Opening Speech From The Tea Party Rally Springfield Illinois April 15, 2011
April 17th, 2011Welcome ladies & gentlemen to the Tax Revolt Rally sponsored by the Alton and Springfield Tea Parties.
Say is there anybody from Springfield here today? How about anyone from Chicago? Good, would the media please report to the rest of the country and state, that by these folks being here today to stand up to protest government for overspending, over taxation, and over-regulation; proves that not everyone from Springfield is corrupt, and not everyone from Chicago is nuts!
It was two years ago today from this very spot that a group of local citizens gathered to voice their concern over massive government spending. There was a crowd of about 1200 at the peak assembled that day that the local paper reported as 400.
The main stream media and the left started from day one demonizing the Tea Party. The paper published an editorial about our first Tea Party with headlines that read, protest but don’t ignore the facts. Telling us if Barack Obama was practicing socialism it was a form not recognizable in any textbook. We don’t need a textbook to know what type of socialism Obama is practicing; all we have to do is look in our pocketbooks. They told us that when the economy slows and credit becomes tight that to move the economy forward it was the government’s job to spend to fill the void. Just as in the Depression.
Well here are a few facts for you from the media today. Let’s see what has transpired since our first Tea Party. The nearly trillion dollar stimulus failed. Instead of 3.5 million jobs we were told would be created by the end of 2010, 2.3 million jobs were lost. The deficit is running at 1.6 trillion this year. The national debt will have increased by 40% by October. Welfare is at record highs, more people are on food stamps than at any time in history, the number of foreclosures are at record highs, housing remains in a recession, new home construction is in a depression, today there are more homes in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure than there are for sale, about 5 million. Unemployment which we were promised would not go above 8% if the Stimulus was passed, set a record dating back to WWII, with 20 consecutive months of unemployment over 9%.
Obamacare passed over our protests while we were told it would save money, we now learn it will cost more money, 1050 businesses and unions have been granted waivers by HHS because they can’t afford Obamacare, the president circumvents the congress and orders EPA to impose CO2 caps through rule, that the governments very own Energy Information Administration’s economic forecast model says will cause gas to increase 77% above the baseline, cost 3 million more jobs, and cost every household $4000 a year. The president has declared war on the coal mining industry, & America’s most affordable electricity; coal fired power plants, with rules forecast to cost 250,000 jobs in the Midwest. The president says this means we are heading in the right direction? Then the left, & the Democratic caucus has the gall to call The Tea Party extremists? And you in the media report that as fact?
Let me ask you ladies and gentlemen do we have any grandparents here? Are there any home builders here? Small business owners? Tradesman like electricians, carpenters, HVAC contractors, or plumbers here? Are there any farmers here? Any coal miners here? Any truck drivers & bus drivers? How about any retail workers, waiters, or waitresses? How about state workers or retirees are you here? Are there any taxpayers here? Are there any Veterans here?
Take this down media, you were just introduced to the real Tea Party, not the one you report which is fabricated from your allies on the left. We are the people who pay the bills, who build and maintain this country, we make this country work, we serve to defend her.
We believe in a limited government whose role is to provide for the national defense and to protect our citizens individual freedoms and property rights.
Those in power today ignore, limit, & eliminate our freedoms by increasing our taxes and implementing suffocating regulations. No the extremists are not The Tea Party, the extremists man the halls of the white house, the congress, and in this building.
Fact #1-The Tea party was right two years ago and the Tea Party is right today! We are the mainstream of America!
Next, this administration has spent more money than any other government in the history of the world. Do you remember the President when he said he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term? He quadrupled the annual deficit from 2007. His math teacher needs to be fired.
Now the president says he will lower the deficit by $4 trillion dollars. What evidence is there that we can trust him? After all this is the president who will have added $4.4 trillion to our debt in his first three years on the job.
Remember when the President said he would focus like a laser on jobs? That he would not rest until Americans were working again? Take your laser to the shop Mr. President it ain’t working! And drop out of the vacation of the month club, and the country club! And please don’t ask the American people to trust you to cut $4 trillion dollars from the deficit when you are the biggest spender in history! That’s like sending an arsonist to put out the fire.
Fact # 2 This administration has failed to deliver on any of its economic promises, the economy has not recovered, and we are NOT headed in the right direction.
Fact # three, the Tea Party made their presence known in November of 2010 with the biggest turn over in statehouses since 1928, and in congress since 1936.
And Fact # four, we can’t wait until November of 2012!
There’s four facts for you in the media, I could have gone on but I wanted to make it easy for you.
On Wednesday President Obama called for bigger government, more spending, and more taxes. How do I know this? Because the president said he wanted to cut spending, reduce the size of government and to raise taxes. Just like he promised to reduce the deficit before and to create jobs. The only thing we know for certain he will do is raise taxes.
Then the president who called for more civility in political discourse launched a partisan political attack upon his opponents with half truths, insinuation, and false allegations. He is attempting to divide Americans by encouraging class warfare, pitting one group of Americans against another. He discriminates openly against private citizens based upon their financial status.
This is the left’s strategy for 2012, to demonize, mischaracterize, & demagogue. We must not allow the left and the media to define the conservative message. It will be up to us to educate our friends and neighbors to the truth and get them out to vote in 2012 because the stakes are simply too high for America.
The choice will be clear in November of 2012. The voters will choose if the American people will exist to serve the government or if the American government will exist to serve the people.
Ladies and gentlemen our president is famous for slogans like ‘hope and change’, and ‘yes we can’, well he has a new slogan, ‘winning the future’. I beg to differ. You who are here today can be proud to tell your children and grandchildren that you stood on the right side of history with the Tea Party, and that is the reason why they and America have a future!
The opinions expressed here are solely those of Fritz Pfister or identified sources, and not necessarily those of RE/MAX Professionals of Springfield or RE/MAX International.
