|
 Sen. Jim DeMint (left) greets state Sen. Lewis Vaughn before DeMint's townhall speech in Greer, Aug. 16.
The event, during Congress’ August recess, was part of the senator’s third annual South Carolina on the Move tour, which has a theme this year of Keeping South Carolina Secure. During the two- week tour, Sen. DeMint is highlighting the work of South Carolina’s law enforcement personnel and first responders.
DeMint gave one of his “On the Move Awards” to Greer Fire Chief Chris Harvey. DeMint was introduced by Greer Mayor Rick Danner.
DeMint said that the American people knew the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill meant amnesty for 12 million or more people who had come here illegally.
The battle started with five people in the Senate (Sens. Jeff Sessions, John Cornyn, David Vitter, Tom Coburn and DeMint) who wanted to stop it. “We were working against the President, all the Democrat leadership and most of the Republican leadership,” DeMint said. However, the text of the bill was loaded onto the Internet, bloggers pulled it down and started taking it apart, and radio talk show hosts said what was really in the bill.
“The secret weapon we had was about 300 million Americans who stood up and said ‘no,’” he said, adding that “the American people won that battle.”
He also said that during the amnesty debate they were told that the border fence could be built in 18 months, and “we are going to hold them to that.”
DeMint said that few federal programs work as they were intended and that most end up being wasteful, citing the federal War on Poverty in the 1960s and federal involvement in public education beginning in the 1970s.
The federal government spends all the money paid for Social Security and Medicare, not saving any of it, “and we have no idea how we are going to pay for it in the future, but it is a promise we have to keep.”
The 2008 election will be a battle between whether we want to be more like Europe with its socialistic tendencies, he said, or like the America we love with individual responsibility, free enterprise and volunteerism.
Nationalized health care is socialized health care, DeMint said. “If 40 million people are uninsured, the solution is not to get the government to take care of it, but to figure out how to get insurance in the hands of every person.”
DeMint commented on the battle against earmarks that he and other senators are waging. By not having earmarks, federal money generally comes back in block grants to be used where the state, or a lot of times where the local community, wants it to be used.
Congress spends most of the year on 12 appropriations bills with members of Congress saying where the money should go, which encourages every member of Congress to spend more than they should. Congress will keep wasting your money until we can get rid of this type of favor factory, he said.
DeMint said that in Gen. David Petraeus we finally have a general in Iraq who we told to ignore politics and clear Baghdad of al-Qaeda. “In September I believe we are going to hear that we can secure Baghdad in a relatively short period of time and allow the economy to re-emerge and grow.”
DeMint warned that if we leave without finishing our job to create a stable Iraq, “our word will never mean anything in this world again.”
“Taiwan will know that we won’t come to their rescue, so will China. South Korea will know we won’t come to their rescue, so will North Korea. Israel will know we are not going to stand with them, at least not for very long, and so will all the rest of the Middle East.”
He warned of massive genocide in Iraq, and al-Qaeda in control of one of the world’s biggest reserves of oil.
In a question about a proposed North American Union, DeMint responded: “The President is not going to be able to do anything that gives away any sovereignty or decision-making,” adding that “there is not going to be any kind of agreement that makes us all one country.”
|
