GOP: We Must Help Those Who Are In Poverty
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah delivered the Republican weekly address, saying he is thankful for the service members who protect the U.S., the volunteers who help those less fortunate and the parents who provide their kids with loving and supportive homes.
Lee was Tuesday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. Here are his words:
“My fellow Americans, I’m Sen. Mike Lee from Utah. On this day of Thanksgiving I’d like to take a moment to celebrate and give thanks for this great nation of ours and for all of the people who make it so, for I believe that America is exceptional, not because of who we are, but because of what we do,
I’m thankful for our men and women in uniform who protect our national security and the American way of life, especially those of you serving overseas this holiday. You and your families are in our prayers. I’m thankful for the untold millions of Americans who serve their communities, whether in their jobs or just in their spare time and for those who will spend a portion of their holiday caring for those less fortunate, in food banks, senior centers and homeless shelters.
Your generosity and compassion inspire us all and your acts of kindness, large and small are what bind us together. And I’m thankful for all the moms and dads out there who work so hard to provide a loving and supportive home for their children.
You are the building blocks of these United States. Everything we do, begins with you.
There are many challenges facing our nation today and many individuals, families and communities are struggling. We have too many Americans trapped in poverty, sometimes for generations, and often because of the dysfunctional, big government programs that are supposed to help them, only make it harder and less likely for them and their children to build a better life.
Too many hard working families are being stretched to the breaking point and beyond as health care costs, payroll taxes and housing costs keep rising, while take home pay remains stagnant. And yet we still have much to be thankful for as a country.
Despite these challenges and despite the discredited, bipartisan status quo in Washington, I am convinced that our best days as a nation remain yet ahead of us. My optimism for America’s future isn’t some starry eyed wishful thinking.
I know it’s going to take time and hard work to overcome the problems besetting our economy and to rise above the dysfunction plaguing or politics, but the American people never shrink from our greatest challenges. We always confront them, head on.
In America freedom has never meant, “you’re on your own.” For us, freedom means, and has always meant, “we’re all in this together.” We’ve always aspired to be a nation where everyone can earn a good living, and more importantly to build a good life through our free market economy and voluntary civil society, where the strong and he vulnerable alike can pursue their happiness and find it together.
And let’s not forget the limited, but vital, role that a constitutionally limited government plays facilitating upward mobility and removing the obstacles for opportunity for every American. My home state of Utah is a model of upward mobility and opportunity, one that policy makers in Washington would be wise to follow.
All across my state, we see widespread prosperity, achieved through a combination of efficient local government, a thriving economy, a thriving civil society, and perhaps the most successful private welfare system in the world.
The Utah model, which is just really the American model has been a beacon of hope and opportunity from the state’s earliest days, even back when it was just an outpost settlement on the frontier. In October 1856, two groups of pioneers on their way to Utah were stuck on the plains of Wyoming.
A report sent ahead to Salt Lake City told them between five and six hundred men, women and children, worn by drawing hand carts now in mud, fainting by the wayside, falling, chilled by the cold, children crying, their feet bleeding and some of them bare to snow and frost, upon reading the letter, Brigham Young called the people to act with a simple message.
He said many of our brethren and sisters are on the plains with handcarts, and they must be brought here. We must send assistance to them. He said he would not wait until tomorrow or the next day. He called for forty young men, sixty five teams of mules or horses and wagons loaded with provisions to leave immediately to rescue those pioneers in the wilderness.
I will tell you all, Young said, what your faith and profession of religion will never save the one soul of you unless you carry out just such principles as I’m now teaching. Go and bring in those people now on the plains.
The rescue party quickly assembled and headed east. Days later, they reached the pioneers with food and blankets and hope. The survivors were then carried, some literally on the backs of their rescuers to Salt Lake. Home at last to a city they had never seen, but to a community where they belonged.
Today, millions more of our neighbors are still out on the plains. They are not some government’s brothers and sisters – they are ours. And the time has come to do something about it. As Americans, we have it in our power – individually, together, and where necessary, through government – to bring them in.”
The “Newsmaker of the Day” is heard every weekday morning on AM 1450 KVML at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 AM.
