Congressman Cantor said, “Finally, the President has offered his budget to the American people. What we see inside the document is more of the same. More spending, higher taxes and more debt. Now, the Speaker talked about the fact that there are some things in the budget beyond the tax increases that, frankly, we can find some agreement on. I share the sentiment that we ought to see if we can set aside the divisiveness and come together to produce some results for the people who sent us here.

“If the President believes, as we do, that programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are on the path to bankruptcy, and that we actually can do some things to put them back on the right course and save them to protect the beneficiaries of these programs, we ought to do so. And we ought to do so without holding them hostage for more tax hikes.

“The disagreements we have in this town are well published and well known. But let’s start anew and set aside these differences, and let’s come together on the things that we can agree on. I think most people do that in their daily lives and expect nothing less of us here in Washington.”

The Problem in Washington is the Spending

Earlier this week Congressman Cantor issued the following statement about spending in Washington:

“President Obama is warning of the grave effects of the sequester he proposed in 2011. House Republicans agree this is not the best way to cut spending, which is why I sponsored and the House twice passed bills that responsibly replace the arbitrary, across-the-board cuts with common sense cuts and reforms that don’t threaten public safety, national security or our economy. During the past 11 months, neither President Obama nor the Democratic controlled Senate offered any serious alternative. Rather than offer serious spending cuts to replace the sequester, President Obama offers more of the same politics and argues for more tax revenue. This won’t help middle class families or grow our economy.”

By his inaction, the President is risking public safety and our national security. Congressman Cantor has offered several suggestions where cuts can be made.

We all know that there is plenty of waste in government. This year alone over $2 billion will be spent on free cell phones. Last year the federal government spent over $50 million to promote Obamacare and to pay public relations firms. And in 2010 our government maintained property that was underutilized, or in some cases, not used at all, costing the taxpayers $1.7 billion.

Also, there are several bipartisan initiatives the President could support that would reduce spending. We could save over $9 billion by reforming the Medicaid provider tax. We could eliminate the Public Health Slush Fund in Obamacare and save about $10 billion. And by requiring those receiving food stamps to prove their eligibility we could save around $26 billion.

Instead of working with Congress to reduce spending in a reasonable manner, the President would rather raise your taxes for the second time in just two months.

Congressman Cantor said, “So rather than calling for tax hikes, again, or cut back any needed government services, the President and Senate Democrats should get to work and embrace some or all of these sensible spending cuts and find common ground. Spending is clearly the problem in Washington.”

Time for the President and Senate Democrats to Act

Congressman Cantor said in his statement today, “I agree with the President, the cuts in the sequester are ‘not smart’ and ‘not fair.’ That is why I sponsored one of the two bills House Republicans passed last year to replace these cuts with bipartisan reforms that made more sense. For nearly a year, the President and Senate Democrats have chosen to accept these harmful effects rather than propose any spending cuts to avert the sequester, and help get our fiscal house in order. House Republicans have acted, and it’s time for the President and Senate Democrats to join us. It’s time to get off the campaign trail, and get to work. Show us what spending reductions you prefer, and let’s find some common ground.”

“It was great to spend time with all the members of our conference and their families. We heard some inspiring stories from some incredible people, like Erik Weihenmayer who was the first blind person to summit Mt. Everest.

“We spent a great deal of time discussing how we can help restore a healthy economy and stop piling debt onto our children and grandchildren. It’s common sense that we cannot afford to stay on the same borrowing and spending path we are on.

“Fitch Ratings agency recently said, if the debt limit is raised without substantive deficit reduction, our nation’s credit rating could be downgraded. The President’s plan to simply borrow more money without any reform in Washington puts us all at risk.

“The first step to fixing this problem is to pass a budget that reduces spending. The House has done so, and will again. The Democratic Senate has not passed a budget in almost four years, which is unfair to hardworking taxpayers who expect more from their representatives. That ends this year.

