Give Us Liberty (23 page)
Authors: Dick Armey
This book could not have been written without the hard work, perseverance, and patriotic spirit of untold thousands of citizens who make up the Tea Party movement. Each of them has contributed to the story line about this peaceful revolution against the political establishment that nourishes, and then profits from, big government. We would like to thank all of the local Tea Party leaders who took time to tell their stories to us and other members of the FreedomWorks staff. Thanks also go to the thousands of folks who responded to our “Why We Marched” e-mail request and submitted for us their personal stories and recollections just days after September 12, 2009. All of these accounts, collected, are the bits of decentralized knowledge that tell the real story about that historic day.
We would also like to thank the contributors of pictures, including Terry Kibbe, Michael Beck, and others, who provided photo documentation of the sheer size, wonderful diversity, and joy of the crowds who attended the Taxpayer March on Washington and other Tea Party events across the country.
Many thanks to William Morrow/HarperCollins: our editor, Peter Hubbard, and the entire team, including, Liate Stehlik, Lynn Grady, Dee Dee DeBartlo, Jean Marie Kelly, and Shawn Nicholls.
We also want to thank Jon Yarian and the Pinkston Group who guided our sometime hectic writing process, often working with us through the night to deliver the book on time.
Finally, we offer our appreciation and respect for all of our colleagues at FreedomWorks, who best reflect the values, commitment, ability, and old-fashioned work ethic that is the Tea Party ethos. This book could not have happened without the research and support of Max Pappas, Wayne Brough, Brendan Steinhauser, and Adam Brandon. Adam also served as the relentless agitator in chief for this project, and it would never have happened without his tirelessâand hopelessly naiveâadvocacy for the book.
DICK ARMEY
served in the House of representatives for eighteen years, becoming Majority Leader in 1994. That year he was the main author of the contract with America, which helped Republicans take control of the House for the first time in forty years. Today, he serves as chairman of FreedomWorks and leads the same political revolution at the grassroots level.
MATT KIBBE
is president and CEO of FreedomWorks. Prior to joining FreedomWorks, he served as chief of staff and House Budget Committee associate for Rep. Dan Miller (R, FL). From 1990 to 1993 Kibbe was director of the Federal Budget Policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, he served as senior economist for the Republican National Committee.
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GIVE US LIBERTY.
Copyright © 2010 by Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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1
“I guess the rest is history”: This and all quotes from Mary Rakovich are from a personal interview with Adam Brandon, April 15, 2010.
2
national debt stood at $5.6 trillion: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm.
3
amount had nearly doubled to $10 trillion: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np.
4
more than $18 trillion: “Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2010,” May 2009, page 3.
5
60 percent of Gross Domestic Product: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.html.
6
more than 100 percent by 2012: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10014/03-20-PresidentBudget.pdf.
7
France's 2010 debt-to-GDP ratio: http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2010/04/23/sovereign-debt-uk-vs-france.
8
$1.9 trillion in 2009: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm.
9
$2.1 trillion in revenue: “Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal Year 2010,” May 2009.
10
. . . driving '54 Chevys:
Squawk Box,
February 19, 2009.
1
“It was now evening, and I immediately dressed . . .”:
James
A. Hawkes,
Retrospect of the Boston Tea-Party with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes
(New-York: S. S. Bliss, printer, 1834), 38.
2
“The tea party concept has gained significant traction . . .”: Brian Stelter, “Reporter Says His Outburst Was Spontaneous,”
New York Times,
March 3, 2009.
3
“There was no official count, but the crowd spilled . . .”:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
February 26, 2009.
4
Joseph Galloway threatened to derail momentum: Galloway's speech can be found in the
Journals of the Continental Congress,
vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress), 44â48.
5
“crowds around Carpenters' Hall soon heard . . .”: A. J. Langguth,
Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 213.
6
“He eats little . . .”: Ibid.
7
“I shall have great advantage . . .”: Fawn Brodie,
Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History
(New York: Norton, 1998), 124.
8
“the people are the only sure reliance . . .”: Ibid.
