Obama spells out big government future

For most of his speech, the president operated under the assumption that federal spending and intervention is the lifeblood of our great nation. Raising taxes is “compassionate,” and placing people in a permanent cycle of dependence is his “vision of America.” Republican budget proposals return powers and money to states and individuals, whereas the president’s plan usurps more power and imposes more outrageous financial burdens and mandates.

As far as the president is concerned, the only way we “win the future” is with more federal intrusion into healthcare, education, science, and business.

Our federal debt – driven by exploding entitlement programs – is spiraling out of control, threatening to capsize our nation into a sea of red ink. Yet the president maintains the fantasy that expanding one of those programs with Obamacare will save one trillion dollars. This was clearly calculated with the same formula that estimated Medicare would cost only $12 billion dollars by 1990, when it actually cost $107 billion.

I have news for the president. America was founded on the blood, sweat, tears, and dreams of men yearning for freedom and liberty. Entrepreneurship, ambition, the family bond, community, individual compassion, and private charity are the fruits of our freedom and the resulting free enterprise system. Trying to replace those cherished ideals with government dependence is reprehensible – and assuming that our nation can only succeed through federal spending and with the guidance of Washington bureaucrats is arrogant and ignorant.

I call on conservatives around the country to join me in demanding a return to an America built upon our constitutional freedoms, not one driven by power-hungry elitists. Imagine the prosperity we could be enjoying if individuals and states had not had their powers absorbed by the federal government. We wouldn’t be fighting against lowest-common-denominator programs like Obamacare or sweating over how to escape a fiscal crisis. We would be comparing the programs between states, the “laboratories of liberty,” and enjoying the fruits of their innovation. Instead of a massive bureaucracy and a dissatisfactory government controlling your life, policies affecting your day-to-day would be accessible, housed in your state, county, or town seat.

We have traveled an incredible distance away from the freedom and prosperity that is our birthright as Americans, but today I urge you to join me in a solid first step back.