Last week's Scream of the Union Address got me thinking about various and sundry Presidential declarations on the state of our government.
Remember when Ronald Reagan said:
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
Remember President Bill Clinton’s famous declaration that the “era of big government is over.” That was the 1996 State of the Union Address:
We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means.
The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face together. Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing virtues; we must have both.
Remember when Al Gore at President Clinton's direction authored “From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less”? Al Gore said about the reinventing government report:
“The National Performance Review is about change -- historic change -- in the way the government works. As the title makes clear, the National Performance Review is about moving from red tape to results to create a government that works better and costs less.”
Remember when Bush ’41 & Bush ’43 spoke in support of a smaller, smarter federal government? Yeah, neither do I because it didn’t happen. Bush ’43 created the Department of Homeland Security, the largest federal bureaucracy in American government.
Remember this doozy from Barack Obama in 2012:
I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more… The point is, we should all want a smarter, more effective government.
I’m rolling on the floor laughing!
No need to think about the Censorious Spender in Chief Joe Biden’s statements on an efficient, less invasive federal government. It never happened.
It was refreshing to hear in 2024 a politician with humility. Just last month, COS Senior Advisor Rick Santorum said,
“I failed because this country is a lot worse off than when I started, forty years ago, involved in politics. Our country is more divided. When I got involved in politics, I think our deficit was two trillion dollars; it’s now 34 trillion dollars, and we’re adding one to two trillion dollars every year. And there’s no end in sight to that. Our country cannot be sustained doing that.”
Forty years later, we are right back to the truth of President Reagan’s words. These words are the impetus behind and ultimately the essence of the Convention of States movement. The more the occupants of the Oval Office change, the more things stay the same.
Our government does not need a return to the "good old days". We need a return to first principles. We need to honor the premise expressed by Daniel Webster who said in 1830 when addressing the US Senate:
“It is, Sir, the people's Constitution, the people's Government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law. We must either admit the proposition or dispute their authority."
Today, our government seems intent upon disputing our authority.
It's time that the people of the United States again declare that our Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land through a convention of the states. It is THE solution as big as the problem of a government that disputes the authority of its citizens.
Learn more about Convention of States
...and watch Senator Ira Pressrights' Absolute State of the Union Address
