Hello CPAC! It’s great to be here. It’s wonderful to look out there and see so many faces still filled with hope, and patriotism, and optimism for the future of this country we all love so dearly.
It’s been a tough couple of months: believe me, I know. A lot of people have asked me what the election in November really meant. I have to tell you: honestly, I don’t really know what it meant. All I can do is tell you how it felt. Somebody online got it exactly right: the re-election of Barack Obama was like the Titanic hitting the iceberg… then backing up for a mile or two, getting up a full head of steam and then hitting it again!
And it’s heartbreaking. It’s just heartbreaking.
Because even though we opposed this President for his policies right from the beginning, we all hoped for so much more. Even the Democrats are feeling it. Obama said he was going to fundamentally change our country. It’s the one promise he’s tried to keep. What we have seen from this man for the last four years has been change all right – a catastrophic change to the American economy here at home, and a catastrophic loss of prestige and bungled, even deadly foreign policy changes abroad.
It took us awhile to understand who this President really is. Lots of politicians make promises when they are seeking our votes, and we can’t always be sure that they mean what they say. When he was running for office and seeking our votes Barack Obama promised us he would be a uniter, not a divider; a centrist not an extremist; an economic pragmatist rather than a job-destroying ideologue; and most of all, we believed him when he said he would concentrate on getting people back to work… and not just caddies and golf pros but all Americans.
That was more than four years ago. We’ve had four years now to see how those promises worked out: four years to get a measure of the man who is now our leader. And those four years of actual deeds rather than empty words have allowed us to see exactly who this man is. And among the things we have learned about this man – of all the things that define his leadership – there are two that stand out above all others.
This is a president – this is a man – who doesn’t tell the truth.
And just as shocking, this is a president who doesn’t care.
* * * * *
On September 12 of last year one of the most terrible and shameful incidents in the history of the American presidency took place. Our diplomatic corps in Benghazi was attacked. It was attacked by al-Qaeda, the same terrorist force that had attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, eleven years before.
The shooting began at 9:42 pm, local time, and for the next seven and a half hours the Americans trapped in Benghazi were crying for help. But help never came. Two former Navy seals ran – like the American heroes they were – not from the sound of gunfire but toward it. Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who were not at the compound when the shooting started, defied orders and decided to go to the aid of the others. For seven hours these men fought with incredible skill and courage, and saved many American lives that night. They fought for their friends and their colleagues; and they fought for their country; and throughout that awful night they continued to radio their government for help. But their government never answered their call. And help never came.
The White House has put out false claims about what actually happened and denied us information about many of the details. But thanks to the congressional hearings we do know this: The president was informed of the attack in the very first hour. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and General Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told him exactly what was going on, since we had a reconnaissance drone circling overhead.
And we also know this: After the call informing him that Americans were fighting for their lives, President Obama disappeared. Went AWOL. In fact, no one knows where he went. All we know is that he could not be reached. He knew that a battle was raging, and that Americans were in danger. But while the men who served him were fighting for their lives the President of the United States of America hung up the phone and left his post, and disappeared.
He just didn’t care.
The next morning, although his ambassador had been tortured and murdered and his embassy attacked, President Obama flew to Las Vegas to attend a campaign fund-raiser with rapper Jay-Z and singer Beyonce. Before leaving he did take care of one piece of business. He took time to authorize a cover story to hide what he had done the day before.
The cover story is an emblem of Barack Obama’s presidency, an emblem of a man who doesn’t tell the truth. It claimed the attack was the work of civilian protesters, of a spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand over an Internet film that nobody saw but which insulted Mohammed. It was something the president couldn’t control. The president’s spokesperson apologized for the film.
The president promised to hunt down those responsible for the torture and murder of his ambassador Chris Stevens and for the deaths of those American heroes. He didn’t do that. But he did make sure that the filmmaker was put in jail. And then he went to the United Nations and told the delegates that the future must not belong to those who insult the Prophet of Islam. As for the Americans who were killed, they were collateral damage of a film that should not have been shown.
The facts were quite different. The President knew that Benghazi was a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity. Al-Qaeda had attacked the Benghazi compound twice – twice! – only one month before. The al-Qaeda attacks were so serious that Ambassador Stevens put in calls to his government for additional security – security that might have saved his life and the lives of the American heroes who died with him. But his calls went unanswered and his requests were denied.
Why? His government just didn’t care.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, here at home, our nation is facing what will likely be the biggest non-military crisis in its history. In the last four years, President Obama has given us our first trillion dollar annual deficits. In four years, we have piled up six trillion dollars in additional debt. That’s six thousand billion dollars.
