RochesterConservative.com

The text of my July 3rd Tea Party speech

I’ve spoken to you at our previous two tea parties on how our country was founded and how we’ve gone from “We the people” to a people controlled by the government. Today, I’m here to talk about the people that run our lives, whether they’re elected, appointed or selected.

There have been a lot of stories lately about political corruption. You have people like Representatives Duke Cunningham and William Jefferson, as well as Senators Daschle and Dodd leading the pack. On the state level, we have people like Alan Hevesi and allegedly Joe Bruno. These people were put into positions of power and have betrayed the public trust.

Some of them, like Tim Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, cheat on their taxes. It’s not just Geithner, Duke Cunningham, James Ortenzio, Tom Daschle, Charlie Rangel and a litany of others are in that crowd. Why do they cheat on their taxes? It comes down to two things, they inherently know that excessive taxation hurts people, they can feel it in their own wallets even if they won’t admit it publicly, and they’ve become drunk with the power granted to them by their offices and with their illicit ability to overstep that power. Do I need to remind anyone where the term “czar” originates? For proof of the harm of taxes, look at New York State, where businesses have been driven out of state and with them, jobs and young able bodied workers, leaving us with not only an aging population, but a citizenry growing evermore dependent upon government checks.

Speaking of Geithner and Rangel, both have admitted to evading taxes, citing that the tax code is too complicated. That’s a bit ironic, given that Geithner’s department runs the IRS and Rangel is the Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, the group charged with writing the tax code. Surely if anyone is able to understand the tax code, it would be them. But they deliberately make taxation complicated to allow for more loopholes for them and their friends, while ensuring the government can harass anyone that doesn’t follow the party line. The IRS is known for auditing people critical of sitting administrations, yet it seems to turn a blind eye to the politicians themselves.

But that’s not the only way our politicians cheat the people. Legislators at the federal, state and county levels love to exempt themselves from the laws they force upon us. They give themselves health care and pension plans that can’t be found anywhere in the private sector. They exempt themselves from the Social Security Ponzi scheme. Not satisfied with there meager 6 figure salaries, they also apportion themselves money for office expenses, even after they leave office in some cases, travel expenses, living expenses and other stipends. Robert Wexler, a Congressman from Florida, owns no property in Florida and lives in Maryland, but he claims his official residence at his mother in law’s house in Delray Beach. As an added bonus, he takes a stipend from Congress for maintaining two residencies even though he only owns one. Now, you tell me, how can you live in Maryland, represent Florida and take federal reimbursement for owning multiple homes when you only own one? Could you or I get away with that?

Others steal from taxpayers in completely legal ways. John Murtha has a $250 million airport named after him. It only offers flights to and from DC, twice a day, and serves just a handful of people. That hasn’t stopped him from throwing millions of dollars in new earmarks at it. Louise Slaughter has a building named after her at RIT. If that isn’t the height of hubris…

Maybe people like Alan Hevesi, Joe Bruno and once again, Mr. Murtha are. All of them have allegedly used their positions to feed money and services to themselves or their family members to the tune of millions of dollars. It’s not enough that they’ll spend millions in taxpayers money to build monuments to themselves, no, they need to outright steal from us.

There are other ways they fleece us. Those earmarks they spend are meant to buy your votes. After all, you need to re-elect the person that brings home the bacon, right? Another cancer is the autocracy. Joe Biden left his Senate seat to become Vice President and his former chief of staff is keeping it warm until Biden’s son, Beau, comes back from his military service, to claim it. Andrew Cuomo’s claim to fame is his father’s name. The same could be said for Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, and countless others. Last time I checked, 233 years ago, we threw off a monarchy, so why is a new one being imposed upon us?

I’ll tell you why. Government exists to serve itself. They’ll tell you it exists to provide us with the services we need, but thats a lie. The only service we need from government is for them to protect our rights. To provide those services, government is stealing your rights, your freedom. They want to take away your economic freedom through taxation. They want to take away your medical freedom by imposing socialized medicine. They want to take away your right to privacy by owning your medical records. They want to take away your freedom of speech through legislation like McCain-Feingold.

Politicians do their best to divide us, to keep us distracted so we don’t look behind the curtain to find out how the political ruling class is fleecing us. While we’re busy fighting each other, government is busy doing whatever they want with impunity.

That is why statists mock these tea parties… they know we’re onto them. They know that we’re pulling back the covers and shining light on their corruption. They know they can’t win the argument, so they result to ad hominem attacks. Rather than answer for their actions, they try to attack the messengers directly, smearing us like they tried to smear Joe the Plumber for asking the right questions. Fully knowing that, I speak today, just as I spoke on March 11th and April 15th, because I’m not here to garner support from the ruling class. I’m here stoking their ire, because I know, at the end of the day, the people, all of you out there, have my back and you are who matters.

Sam Adams said “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

Just as we’re witnessing in Iran, the people WILL be heard. We the people… WILL be heard. The politicians can’t hide forever. Tomorrow is not a celebration of the government, it is the celebration of the people.

<phantomlord@rochesterconservative.com>