July 4th is Independence Day, the day we signed the Declaration of Independence. Varied historical accounts assert that it wasn’t completely signed by all 56 delegates until August 2, 1776.
While it is sheer coincidence that 235 years later August 2 is once again looming as an important date in American history, it is an important fact to point out.
August 2, 2011 is the deadline we have been given to make a decision that will affect the freedom and fortunes of all Americans. In light of these consequences, I am reminded of the following passage from the Declaration of Independence:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
As we approach a national debt of over $14.4 trillion dollars, I am convinced that we need new Guards to protect our future security. Leaders in Washington have proven that they will invariably pursue a path of reckless and unsustainable spending that will reduce every man, woman, and child in this country to the despotism of debt.
After spending my first six months in Washington in a fight to save our country from a looming and predictable fiscal disaster, it seems that too many of the leaders here are “disposed to suffer.”
I have always believed that the American character has been influenced by the same courage and leadership shown by the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. In recent weeks I have joined with dozens of my colleagues and hundreds of thousands of Americans to insist that our government must fundamentally change the way that it spends money. I believe that the vote to raise our debt ceiling is the event where we must draw the line and take a stand. I will not vote to allow the government to continue forward on this reckless path without new Guards for our future security.
The new Guard of which I speak is to amend the Constitution with a Balanced Budget Amendment, to cut our levels of spending, and to cap the amount of money that the government can spend. This is not a time to make a deal. This is a time to take a stand.
I, for one, am forever grateful that the signers of the Declaration of Independence didn’t suffer from “pledge fatigue.” When I see their signatures on the Declaration, I am convinced that theirs is the brand of leadership that we desperately need.