“Let Freedom Work”
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint
February 24, 2009
Hello, I’m Senator Jim DeMint.
Tonight, President Obama is coming up to Capitol Hill to address Congress and the nation about his agenda to get us out of this economic recession.
The president is right about the economy – it isn’t working. And when something isn’t working, you figure out what’s wrong and fix it.
You don’t just wrap the thing in duct tape – even a few trillion dollars worth – and call it a day. Not if you want to prevent it from breaking down again in a few months.
Unfortunately, I think that’s what President Obama’s economic recovery plan – despite its good intentions – will do.
He wants to focus on four parts of our economy causing the most trouble right now – housing, banking, energy, and health care.
He wants taxpayers to bailout irresponsible borrowers and lenders. He wants to subsidize unproven energy sources while restricting access to proven ones. And he wants Washington to take over the health care system all together.
I think President Obama has identified some of the right targets here; I just think he’s shooting blanks. All of his ideas will make Washington more powerful and families and businesses less so.
Let me put it this way: do you think the problem with our economy is that Washington doesn’t have enough money and you have too much?
If there’s one thing people should be able to agree on, it’s that government just doesn’t work very well.
What does work – what has worked in America every time it’s been tried – is freedom.
I don’t just mean the freedom to keep more of your own money – though that’s a crucial part of it. I mean the freedom to make your own choices, and to take the responsibility for them.
Freedom makes us more prudent borrowers and investors. It empowers us to be smarter, better-informed consumers. It encourages hard work and thrift, rewards families and businesses who play by the rules, and holds accountable those who don’t.
Freedom will give us better schools, more energy choices, and better health care at lower prices… if we just let it work.
Government solutions only create new, unintended problems, which inevitably spur calls for new government solutions.
An economic recovery plan based on freedom will break that vicious cycle, and ultimately stimulate much more than our troubled economy.
It can revive the American spirit that created the jobs, formed the communities, and built the culture of freedom that makes the United States the nation we love.
Freedom works. It has before — in worse times than these – and it will again. If we let it.
Thank you very much.
Here’s the video…
