Changes

[laughter and applause]

[laughter and applause]

In a month of unprecedented hearings, practically every segment of the American economy appeared before that program and 100% of those appearing demanded some kind of tax reform. But it was obvious there was little sympathy on the part of the majority of that committee with our views so it was a surprise when a few months later they decided to hold additional hearings on tax reform. This time, no volunteers. They would hand pick and invite a few selected witnesses and so a group mainly of campus economists appeared before the committee and they to talked tax reform. But they talked a tax reform which would see that the government got additional revenue, a greater share of the national income. They said this could be done by closing some of the loop-holes whereby you and I were avoiding our just share of taxation. And some of these loop-holes were the very legitimate deductions without which the whole hodge-podge system would have long since proven unworkable. They were that you and I should not be allowed to deduct our real estate tax or the interest on our mortgages or loans before computing income tax. We shouldn't be allowed to deduct charitable and education contributions at 100%. Those of the liberal persuasion today are lobbying for a tax reform measure now before Congress, a tax reform measure which may come to us piecemeal, not all in one piece. But this tax reform measure actually will be presented with a reduction of rates but so many loop-holes would be closed that the advocates openly say the government, if they adopt this program, will get $18 billion more than they are now getting. And then they just as openly say by coincidence we happen to have $18 billion worth of welfare programs we want the government to adopt. These same people tell us we're not smart enough to spend our money for the things we should buy, that the function of government should be to take our money from us through taxation and buy for us the welfare programs that our intelligence will not or, our lack of intelligence will not permit us to buy. They say they refute, before a Senate committee one of them as a spokesman said they refute the idea that the least government is the best government. And when we suggest to them the danger of more deficit spending, when they tell us that only local and state debt is bad, but the federal debt is meaningless, they tell us that we are sacrificing our security on the false altar of a balanced budget. Well, ladies and gentleman, they very source of our strength is our individual liberty and our free economy. And there is no security anyplace in the free world if there isn't fiscal stability within the United States. Of course the federal debt is meaningless, it's incomprehensible. I've taken to drawing a picture for myself. If I had here in my hand a 4-inch stack of $1000 bills, I'd be a millionaire. But if we had in front of us the national debt, piled up in $1000 bills, the pile would be more than 18 miles high. And this is only the part that shows above the surface like an iceberg. Actually in legislation already enacted into law our government is obligated to more than $750 billion. This added to the local and state debt and the private debt of our citizens' amounts to a figure more than double the market value of every tangible asset and every foot of real estate in the United States.

In a month of unprecedented hearings, practically every segment of the American economy appeared before that program and 100% of those appearing demanded some kind of tax reform. But it was obvious there was little sympathy on the part of the majority of that committee with our views so it was a surprise when a few months later they decided to hold additional hearings on tax reform. This time, no volunteers. They would hand pick and invite a few selected witnesses and so a group mainly of campus economists appeared before the committee and they to talked tax reform. But they talked a tax reform which would see that the government got additional revenue, a greater share of the national income. They said this could be done by closing some of the loop-holes whereby you and I were avoiding our just share of taxation. And some of these loop-holes were the very legitimate deductions without which the whole hodge-podge system would have long since proven unworkable. They were that you and I should not be allowed to deduct our real estate tax or the interest on our mortgages or loans before computing income tax. We shouldn't be allowed to deduct charitable and education contributions at 100%. Those of the liberal persuasion today are lobbying for a tax reform measure now before Congress, a tax reform measure which may come to us piecemeal, not all in one piece. But this tax reform measure actually will be presented with a reduction of rates but so many loop-holes would be closed that the advocates openly say the government, if they adopt this program, will get $18 billion more than they are now getting. And then they just as openly say by coincidence we happen to have $18 billion worth of welfare programs we want the government to adopt. These same people tell us we're not smart enough to spend our money for the things we should buy, that the function of government should be to take our money from us through taxation and buy for us the welfare programs that our intelligence will not or, our lack of intelligence will not permit us to buy. They say they refute, before a Senate committee one of them as a spokesman said they refute the idea that the least government is the best government. And when we suggest to them the danger of more deficit spending, when they tell us that only local and state debt is bad, but the federal debt is meaningless, they tell us that we are sacrificing our security on the false altar of a balanced budget. Well, ladies and gentleman, they very source of our strength is our individual liberty and our free economy. And there is no security anyplace in the free world if there isn't fiscal stability within the United States. Of course the federal debt is meaningless, it's incomprehensible. I've taken to drawing a picture for myself. If I had here in my hand a 4-inch stack of $1000 bills, I'd be a millionaire. But if we had in front of us the national debt, piled up in $1000 bills, the pile would be more than 18 miles high. And this is only the part that shows above the surface like an iceberg. Actually in legislation already enacted into law our government is obligated to more than $750 billion. This added to the local and state debt and the private debt of our citizens' amounts to a figure more than double the market value of every [[tangible asset]] and every foot of [[real estate]] in the United States.

