Dr. Patrick Johnston’s TEA Party Speech, Zanesville, Ohio, April 15, 2009

We are here today because our nation is speeding toward a cliff, and our leaders think the best remedy is to pick up speed. We are on the verge of an economic catastrophe the likes of which most of us have never seen. Our government owes $244,000 of debt for every taxpayer. Repaying the interest on the 11.1 trillion dollars of debt is the third largest expense in the federal budget. This is the equivalent of you maxing so many credit cards that your interest payments on your credit card debt takes up 1/3 of your paycheck! That’s just digging yourself deeper into the pit of your economic demise! Yet the budget this year breaks all records by increasing the debt trillions of dollars!

The government thinks that capitalism and free enterprise has failed us, and they want to increase their control as a remedy, when in reality too much government is the problem. Of course the state’s going to prescribe more of the disease to try to better our symptoms because they profit off of our exploitation! The politicians increase the likelihood of their re-election if they can coerce us out of money to give to causes that we would not give to freely if we had the choice. If you want to fund a cowgirl museum in Arizona, bail out a failing bank or a wall street executive, give drug addicts free needles with their Medicaid check, or fund a tattoo removal program in LA, you are free to write them a check. But when you use the power of government to force others, upon pain of fine or prison, to give to causes that they would not give willingly if they had the free choice, then you’ve violate the 8th commandment, which says do not steal.

Unemployment and home foreclosures may be the least of our problems. Tax rates comparable to the former U.S.S.R.’s, the loss of our nest eggs, and the bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare will be the least of our problems if we continue down this road. The consequences we will face as a nation will be the loss of our liberties and the enslavement of our children under the shadow of an all-consuming communist state.

Our forefathers intended to prevent this in the Constitution. The state’s remedy for our economic troubles is a blatant violation of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which says that any obligation not granted to the federal government within the Constitution belongs to the states or the people. Does the Constitution grant the federal government the right or duty to spend taxpayers’ money to bail out failing private industries? No. Defying the Constitution does not amend it. These bailouts and all this unconstitutional spending is unlawful.

We’ve called this a Tea Party in memory of those brave Bostoners who protested England’s unfair tea tax by casting tea off the ships into the ocean. But there’s no comparison! Our level of taxation is so much higher than the taxation that they protested, that they if they faced our level of tyrannical taxation, burdensome government regulation, borrowing, inflationary printing of money, and deficit spending to satisfy Congress’ greed, they wouldn’t have just cast the tea into the water and tarred and feathered the sailors – they would have burned the ships and hung the sailors! The avg. Ohioan must work from Jan. 1 to April 29 just to pay the tax burden he owes to the government. In essence, we are slaves a third of the year to the government when we must work for them upon threat of prison, and only after are we free to work for ourselves.

We are naïve to not look ahead and see the precipice to which we are headed. In nine short years from now, Social Security will start having to pay out more in benefits than it receives in taxes. At that point, the government will have to start replacing all of the money it has stolen from the SS trust fund. It can only do that if it borrows more, raises taxes, or cuts benefits. Who’s going to pay for it? Your will! Our kids will! Medicare was due to be bone dry by 2026, but thanks to the 2003 Medicare drug entitled program which passed under Republican leadership, the fund will start to run bone dry by 2019, seven years sooner than predicted. We are in a major thunderstorm right now, but a tidal wave rises on our horizon thanks to the bipartisan tyranny in the federal government.

Alexander Fraser Tytler said, “A democracy can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves [money] from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that democracies always collapse over loose fiscal policy, followed by a dictatorship.”

We are enslaving our children with our bailouts, our earmarks, our pork, our debt that they will have to pay back with interest, and our faith in government remedies that increase the power of the state at the expense of individual liberties. Unless we change our ways and restrain the federal government with the chains of the Constitution, our children will suffer under a dictatorship of our own making.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity is but swindling future generations on a large scale.”

Let me illustrate.

(As my oldest child, Charity, 10 years old, walks on stage, I tie her hands with rope and put a sign over her neck that reads “SOLD.”)
Oh no! I can’t afford my mortgage anymore because my interest-only payment has gone up now that I’m having to pay on the principle. Government, will you come in a rescue me from foreclosure? I know it’s costly, but here, I have a child – they’ll work an extra week a year to pay the interest on the billion dollar bailout. I’ll sacrifice their future if you’ll help me live in a home I can’t afford!

(As my second child, Anna, comes on stage, I tie her hands and put a “SOLD” sign over her neck.)
Oh no, my insurance company, AIG, is on the verge of bankruptcy. Private investors won’t touch it because its too deep in debt and the owners won’t make the changes necessary to keep them competitive in the free market. I can’t lose my insurance! Government, I know it’s costly, but will you take a kid as collateral? They’ll sacrifice an extra paycheck or two a year to help keep failing companies afloat.

(James, 7 years old, is next.)
Oh no! The stockmarket crash has wiped out my retirement. My 401 K has dwindled down to 1 K! I’m going to have to work longer than I wanted to. And I so much wanted to catch up on my fishing and my golf game. Government, will you pump billions into wall street and buy up all those worthless assets? I know you can’t afford it, but hey, I’ve got this other kid here. My kid will work for you an extra month a year for the rest of their lives to pay the interest on the loans necessary to bailout wallstreet executives.

(Then Daniel)
Oh no! GM and Chrysler’s are on the verge of bankruptcy! Unemployment will go even higher! Who’s going to satisfy my warranty on my GM truck? I know it’s costly, but I’ve got another kid here, will you take my kid’s future in exchange for bailing out these failing car companies?

(Then three-year-old Grace)
Oh no! My bank’s going bankrupt! We can’t let free enterprise and competition drive failing banks out of the business. Government, will you pitch in billions of dollars to help keep my bank afloat? I know it’s expensive, but here, I’ve got another kid. Will you take her in exchange for a hundred billion for failing banks?

(Then two-year-old Elijah walks on stage, gets his hands tied with rope and gets a “SOLD” sign put over his neck.)
Oh no! Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt before I retire. Who’s going to take care of me when I’m old? I’m sold my kids out to so many slavemasters, they can’t afford to take care of me anymore! I know Social Security may be a fraud, but I’ve paid into it my whole life and I want my share! Government, I know that you have tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, but will you take my kid? They’ll pay three-fourths of their income to keep the fraud alive. Will you take my kid?

In conclusion, in our democratic republic, we get the leaders we deserve. We have voted in politicians after our own image. John Adams, our second President, said, “Statesman, my dear sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which our freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our people in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. James Madison, the father of the Constitution and our fourth President, said, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government. Far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

We have been willing to sacrifice our children’s future to keep the things we can’t afford. Just as Jacob traded in his birthright to Esau for a pot of soup, we’ve traded in our American birthright, our constitutional, God-given liberties for a meal – no, not even a meal – a federal cookie that won’t satisfy.

Malachi 3 says that God will smite the earth with a curse unless the fathers turn their hearts to the children and the children to the fathers. I challenge you to turn your hearts to your children. Commit to trust in God follow His remedy for our troubles, instead of the government’s counterfeit Marxist alternative to liberty. The government does not own you or your children – God does. With God’s help, we can turn our nation back to the God of our forefathers and pass the torch of liberty to our children’s children. God help us!