[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10887-10888]
[From the U.S. 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!
       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

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     other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

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