“We must pay our bills and responsibly budget for our future. Next week, we will authorize a three month temporary debt limit increase to give the Senate and House time to pass a budget. Furthermore, if the Senate or House fails to pass a budget in that time, Members of Congress will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job. No budget, no pay.

“This is the first step to get on the right track, reduce our deficit and get focused on creating better living conditions for our families and children. It’s time to come together and get to work.”

A new word has entered this year’s political debate – “sequester.” This is Washington budget-speak for across-the-board spending cuts.

When these dangerous cuts go into effect Jan. 2, the U.S. will be heading toward its smallest military since before World War II, and Virginia could be left with a hundred thousand fewer jobs.

How did we get here? Last year, Republicans in Congress made clear that President Barack Obama’s push to increase the nation’s already historic debt could not occur without a commitment to equal reductions in spending over time.

Rather than working to responsibly get our fiscal house in order, Obama demanded that the debt limit be increased by $2.1 trillion so he would not have to ask Congress to raise it again before the election. He made clear this was nonnegotiable.

Leading up to the debt limit deadline, both parties worked together to identify more than $1 trillion in savings, but we were still short of $2.1 trillion. The bicameral, bipartisan “supercommittee” was created to identify the remainder of the cuts. To ensure that the supercommittee did its job, automatic across-the-board cuts would serve as the backstop.

Since both sides agreed these cuts were the worst possible outcome, we assumed everyone would enter into negotiations in good faith. We were wrong.

Obama barely participated in the discussions of the supercommittee. Identifying cuts was made even more difficult by the Senate’s failure to even propose, much less pass, a budget. At a time of over 8 percent unemployment, congressional Democrats on the committee pushed for a dollar in tax increases for every dollar in spending cuts. In the end, Democrats insisted on tax hikes, and so the supercommittee failed.

What does this mean for Virginia and the nation?

America’s unmatched ability to defend freedom around the world will be severely diminished. Cutting $500 billion from the defense budget will do incredible damage to our military. It will force hundreds of thousands of soldiers and Marines out of the service, leaving us with the smallest ground force since 1940 and sending brave men and women from the front lines to the unemployment lines.

Sequestration will also harm the National Guard and Reserve component and leave our Navy with the smallest fleet in nearly a century.

It will weaken our ability to prepare for future challenges and invest in advanced missile defenses designed to meet emerging threats from countries like Iran and North Korea, while also hampering ongoing operations in places like Afghanistan, jeopardizing our obligation to support our troops on the battlefield.

These cuts will devastate the economy and threaten nearly a million jobs. A full tenth of the defense budget is spent in Virginia. Federal spending on defense amounts to nearly $60 billion a year – about 14 percent of Virginia’s economy. Our state is home to major national security installations that employ tens of thousands of people in Hampton Roads and elsewhere.

Virginia is also the epicenter of the defense industry, with corporate headquarters, manufacturing facilities and a healthy shipbuilding infrastructure in Newport News and Norfolk. Sequestration will cause catastrophic damage to these facilities and their hard-working men and women. The National Association of Manufacturers estimated these defense cuts will cost Virginia 115,000 jobs.

After the supercommittee’s failure, the House acted. In May, we passed legislation replacing the first year of mandatory cuts with common sense reforms to underperforming programs and eliminating programs that have outlived their mission.

The president threatened to veto the bill, stating we should adopt the proposals in his budget – the same budget overwhelmingly defeated in both the Republican House and the Democratic Senate. He has put forward no further proposals, and the Democratic majority leader in the Senate has refused to allow for legislation to replace the sequester to come up for a vote.

We are committed to preventing these harmful cuts from doing such damage to our national security and economy. But we can’t do it alone. We need a willing partner in the White House and the Senate. We stand ready to work together on behalf of our brave men and women in uniform, the commonwealth and the country.

Our Constitution has endured the passage of time with remarkably few changes, being amended just 27 times in 223 years. Unfortunately, America’s debt limit has not been nearly so stable. Since World War II, Congress has increased the limit on the national debt 69 times. The reasons behind this disparity tell an important story.

