is preserving and enlarging freedom when we pass a 1 trillion dollar Obamacare bill? Do we think that Washington is preserving freedom when Christian bakers are forced to cater a gay wedding, against their moral principles? Do we think that you enlarge freedom when we have an executive who seizes power, through executive order, and ignores congress and ignores the will of the people? You're right. The answer is absolutely not.
But it is so amazing to me that Washington wonders why we the people are angry. It's like establishment in Washington doesn't get it. But I think you and I could build out a list for why the American people are so angry. How about we have not had a balanced budget amendment in 15 years. It is time for one. Some years we spend more than a trillion dollars than we take in, we have 19 trillion dollars' worth of debt, it is growing, we have regulations that are closing all sorts of businesses, and we have bureaucracies that are going in and they're raiding guitar factories in Tennessee, because they don't like the wood that they're using, and in California they're out here regulating backyard barbeques to see how it effects ozone, and the EPA's out there trying to get rid of $0.50 light bulbs, and $100 ceiling fans. These people have too much time and too much money on their hands and it is time to reign them in.
This is why people are angry, it's righteous angry, and it's good, it motivates, it wields power. Americans are sick of seeing their country full of people and injustice. Thank goodness they're going to do something about it. You know, I think we have a great story in the bible about righteous anger. Jesus in the temple. He saw what was happening, he went in, he threw out the merchants and the settlers. He cleansed that sacred place, of the immoral. Washington D.C. needs a good cleansing. So does the White House, and we need to get rid of all the special interest, all of the lobbyists, and return this government to being a government of, by, and for the people of the United States.
Now, when I was growing up, my mother would say, you can sit there and get mad, or you can get up and get busy. I think that we the people have to get busy. We need to get busy on a few basic things. Like honoring the rule of law, and how do you honor the rule of law? You enforce it. You don't honor the rule of law when you have millions of illegal aliens and millions of tons of drugs, and sex traffickers and human traffickers, promoting human slavery, coming across the southern border. You don't honor the rule of law when you do not build a wall and secure the southern border, and you do not honor the rule of law when you continue to allow Syrian Refugees to come into this country.
You know another thing that people want us to get busy on is security. How many of you took Latin in school. Anybody? I'm glad to see those hands out there. I took Latin for 4 years, and still can't speak a foreign language. But, as we were looking at security, I went back to the Latin root. You know what it is? Secures. The Latin root of the word security. You know what it means? Free from care. Free from care.
In this election year, three issues. National security, jobs and economic security, retirement security, they're the top issues. Think about security and being free from care. Where we talk about national security, that we don't have to worry about ISIS infiltrating our country. We don't have to worry about our military recruiting centers being shot up, or shopping centers being shot up, or Christmas parties having terrorists come in. That's what national security means.
Jobs and economic security that we're not going to have to worry where the paycheck comes from. Or that we're going to have a government agency come in and padlocking our business. Or retirement security, that the money that we've paid into Medicare or social security, all of our working life, is going to be there when we retire. There's some things that congress could and should be doing to jumpstart this.
How about repealing Obamacare, passing a balanced budget amendment, stabilizing our trust funds, securing our southern border, ending the president's executive amnesty, getting rid of the Iran deal, and making sure we cut the federal bureaucracy. All of those are first steps. Now, the question always becomes, how do you get this done?
A couple of things, number 1, an attitude adjustment for this country. We are the greatest country on the face of this earth. We are the United States of America, we are founded in freedom. We need to go back to having that can do attitude. When I was in college, bought my first car with money I'd made that summer. It was a bright blue Ford LTD, it was as ugly as can be. And I loved it. I named that car "Can Do," because I thought I can do anything I set my mind to. That is the American Dream. That is what we need to restore.
Another thing, we're not going to make this happen without you. Gallop asked several thousand Americans if they believed what they saw on the evening news. Seventy percent said no. They don't believe it. Then look at this, they're watching ABC, which is all about Clinton, NBC, which is nothing but Clinton, CBS, which is the Clinton BS Network, so there you go.
You know who they believe, they believe you. The Y-O-U is the most effective name in news. Third thing, we need legislators and a president of the United States that understands their purpose. Their purpose is to preserve liberty, to protect the constitution, and to pass on this great nation.
Abraham Lincoln said a great thing that we should all remember. "America can never be destroyed from outside. If we falter, and if we lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. So let's get busy. Let's get our attitude right. Let's get our networks together. Let's talk to our friends. Let's make certain that we the people rise up, we take our country back, and we do our share to pass along faith, family, freedom, hope and opportunity to the next generation. Thank you so much for being here.
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