9
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty . . .”: Lance Banning,
The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1995).
10
Winston Churchill would later say: Justin D. Lyons, “Winston Churchill's Constitutionalism: A Critique of Socialism in America,” http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/05/Winston-Churchills-Constitutionalism-A-Critique-of-Socialism-in-America.
11
“It does not require a majority to prevail . . .”: Greory Olinyk,
Resonation: Enlightened Government for We the People
(Garden City, N.Y.: Morgan James Publishing, 2006), 22.
1
“The straw that broke the back . . .”: Personal interview with Adam Brandon, April 19, 2010.
2
6 percent to 1 percent: Federal Reserve, Federal Funds Effective Rate, “H.15, Selected Interest Rates,” available at https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/H15/date.htm.
3
“Too many dollars were churned out . . .”: Judy Shelton, “Loose Money and the Derivative Bubble,” for
Wall Street Journal
Symposium: Did the Fed Cause the Housing Bubble? March 27, 2009, 13 (available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123811225716453243.html).
4
A respected classical liberal scholar: Ludwig von Mises,
The Theory of Money and Credit
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press 1912/1980) and
Human Action
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949).
5
“. . . such a boom is bound to collapse . . .”: Ludwig von Mises,
Omnipotent Government
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944), 251.
6
banks “have tons of money left . . .”: Brian M. Carney, “The Credit Crisis Is Going to Get Worse,”
Wall Street Journal,
July 5, 2008, A9.
7
Indeed, a recent release by the U.S. Census Bureau: “Residential Vacancies and Ownership in the First Quarter 2010, U.S. Census Bureau, April 26, 2010, www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/qtr110/files/q110press.pdf.
8
“. . . these government-sponsored enterprises have exposed taxpayers . . .”: Martin Reiser, “CSE Joins HOMEEC Coalition to Bring Needed Oversight to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” March 9, 2000. CSE (Citizens for a Sound Economy) was a predecessor organization of FreedomWorks.
9
“. . . more people . . . exaggerate a threat . . .”: House Financial Services Committee,
The Treasury Department's Views on the Regulation of Government Sponsored Enterprises, Hearing Before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives,
108th Cong., 1st sess., September 10, 2003, 3.
10
“Remember the S & L banking scandal . . .”: FreedomWorks, “Top Ten Welfare Queens, 2006,” August 8, 2006, available at http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/top-ten-welfare-queens-2006.
11
“Corrections are not all bad”: John A. Allison to Congress, September 30, 2008, available at http://www.freedomworks.org/uploads/allison.pdf.
12
“owes more to Benito Mussolini . . .”: Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr., “An Economy of Liars,”
Wall Street Journal,
April 20, 2010.
13
“there are no atheists in foxholes . . .”: Quoted in Peter Baker “A Professor and a Banker Bury Old Dogma on Markets,”
New York Times,
September 21, 2008, A1.
14
“abandoned free market principles . . .”: President George W. Bush, interview with CNN reporter Candy Crowley, December 16, 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/16/bush.crowley.interview/index.html#cnnSTCVideo.
15
“the Secretary is authorized to take such actions . . .”: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Title I, Sec. 101 (c), http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1424.
16
“. . . we must meet until this crisis is resolved”: Sen. John McCain, “America Faces an Historic Crisis,” Real Clear Politics, September 24, 2008, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/its_time_to_come_together_to_s.html.
17
“Congress has given the Secretary far-reaching power . . .”: FreedomWorks Foundation, “Constitutional Infirmities of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA), Issue Analysis no. 124, January 13, 2009, http://www.freedomworks.org/files/policyanalysis.pdf.
18
fathers of the separation of powers: See John Locke,
Two Treatises of Government
, edited by Peter Laslett (New York: New American Library, 1965), especially the Second Treatise, Sections 143, 144, 150, and 159. See also Charles Montesquieu,
The Spirit of Laws
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
19
“accumulation of all powers . . . in the same hands . . .”: James Madison, “The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts,”
The Federalist 47
, January 30, 1788, available at http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa47.htm.