Let’s begin with the debt limit. President Reagan once observed that “a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.” Once created, government programs build constituencies of special interests determined to keep the money flowing, whether or not the program is effective. In our time in Congress, we have placed many such programs on the chopping block, only to see pressure from the spending lobby win the day.

While the federal government has consistently collected revenue of about 18% of U.S. economic output, federal spending has consistently been even higher. The debt resulting from these budget deficits builds up until the debt limit is reached. And rather than fight the spending lobby, politicians have taken the easy route of raising the limit without cutting spending.

Rein in the debt

The relative scarcity of constitutional changes stems from the high hurdles for success. Constitutional amendments require the support of two-thirds of the House and the Senate and then three-fourths of the states. Because of these same requirements, successful amendments tend to stay in place. Only one, Prohibition, has ever been repealed. The moral of this story is clear. Anyone who hopes to rein in the debt and make Washington live within its means should support amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget.

Always a concern, the national debt has grown into a malignant cancer on our economy. Attacking this cancer at its root means cutting spending. If we do not, the U.S. will face a job-killing debt crisis within just a few years.

Promises, promises

Near-term spending cuts are necessary to alter the course, but they will not be enough without long-term changes. Likewise, promises of cuts 10 years from now mean little without a way to enforce them. The only way to truly guarantee delivery from future politicians is if the Constitution demands it. That’s why the House will vote next Wednesday on a balanced budget amendment that would require supermajorities in both chambers to run a deficit, raise the debt ceiling, raise taxes and spend more than 18% of GDP.

With the balanced budget movement gaining momentum, members of the spending lobby want to argue that Congress and the president already have the ability to control spending. Ability and discipline are not the same. If Washington actually had the discipline to live within its means over the long term, every American citizen would not owe $46,000 toward the national debt.

Today, this massive borrowing is taking a toll on our economy. As businesses defend against the higher taxes, inflation and borrowing costs likely to follow from the coming debt crisis, they take fewer risks and create fewer jobs. By cutting spending and balancing the budget, we can alleviate such fears and put the private sector back on offense.

The importance of the upcoming votes cannot be overstated. House and Senate passage of the Balanced Budget Amendment will make reckless borrowing a thing of the past and will ensure that our children enjoy futures full of opportunity. Let Democrats and Republicans join together to do the right thing and make a real difference for the future.

House Republicans took an unprecedented stand in March, imposing an immediate moratorium on earmarks for the remainder of the Congress. Yet, because the governing rules of one Congress cannot bind the next, this moratorium will expire on Jan. 3, 2011. I do not believe that should be allowed to happen.

A lot has happened over the last eight months. Unfortunately none of it has done anything to rein in spending, eliminate waste or send the message to frustrated people across this country that Washington gets it.

That is why the next Republican Conference should immediately move to eliminate earmarks. Should Republicans be elected as the majority party, I believe that we should extend the moratorium to the entire House – to Democrats and Republicans alike. And I encourage President Barack Obama and the White House to take a similar step.

There is no question that earmarks – rightly or wrongly – have become the poster child for Washington’s wasteful spending binges. They have been linked to corruption and scandal, and serve as a fuel line for the culture of spending that has dominated Washington far too long. These reasons alone would justify completely eliminating earmarks, but the basis for my position doesn’t end there.

The old adage that he who can’t be trusted to reform the “small” problems can’t be trusted to reform the “large” ones applies as much to government as to individuals. Both Republicans and Democrats have an enormous task before us if we are going to get America’s fiscal house in order.

We will have to propose and execute real reductions to existing programs. If we hope to preserve Social Security and Medicare for seniors, younger workers and our children, we must begin the conversation about common-sense ways to reform both programs.

