Jim DeMint: Am I supposed to sing along? Boy I could use a man like that in the United States Senate . If, if you didn’t love this country when you got here today, I know you love it now. I, I was standing backstage with tears just reminding myself and being reminded by Marco of what we have here, what a treasure and how so much is at stake this year to turn this thing around, but David thank you, thank you for, to the American Conservative Union for organizing this critical mass of conservative hope and change. And after today and what I, after I see what happens, is happening around the country, I’m really excited about the prospects for conservative Republicans. Three years of a Democrat majority and just one year of President Obama have awakened Americans and led millions to become more passionate advocates for freedom. This has created a new wave of, of Republicans who are embracing the energy and passion of the American people. The Democrats’ arrogance and audacious power grabs have made Americans stand up and say enough is enough.

We now see all too clearly that the hope and change the Democrats had in mind was nothing more than a retread of the failed and discredited socialist policies that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world and now that the Democrats’ goals are glaringly obvious, the battle is between the American people and the Democrats and I like those odds. Americans have been stunned by the fact in the, in the world’s greatest bastion of freedom, our government now owns the largest auto companies, the largest mortgage company, and the largest insurance company. It controls our schools and it’s trying to take over our healthcare system. The federal government is assaulting almost every sector of our free-market economy. At a time when I fear America is teetering towards tyranny, I was thrilled to hear that CPAC adopted the theme of saving freedom for this year’s meeting.

Now saving freedom is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. I published a book last year and titled it Saving Freedom because the danger, because the danger of losing freedom is no longer theoretical, it’s very real. I wanted to remind people that our country has been the most prosperous, the most prosperous nation in all of history and exceptional in, exceptional in so many ways because our economy, our culture and our government were built on principles of freedom that were unique in the entire world. An understanding of American history will confirm that good government policy is always based on proven principles, and proven principles are derived from constructive values, and constructive values are founded on Judeo-Christian convictions. If, if we remove the foundations for our principles and our policies America will fall. Those principles were written into a contract with the American people that promised to limit the federal government’s power. We call that contract the Constitution and when it signed it didn’t even allow a federal income tax and that sounds like a good way to limit the size of the federal government to me. Every Congressman, every Senator, President, Supreme Court Justice takes an oath to protect and defend that Constitution and I think it’s time they started honoring that oath.

The principles of freedom require limited government and a vibrant private sector. Freedom cannot exist without free markets, individual freedom and personal responsibility. Real freedom includes the right to succeed, to build a large business and to make lots of money. It also includes the freedom for mismanaged and insolvent institutions to fail. Despite, despite the clarion call for freedom from the American people there is still a struggle within the Republican Party about who we are and what we stand for. It’s really a fight between those who take their Constitutional oath seriously and those who don’t. We, we all swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution that specifies a very limited federal government. It’s hard for me to believe that Congressmen and Senators who continue their addiction to parochial earmarks and their support for almost every new spending program have read the same Constitution I have.

You know that’s why I along with several other Republicans introduced a budget reform proposal just a few weeks ago. This proposal would put a one-year moratorium on earmarks and require Congress to balance the federal budget. We’ve got to do it. Folks, all Republicans should support these two common sense bills. There are currently 12 Republican Senators who have co sponsored this budget reform proposal and no Democrats. My web site senateconservatives.com lists the names and phone numbers of those who have and haven’t signed on as co sponsors. Please do me a favor and use, use those phone numbers to encourage Senators who are not co sponsoring to join us with this proposal. Think, think about it. With our country drowning in debt if we can’t give up pork for one year and won’t even try to balance the budget now there’s no reason to think that we’ll ever do it tomorrow. We can’t continue to trust budgets that like the President has just proposed that call for more spending, more borrowing, more debt today with vague promises to cut spending sometime in the future. We should all take caution from the Biblical admonition from Proverbs; the borrower is slave to the lender. It’s a truth that becomes more apparent for our country every day. We’re piling up trillions of dollars of debt for our children that they have to pay back. Well I refuse to commit my children and grandchildren to a lifetime of debt slavery because people in Washington are too willing to trade freedom for earmarks and kickbacks. Thank you.