We are spending ourselves into bankruptcy. We are crippling our great nation. We are borrowing the money from our global adversaries. We are conducting a war on the young.
It is the young who are going to pay the bills that Obama is running up so recklessly. This is a generational injustice of epic proportions. This is the greatest transfer of wealth in human history… not from the rich to the poor, but from the young (who are struggling to begin their lives) to older people (who have had time to accumulate their nest eggs). Barack Obama is buying votes: not with his money. Not even so much with your money. He’s doing it with your children’s money. And they will be paying for his policies, long, long after he has packed up his golf clubs and gone home.
Do you know how much money you would owe if you were born today… just tonight, let’s say? Well, as a result of President Obama’s reckless spending, if you were born today, you would come into the world owing one million, five hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. That’s how deep the hole he’s dug.
From the beginning of his presidency – actually from the beginning of his first presidential campaign – Barack Obama has repeatedly told the American people that he would not add a dime to the nation’s debt. He did not tell the truth. He has added six trillion dollars to the nation’s debt. And as far as he is concerned, he has only just begun.
Why is Obama spending us into oblivion? Because spending taxpayer dollars is a way of lining the pockets of his political friends – the government unions who got him elected; the government bureaucracies who feed off his programs; the Wall Street banks who underwrite his loans, and fill his campaign coffers. Obama is borrowing trillions of your children’s dollars – dollars they don’t even have yet – and is giving them to union and government bureaucrats and Wall Street bankers.
How could he do this? He just doesn’t care.
Federal bureaucrats earn higher salaries and get bigger pensions than the average working Jane and Joe. When Obama says we need to raise taxes, what he really means is the working Janes and Joes have to pay his political friends in government. Seventy cents of every dollar that’s supposed to go to the poor actually goes to Washington bureaucrats instead. Seventy percent! That’s how Obama’s government programs work in practice: three dollars in food stamps for the needy, and seven dollars in salaries and pensions for the bureaucrats who are supposed to take care of them.
Are the poor still with us? Yes. Are their numbers increasing? Yes. Are record numbers of Americans getting food stamps on Obama’s watch? Yes! Are those numbers growing every day? YES!!
Does the president care?
((PAUSE FOR AUDIENCE))
* * * * *
I’ll tell you who’s not looking for work these days: Tiger Wood’s golf coach. Barack Obama paid him a lot of money for lessons so that he could play a few rounds with Tiger. That golf session costs you and your children several hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that’s your kids’ problem, not his. In four years, the president has spent more time on the golf links than he has spent meeting with congressional leaders trying to solve the debt problem, or with the Simpson-Bowles committee he appointed to reduce the deficit. He just doesn’t care.
You know who else is doing just swell? The people running the finest hotels in Aspen, and Spain, and the South of France, or in Hawaii, where Michele vacations – apart from her husband. All the security details, all the protocol, all the travel – your kids not only pay for that… they pay for it twice.
And like everything else he touches, when it comes to vacations, President Obama not only cannot stop spending – that would be bad enough. The fact is, he can’t stop increasing the rate of his spending. His 2010 Hawaii vacation cost 1.7 million dollars. In 2011 it more than doubled, to 4 million. The next year, it nearly doubled again: 7 million dollars for just the Hawaii vacation alone.
And as I said, this is a couple that actually seems to like to vacation apart from one another – and I can’t say I blame either one of them. In 2010 the First Lady went to Spain on vacation, and she took a BIG entourage of friends with her, too… cost to your kids: almost half a million dollars. In 2011 she went to visit Africa: another half-million.
Oh, by the way: when the First Family’s dog, Bo, needs something from Petco, he travels by motorcade – not too shabby. I’m not making this up! I wish I were. When your children ask you how they inherited a million and a half dollars in debt, you can tell them they have to pay for the limo for President Obama’s DOG.
In the midst of a national economic crisis, while the nation suffers, Barack and Michelle cavort like a latter day Louis the XVI and Marie Antoinette. Their attitude is, “Let them eat food stamps.”
Raise your hand if you’ve seen more than three pictures of Barack on a golf course or Michelle on tour.
((PAUSE))
Now raise your hand if you’ve seen more than three pictures of Barack Obama behind the desk of the Oval Office, doing – you know – the work he was elected to do?
((PAUSE))
A lot of people have noticed that. The First Couple is fond of the good life. Well of course they are. They don’t have to pay for it – you do. And for every dollar in taxes you pay, they borrow another 46 cents from your kids.
You’d be embarrassed to do that to someone else’s kids. But they’re not. You know why?
((PAUSE))
That’s right! THEY DON’T CARE!!