Today, with no one using the term socialism to describe encroaching control, we find one out of seven of the workforce on the public payroll. In 15 years, a 50% increase in public employees has been matched by a 170% increase in their payroll. One-fourth of our people now entitled to government-paid medical care, socialized medicine if you please. One-fifth of our industry owned and operated by government. Senator Byrd has estimated that today 40 million American citizens receive some form of direct cash payment from the federal government. We have a tax system that in direct contravention to the Constitution is not designed solely to raise revenue, but is openly and admittedly used to regulate and control the economy and the level the earnings of our citizens, aiming again at that mediocrity which is the utopian dream of the socialists. Here is where we must expend the main effort. Don't forsake the other issues that I have mentioned but as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Strike for the jugular. Reduce taxes and spending. Keep government poor, and remain free." Write to your Congressman and demand a tax reform immediately which will reduce the percentage of the national income the government is taking in taxes. Write to your Congressman and tell him you want an end to deficit spending, that you want the same control of the federal government's right to borrow that we exert here at the local community and at the state level. Tell him further, with an eye on our children, that you want, as part of the annual budget a regular payment on that national debt. And if your Congressman is one who writes back and says he, too, is for economy, but we must reduce government spending before we reduce taxes, you write back and tell him this is a dishonest theory. Because no government in history has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size. Government doesn't tax to get the money it needs, government will always find a need for the money it gets. There can be only one end to the war we are in. We can't just out-wait it and hope by not looking, that it will go away. Wars like this one end in victory or defeat. One of the foremost authorities on communism in the world today, a former medical missionary, has said that we have ten years, not ten years in which to make a decision, we have ten years to decide the verdict because within this decade, the world will become either all free or all slave. Our Founding Fathers, here in this country, brought about the only true revolution that has ever taken place in man's history. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another set of rulers. But only here did that little band of men so advanced beyond their time that the world has never seen their like since, evolve the idea that you and I have within ourselves the God-given right and the ability to determine our own destiny. But freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.

Today, with no one using the term socialism to describe encroaching control, we find one out of seven of the workforce on the public payroll. In 15 years, a 50% increase in public employees has been matched by a 170% increase in their payroll. One-fourth of our people now entitled to government-paid medical care, socialized medicine if you please. One-fifth of our industry owned and operated by government. Senator Byrd has estimated that today 40 million American citizens receive some form of direct cash payment from the federal government. We have a tax system that in direct contravention to the Constitution is not designed solely to raise revenue, but is openly and admittedly used to regulate and control the economy and the level the earnings of our citizens, aiming again at that mediocrity which is the utopian dream of the socialists. Here is where we must expend the main effort. Don't forsake the other issues that I have mentioned but as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Strike for the jugular. Reduce taxes and spending. Keep government poor, and remain free." Write to your Congressman and demand a tax reform immediately which will reduce the percentage of the national income the government is taking in taxes. Write to your Congressman and tell him you want an end to deficit spending, that you want the same control of the federal government's right to borrow that we exert here at the local community and at the state level. Tell him further, with an eye on our children, that you want, as part of the annual budget a regular payment on that national debt. And if your Congressman is one who writes back and says he, too, is for economy, but we must reduce government spending before we reduce taxes, you write back and tell him this is a dishonest theory. Because no government in history has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size. Government doesn't tax to get the money it needs, government will always find a need for the money it gets. There can be only one end to the war we are in. We can't just out-wait it and hope by not looking, that it will go away. Wars like this one end in victory or defeat. One of the foremost authorities on communism in the world today, a former medical missionary, has said that we have ten years, not ten years in which to make a decision, we have ten years to decide the verdict because within this decade, the world will become either all free or all slave. Our Founding Fathers, here in this country, brought about the only true revolution that has ever taken place in man's history. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another set of rulers. But only here did that little band of men so advanced beyond their time that the world has never seen their like since, evolve the idea that you and I have within ourselves the God-given right and the ability to determine our own destiny. But freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.

Thank You.

Thank You.

[applause]  

[applause]

==References==

==References==