These are big things – and there is little question that turning trillion-dollar deficits into surpluses, while starting to pay down our national debt, is an enormous mountain to climb. Yet the long climb to fiscal responsibility must begin with a few smaller, but necessary, steps.

If Republicans put forward real federal spending reductions while simultaneously returning to the old way of earmarking billions of dollars, we will rightfully forfeit the people’s trust. After all, how can anyone defend reducing spending for housing programs, for example, while still earmarking for their favorite local museum?

Additionally, over the last decade, Congress has spent too much time in the process of earmarking. Not only did the number of earmarks explode, but the amount of time spent by members and their staff soliciting, vetting, submitting and attempting to secure earmarks soared as well.

Congress must change its ways from the inside out. That means time once spent securing earmarks would be far better spent overseeing federal agencies, reforming federal programs, cutting spending or eliminating barriers to job creation and economic recovery.

The challenges confronting our country — and our Congress — are far too great for so much time and money to be spent on earmarks.

I have little doubt that this position is going to be controversial in Washington. I have heard the arguments from those who believe we need to return to earmarking. I believe it’s important to answer a few of them:

• Some assert that members should represent their constituents’ needs. Of course they should! Yet we, as conservatives, must not lose sight of the fact that Congress is the national legislature. It is our duty to consider those things that cannot be accomplished by state or local governments or, even better – private associations. When Congress spends a single dollar, that dollar is taken from the paycheck of a family in Culpeper, or a young worker in Richmond, or, as is now the case, borrowed and placed on their already maxed out credit card. We have an obligation to uphold the national interest, and that means ensuring that decisions about funding local streetscape improvements are returned to local officials.
• Some make the case that if Congress doesn’t earmark, unelected bureaucrats will decide how to spend the same money. In the next Congress, however, our mission must be to ensure that time is spent reducing spending — period. If bureaucrats are misspending funds or wasting them on low priority projects, our responsibility should be to conduct the proper oversight to hold them to account and fix the problem. Taxpayers deserve that we hold the administration accountable. In recent years, earmarking has taken the place of setting guidelines and conducting strong oversight. We will change that.

Earmarks are a symptom of a disease — and that disease is Washington’s runaway spending. There is no silver bullet. For us to successfully eliminate the sickness, several prescriptions are needed. One is to apply the current House Republican earmark moratorium to all House members.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is the House Republican whip.

Thank you for having me.

My wife Diana and I have had the pleasure of spending time here in Michigan over the last year, and we’re looking forward to being here even more as our daughter Jenna will be an incoming Freshman this year at U of M.

It is a real privilege to be here with such an esteemed crowd.

Today I don’t hesitate to say that we have arrived at a unique moment in American history.

A host of obstacles have been thrust upon our nation. How we respond is the challenge for our generation. It will determine what kind of country we will be.

Let me begin by saying that America is the land of unparalleled achievement – and our entrepreneurs and small businesspeople are the locomotive of our economy.

Our people’s eagerness to pursue their ideas – despite the risk that they might fail – has spawned unprecedented economic growth.

The resulting prosperity and job creation has benefited not just our country but the entire world.

It defines who we are.

I recently received a note from a U of M graduate from Kalamazoo who is spending some time in England before entering business school at Stanford. He is amazed how differently entrepreneurs are regarded abroad.

He summed it up this way: ‘Starting a business, even if you fail in the process, is a badge of honor in the U.S. But in Europe, entrepreneurship is frowned upon, and consequently, the best and the brightest are afraid to take a risk.’

“Many of my European friends are very smart and educated,” he wrote. “But when I ask them about their career path, no one ever mentions starting a business, or seems to have a desire to step outside the straight forward world of professional services.”

He recalled one conversation with a friend who told him he doesn’t think any big new products or businesses will come from the UK in the next 50 years.

And when they discussed the entrepreneurial hotbed of the San Francisco Bay area, the friend said he could never imagine any such place existing in the UK.

The letter was non-political, but it ended with a pointed request. It urged that our government be careful not to do anything to discourage entrepreneurship and innovation in America.