Now, as some of you know, I’ve been criticized by some of my Republican colleagues for saying I’d rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who believe in the principles of freedom than 60 who don’t believe in anything. Let, let me make myself even clearer. I would rather have 30 Marco Rubios in the Senate than 60 Arlen Specters but of course if we had 30 Marco Rubios we wouldn’t have to settle for just 30 because strong conservatives who believe in a Constitutional limited government like Marco Rubio will pave the way to a new Republican majority that will keep our promises to the American people. The best way to re earn the trust of the American people and to reclaim a Republican majority is to find and support candidates who believe in the principles of freedom. It’s that simple. That’s why I founded the Senate Conservatives Fund. That’s senateconservatives.com for those of you who are taking notes. I’m afraid we’re causing a little trouble for the establishment. You, you see I believe in holding incumbent Republican Senators accountable to the principles that we say we believe in.

Now, when Republican Senators don’t do the things that they say they believe voters should have a choice of a new Republican, a real Republican. So we endorse Pat Toomey over Arlen Specter in the Republican primary. That, that seemed to encourage Arlen to follow his liberal roots back to the Democrat Party. You know we caused a little more trouble when we endorsed Marco Rubio in Florida after the Republican Senate Committee endorsed Charlie Crist. I, I think we made a good choice. Then we endorsed another true conservative, Chuck DeVore in California even though some of our colleagues had already picked another candidate. Now Chuck is here at CPAC and I hope you’ll give him a hero’s welcome and we endorse Michael Williams in Texas to replace Senator Hutchison. Now Senator Hutchison has announced she’ll retire from the Senate after her primary for governor in March. Michael is here and I can’t wait for you to hear him speak.

Now let’s talk for a minute about the Presidential race in 2012. I hope Americans – this time I hope Americans will expect more from their next President than a great speech. I think we, we’ve confirmed you can’t govern from a teleprompter. Just because you’re good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to freedom-loving Americans. We need, we need a leader who will remind Americans how we became the greatest nation in history and what we need to do to make sure we’re the greatest nation in the future. This will require telling Americans the cold, hard truth which is this: If America is going to survive and thrive in the future the federal government must do less, not more. No more false hope and empty promises based on more failed government solutions. We need to get back to basics. That means no more bailouts. That means we will not spend money we don’t have. It means that we won’t throw out the faith of our founding fathers and it definitely means that we won’t give away our precious Constitutional rights to foreign terrorists who want to destroy us.

America’s future will be brighter than our past if politicians have the courage to stop using other people’s money to impose their good intentions on everybody else and if they have the courage to restrict the federal government to only those things that it has to do like defend our nation, create a predictable low tax business environment and keep our promises to seniors and veterans. Then for those things that we don’t have to do at the federal level we should return power and money to the people and the states. Reducing the size and the scope of the federal government is the only way to cut spending, to save freedom and to save America. We need leaders who are willing to tell America this truth. Please continue to help supporting and promoting and believing in those leaders.

In closing, I want to thank each of you personally for your support and encouragement. You regularly recharge my batteries. I didn’t come to Washington to make friends and so far I haven’t been disappointed on that. So, so thanks for being a friend. Now, I’ve taken many positions that have offended the President, the Democrat leadership, the union bosses, the plaintiff’s bar, moveon.org, the liberal media. I’ve even offended a few of my Republican colleagues and frank, frankly sometimes it feels like I’m trying to hold back the tide and the battle gets a little tiresome and if I, if I couldn’t come here every year and, and plug into the CPAC renewable energy source, you know I wouldn’t even have the strength to show up at Waterloo much less win the battle so thank you and God Bless America.

 

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