[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 28, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H4844-H4845]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TAX TEA PARTY DECLARATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Stearns) for 5 minutes.
Mr. STEARNS. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the thousands
of people in the Sixth Congressional District of Florida who stood
together and told this administration and this Congress to turn off the
taxpayer-funded spigot of government bailouts.
These hardworking Americans made their point loud and clear; they do
not want to see our Nation bankrupt from a fiscal policy that ignores
the free market principles this country was founded upon and attempts
to spend its way out of record-breaking debt through increased
government control and expansion of inefficient bureaucratic power.
Let me go ahead and read an excerpt from their 4-page declaration
that over 1,800 people from my hometown, Ocala, signed on April 15, tax
day.
``We raise our voices against the arrogance and the ruinous policies
of our government, a government that ignores We the People, a
government that drowns us in debt, a government that forsakes the free
enterprise system that has driven the engine of the greatest economy on
Earth in favor of a relentless march towards socialism designed to
subvert the worth of the individual and encourage the intrusion of
government into all aspects of our lives.''
Madam Speaker, I will submit the entire ``Tax Tea Party Declaration''
for the Record. And also, I have a petition signed by over 2,000 people
in Ocala, Florida, demonstrating their commitment to ending this bad
economic policy.
Like those who attended rallies in Starke, Trenton, Gainesville, and
Orange Park, I have not and will not support bailout after bailout as
sound economic policy. It is unconscionable for this administration and
this Congress to continue committing good money after bad.
In October of 2008, the U.S. Government committed an astounding $700
billion in public funds to failing private financial institutions
through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP. However, just last
week, the TARP Special Inspector General reported that the total cost
of TARP will cost the American taxpayer between $2.4 trillion and $2.9
trillion.
It is evident that we can no longer allow government bureaucrats such
as Timothy Geithner and Henry Paulson to use their position and the
taxpayer-funded Federal Reserve to act as a safety net for their
partners on Wall Street when they fail due to incompetence and
unchecked greed.
I am a strong believer in free markets. And inherent in that economic
model is that not every person or idea makes money. It is time for Wall
Street to understand this unmistakable tenet and not rely on the
Federal Reserve and the American taxpayer to continue to save them when
their gambles accumulate into significant losses.
Anna Schwartz, co-author along with Milton Friedman of ``A Monetary
History of the United States,'' viewed by many as the definitive
account of how U.S. monetary policy turned the stock market crash of
1929 into the Great Depression and which Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of
the Federal Reserve, has called the ``leading and most persuasive
explanation of the worst economic disaster in American history,''
contends that the Treasury, through its actions, has prolonged this
crisis. Let me quote here on this board:
``They should not be recapitalizing firms that should be shut down.
Rather, firms that made wrong decisions should fail. You shouldn't
rescue them. And once that is established as a principle, I think the
market recognizes that it makes sense.''
As true capitalists, these titans of Wall Street should understand
the risks and rewards of a free market economy and be allowed to fail
like the rest of Main Street when they make foolish or risky decisions.
Many economists look to the past to predict economic futures; it is a
tested way to learn from past mistakes and avoid making them in the
future. Looking to the past, we discover that Henry Morganthau, FDR's
Treasury Secretary, gave this very important quote in May of 1939
during the Great Depression. He said, ``We have tried spending money.
We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not
work. I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong, somebody else
can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see
people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never
made good on our promises. I say, after 8 years of this administration,
we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and enormous debt
to boot.''
This current economic policy of bailout after bailout and colossal
government spending is just plain wrong, Madam Speaker, and the
American people know it.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary
for like-minded patriotic citizens to rally as one against
the powers that threaten to alter, diminish and destroy this
country we love, proper respect for the opinions of our
fellow citizens requires that we should clearly state the
grievances that impel us to gather at this Ocala tea party to
protest peacefully, but passionately in the tradition of our
forefathers whose Boston Tea party resonated around the
world.
The history of the present government of these United
States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having the effect of establishing an unacceptable tyranny
over the citizens of these states. Let the facts be self-
evident and speak for themselves . . . and let these
grievances be heard in the halls of power in 2009, just as
they were heard in the palace of Britain's King George the
third, as they thundered forth from the text of the
Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776.
Be it resolved on this 15th day of April, in the year 2009,
at the Great Ocala Tea Party in the Town Square in Ocala,
Florida, that just as our forefathers at the Boston Tea Party
protested tyranny at the hands of the British Crown and
taxation without representation, we hereby raise our voices
against the arrogance and the ruinous policies of our own
government . . . a government that ignores the will of ``We
The People'' . . . a government that drowns us in debt . . .
a government that forsakes the free enterprise system that
has driven the engine of the greatest economy on earth, in
favor of a relentless march toward socialism designed to
subvert the worth of the individual and encourage the
intrusion of government into all aspects of our lives.
Let the word go forth from this time and place that we are
freedom loving Americans who cherish individual liberty, our
constitution and all that this nation has stood for over 233
years. We love our country, and we are here to take it back!
Let us hereby resolve that we have had enough of massive
government driven bailouts using our money! Stop spending
money we do not have! This is not your money, this is our
money, and we demand you stop the madness!
We have had enough of so-called economic stimulus plans
that falsely promise we can spend ourselves back to
prosperity!
We have had enough of trillion-dollar spending schemes
being passed without congress or the people knowing what is
in them. This is taxation without deliberation and we will
not tolerate it!
[[Page H4845]]
We have had enough of the out of control government
spending that is mortgaging our future and threatening our
very way of life!
We have had enough of both major parties being arrogant and
unresponsive to the people they were elected to serve!
We have had enough of seeing money taken unfairly from
honest hard working Americans through excessive taxation and
redistributed to individuals who have not earned the money!
We have enough of capitalism being targeted as the problem
instead of the solution!
We have had enough of government being called the solution,
when government is the problem!
In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for
redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions to
our elected officials have been answered only by repeated
injury, if, in fact, they have been answered at all. A
government so arrogant and unresponsive to its people is
unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
We, therefore, the people of the United States of America,
in general congress assembled, here in the Town Square of
Ocala, Florida, on this 15th day of April, in the year 2009,
do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of
this city and nation, solemnly publish and declare that we
are a free people, in this free and independent state, and
that we have the power to demand that our government cease
serving its own interest, and whatever political and
ideological agendas it may be pursuing, and become the
Government Of The People, By The People, and For the People
to which we are entitled as Americans. And that for the
support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on divine
providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
fortunes, and our sacred honor.
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