But, there are troubling signs on the horizon.

The environment surrounding tax and regulatory policy in America is beginning to threaten the very innovation that sets us apart.

When I talk to entrepreneurs around the country…when I meet with people making decisions whether to allocate capital, they’re actually questioning whether taking the risk is worth the reward any longer.

This is not how it should be in America!

Let me take you back to inauguration day in Washington, January 20, 2009.

As the newly elected Minority Whip, I was seated on the front steps of the Capitol, in the second row, with a bird’s eye view of the new president being sworn in.

Despite the beating our party had taken in the recent election, the day was filled with optimism. But what was to ensue during the course of the next 17 months dashed my best hopes, and confirmed my worst fears.

It began with the stimulus. Not since the Great Depression had the economy been so battered.

Unemployment was growing rapidly. Something had to be done. There just didn’t seem to be agreement on what that something would be.

To many of us, it was clear that promoting genuine economic growth was the only way we could end the crisis.

But the majority in Washington saw it differently.

Instead of seizing the moment to help small business – the job creators of this country – they seemed bent on pursuing a course to spend our way out of the morass.

But, President Obama encouraged us all to respond; as he had said himself, “no one party has a monopoly on good ideas.”

So a group of colleagues and I began meeting in my conference room in the Capitol. Our aim: to develop an alternative plan for genuine sustainable job growth.

We reached out to the private sector and heard from dozens of small businessmen and women.

On January 23, 2009, we met with the president and his economic advisers in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and presented our alternative proposal.

So there I was, explaining to President Obama and his economic brain trust what deli owners, shop keepers and service providers in my home town of Richmond were telling me they needed to stay alive and grow.

And as the meeting continued, I could tell the President’s team just wasn’t on the same page.

Even though these were some of the smartest people in the country, their hearts just weren’t in the private sector.

Our plan to get the economy going again was very straightforward – it focused on small businesses as the economic engine.

First and foremost, we called for allowing small businesses to reduce their overall tax liability which would enable them to invest and make new hires.

In addition, we would reduce the lowest individual tax rates from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent. ?

Our plan also included a home-buyers credit of $7,500 for those buyers who could make a minimum down payment of 5 percent.

It was fair. It was understandable. And using the Obama administration’s own economic model, it delivered twice the jobs for half the cost of the bill that would eventually pass.

It was an honest, good-faith effort to work with the administration.

But at the end of the day, all our efforts were ignored.

The majority in Congress instead moved ahead on a nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill heavy on funding for government programs.

Here was our dilemma: How could Republicans and other conservatives lend our support to a bill that spent more on buying golf carts, subsidizing the conversion to digital television, and building fish and wildlife trails than on targeted tax relief for small businesses?

The result? Despite being hounded to death as the “Party of No,” not one of 178 Republican members in the House could bring themselves to vote for the bill.

As it turned out, the stimulus didn’t work as advertised.

Instead of being held below 8%, unemployment surged to over 10% as the year went on.

Americans were hurting, and most of what was accomplished was the incurrence of nearly an additional $1 trillion in debt.

As the economic picture in our country worsened, there was hope that Washington would pivot and begin to focus like a laser on creating an environment for small business investment and hiring.

But instead, we saw Washington launch into debates on cap-and-trade and card check, all the while leaving on the table the prospect of tax hikes.

The attendant economic uncertainty scared businesses and families by threatening to drive up costs. It was an unnecessary diversion and another missed opportunity.

Next, instead of regaining focus on fixing the economy, Washington turned its sights on a new health care entitlement.

Not just Republicans, but Americans across the country, even in Democratic Massachusetts, were sending the message that they disagreed with the direction of the administration’s plan

But their voices were ignored.

During the health care debate, the majority in Washington concentrated primarily on guaranteeing universal coverage. But there really was a different and better way.

Our vision was to focus, above all else, on driving the cost of care down – and to keep what works in our present health care system.