* * * * *
But the president does care about your health, doesn’t he? After all his most expensive bill is called “Obamacare.” Well, don’t be too sure. Remember this is a president who doesn’t tell the truth.
He didn’t tell the truth when he told you that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted to. The Congressional Budget office just issued a report saying that 7 million Americans will lose their employer-based health coverage because Obamacare makes private plans too expensive for employers to provide.
He told you his plan wouldn’t add a dime to the deficit. Well, he’s right about that. It doesn’t add a dime. It adds EIGHT TRILLION dimes – over 800 billion dollars. And that’s just for starters. The bill for Obamacare is already twice as big as he said it would be when he signed it into law. On the other hand, it’s another victory in his war on the young. Because they’re the ones who will get the bill.
The president didn’t tell the truth when he said Obamacare will cut your premiums by up to $2,500 per year. In fact, Obamacare will add about $4,000 per family per year. And that’s with its cheapest option.
And it just gets worse and worse. But guess what?
((PAUSE))
He doesn’t care.
* * * * *
Well, what about minorities, and the poor? Of course he cares about them, right? Obama is a Democrat and Democrats talk a good line about compassion. But when it comes to actually doing something about compassion, they just don’t care.
Washington, DC, Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan have been controlled by Democrats since Moses was just a tiny little boy, about this high…
Washington, Chicago and Detroit voted overwhelmingly for Obama. They just didn’t realize the two big things about him that he has revealed again and again since being elected: he doesn’t tell the truth, and he doesn’t care.
In Washington, DC, one in every three children, mainly African American children, live under the poverty line. In Chicago, Obama’s hometown, the rate is even higher, thirty-six percent. In Detroit, the poverty rate for children – again, mainly African American children – is twice that high: sixty percent. In all three cities, almost half the children in the Democrat-run public schools fail to graduate, and many of those who do graduate are functionally illiterate. That means they will never get a decent job or a shot at the American dream. But the Democrat teacher unions are happy. Their members have lifetime jobs and their pensions are good. It’s just the kids who suffer. But nobody cares.
The homicide rates in all three of these Democrat-run cities are off the charts. In Chicago they are referring to the mayhem as a “youth homicide epidemic.” But the president’s attention is not on the bloodshed in the inner city streets where homicide is the number one cause of death among young black males. Instead his eyes are focused on one school in Connecticut where a certified lunatic attacked a classroom of kids who otherwise would have never experienced a violent act in their young lives.
It goes on, and on, and on… and things get worse, and worse. If anybody else were bankrupting the country and putting millions on food stamps, and cavorting in fancy resorts while 23 million Americans were unemployed, they would be run out of the White House on a rail. And rightfully so.
But the president is good at telling stories and too many Americans still don’t get it: this is a president who doesn’t tell the truth, and a president who just doesn’t care.
My friends, it’s not easy for people who love their country as much as we do to watch these things happen before our very eyes. And it’s even harder for me, as a member of Congress, to be the one to have to come here and spell out all of this national disgrace to you in plain language.
And to be honest, our Republican friends have been too slow to bring these truths to the American people. Why aren’t Republicans pointing out that these large inner cities in America – Washington, Chicago, Detroit, and so many others – have been literally run into the ground by the Democrats for fifty or even a hundred years now? It’s time for the Republican Party to begin to plainly say, again and again, that everything that is wrong with these inner cities that public policy can affect, Democrats are responsible for. Every public school that doesn’t educate its children; every city council that doesn’t protect its citizens or create economic environments that produce jobs – have one thing in common: Democrats control them 100%. Democrats are responsible for them and should be made to answer for suffering they preside over.
Republicans must begin to tell the American people this basic truth. Just as Democrats are bankrupting our country, Democrats also have their boot heels on the necks of millions of poor black and Hispanic children in our inner cities, and are crushing the life opportunities out of them. And this generational catastrophe goes on year in and year out, while Democrats on school boards and in government bureaucracies spend billions on themselves and their pensions and their pet projects that require more and more of your money and your children’s money and show smaller and smaller and smaller results.
Some of us in Washington still care about things bigger than our golf games and our campaign coffers. Some of us still care about the poor, about inner city children who are not getting educated while teacher’s unions grow rich, and about the nation’s debt that grows larger and larger every day… a debt that has the newborn entering life as if they were pack animals, with millions of dollars of debt strapped to their backs. Some of us still care about the brave men and women who sacrifice their lives so that others may live. And some of us still care enough about the American people to stand up and tell them the truth.
Now you have to go out there and tell them the truth too! God bless you all, and God Bless our United States of America.
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