Republicans fought to provide for competition in the individual and small group markets. To ensure lower premium costs, we would allow people to buy insurance across state lines.

We wanted to keep small business in the game and give them the ability to ban together to gain purchasing power – just like the unions and large businesses have today.

We too would end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing health conditions, but without raising costs for everyone. Our plan reduced costs by taking on the trial lawyers who force physicians into defensive medicine practices.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office validated the House Republican Plan estimating that premium costs in the small group market would come down by ten percent.

The bill that finally passed and was signed into law may have come close to delivering on the vision of universal coverage, but it did so at tremendous costs.

My fear is that it may do great damage to the system it purports to save.

Immediately after the health care bill was signed into law, a wide range of American companies began to announce the higher costs they will face.

Meanwhile, one insurance company in my district, nHealth, says the uncertainties generated by the overhaul have driven them out of business.

It’s a shame, because nHealth was offering Health Savings Accounts, linked to a high deductible insurance plan. This afforded individuals and small businesses a way to have health insurance when they couldn’t access a group plan.

By the end of the year, nHealth’s thousands of small business customers will have to turn elsewhere.

If you’re a small business person or entrepreneur, here’s what you’re facing in America today:

• Entitlements and spending are shooting skyward, all but guaranteeing permanently higher taxes in the near and long term.
• An army of new regulatory bodies threatens to strangle business activity and restrict the flow of credit.
• Labor unions are gaining power and creating more uncertainty about the cost of hiring.
• Government is asserting more and more control over what was once the private economy.
• And most chilling, the national debt is spiraling out of control, raising the long-term threat of inflation and higher interest rates.

No wonder some in this country are beginning to think that America is becoming part of a discredited idea imploding before our eyes in Europe. It’s the notion of a welfare state.

We see the chilling front-page newspaper images of riots in Greece and other European countries. We see the violent currency and stock market swings associated with Europe’s struggles for solvency.

And we see the welfare state’s helplessness to cope with the tsunami of debt it has created.

The prospect of the Europeanization of America has unleashed an impassioned philosophical debate nationwide over the proper role of government.

We now find ourselves at a critical point of decision making. America is at a Crossroads.

The question – What kind of an America will we choose?

A limited government that promotes economic freedom and equal opportunity – a government that does for people only what they cannot do themselves?

Or do we want an outsized government striving for equal outcomes for all, and settling for that equality at the lowest common denominator?

That’s where we are heading with the redistribution of wealth and manipulation of private markets.

The likes of Portugal, Italy, and Greece have chosen the social welfare model, racking up huge budget deficits while failing to nurture economic growth.

This is not just a cyclical issue. It is structural.

The social welfare state has trouble cutting benefits for two reasons.

First, people have long been told they can retire early, work fewer hours and take more vacation time. Meanwhile, powerful union representatives are determined to keep it that way.

Second, when so many voters are employed by the government, or when so many voters get from the government more than they give in return, they will put in power those who will sustain their lifestyles.

So: if you can’t cut government largesse, your other option is to grow your way out of a crisis.

But in order to grow you need entrepreneurs and risk takers.

And as our student from Kalamazoo reminds us, that’s unlikely to happen in Europe. Not when the private sector is so constrained by high taxes, rigid labor rules, burdensome regulations and competition from subsidized public sectors.

There’s a reason why social-welfare systems fail, while limited government, and systems which guard economic freedom succeed: Because the latter approach aligns itself with human nature.

Over twenty-three hundred years ago, Aristotle observed that “man is a goal-seeking animal; his life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.”

As parents, we all want our children to be safe and happy. When our children are given a tough assignment, there is the temptation to help to ensure their success.

But it’s a mistake to teach our children to be dependent. We deprive them of the happiness that comes from striving and succeeding.

Instead we want to encourage them and give them every opportunity to succeed on their own.

It’s no different with government.

European social welfare states offer handouts and promise to solve the citizenry’s problems. But they do so by redistributing wealth and limiting opportunity for all.

And when you undermine free enterprise, you root out what AEI’s Arthur Brooks calls “earned success” – or the honest creation of value in our lives or in the lives of others.

As a result, the government, while well intentioned, discouraged all from seeking to maximize their potential.

We are not Western Europe, at least not yet.

In America, hard work has paid off.

When I think about what makes America so remarkable, I think of the story of my grandmother.

Fleeing the anti-Semitism of her native Russia nearly a century ago, her family passed through Ellis Island. Peering out from the boat at the mouth of the Hudson River, she saw the Statue of Liberty – the most powerful symbol of the freedom and opportunity that America represents.

In America, her family sought not just religious freedom, but opportunity and a better life.

She eventually made her home in a working class section of Richmond, Virginia. Widowed very young, she raised my father and my uncle in tight quarters above a tiny grocery store that she owned and operated.

She worked day and night and sacrificed tremendously to secure a better future for her children.

And sure enough, this young woman – who had the courage to journey to a distant land with hope as her only possession – lifted herself into the ranks of the middle class.

Through hard work, thrift and faith, she was even able to send her two children to college.

All she wanted was a chance.

But never did she dare to dream that her grandson would someday be a Member of the U.S. Congress.

When I think of my grandmother in that Richmond storefront, I am reminded why people come to this country in the first place: because here, you have the freedom and opportunity to be whatever you want.

The strength of our republic resides not in a vast government safety net, but in the innovative spirit of our people.

Not in our people’s desire to take from the government, but in their drive toward self-sufficiency and controlling their own destiny.

Just look at the American people. Just look at the fruits of economic freedom. For the past thirty years, in good times and in bad, 600,000 businesses are started every year. That’s about 1 per minute.

Where else in the world can someone like Apple’s Steve Jobs start a business in his garage and years later become the CEO of a Fortune 100 company?

Where else could people from humble and modest roots like Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama rise to become president?

Only in America.

Because in America, it doesn’t matter where you come from; it’s about where you’re going.
In America, there are no limits.

For all of us who wish to preserve the America we have come to know and love, this is not the time to be silent.

We must reject the road of unsustainable debt and marginal private sector growth.

For if we don’t change course soon, historians may one day look back and ask: When was the moment it became too late for America? When did the slide towards Europe become irreversible?

When successive majorities in Congress went on a shopping spree on our children’s credit card, it was becoming too late.

Was it already too late when we passed a trillion dollar stimulus bill? Or when we missed the critical opportunity to help our small businesses or to make our economy more competitive?

When credit ratings agencies this year warn that our triple-A treasury-bond rating is in danger, yet we go ahead and pass a trillion-dollar health care entitlement, it may be too late.

When we ignore dire warnings and set out to double the debt in five years, and triple it in 10, it may be too late.

That’s why we must start right now to pull ourselves back from the brink.

We must get our fiscal house in order. Just as many of your businesses would do, we need to cut spending and straighten out the federal government’s balance sheets.

However politically popular it may be, we cannot keep relying on the government’s monetary and fiscal stimulus. Zero percent interest rates and runaway government spending only prolongs the day of reckoning.

Instead, we must grow by doing everything in our power to encourage entrepreneurship, innovation and capital investment.

We need to give private businesses the confidence in the tax and regulatory framework that they need to grow. We must offer incentives to people so that they put capital at risk and earn greater return on investment.

We have to bring a renewed focus on technology and manufacturing. And we must follow through on an agenda to promote free but fair trade.

That means ensuring access to critical emerging markets and at the same time guarding against unfair advantage of our foreign competitors.

Ronald Reagan once said that the meaning of life is to plant a tree you will never sit under. The goal of our lives should be…to be a part of something that will long outlive us – to establish a legacy which will benefit people we will never meet.

The stakes have never been higher. Let’s fight to preserve and protect the country that we love.

Thank you.