A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America

by Ted Cruz

  To do so, we must together remind ourselves that the promise of America is vital, it is real, and it has the power to transform our lives just as it transformed our parents’ and grandparents’ lives. Three parts comprise the promise of America.

  First, it was born out of the revolutionary principles laid out by our Founders that all men are created equal, and that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These were transformational concepts. For millennia, men and women had been told that our rights come from government, from kings and queens who dole them out like crumbs from their table. America was built on a different proposition: that our rights come from God Almighty. That legitimate government exists only by consent of the governed, and that sovereignty resides not with a monarch, but with We the People. And our Constitution serves, as Thomas Jefferson put it, as “chains to bind the mischief of government.”

  Second is the incredible opportunity that America has given for each of us to achieve our dreams. Over the last 239 years the audacious premise of this nation—that the People, not the government, know best—has resulted in the greatest engine of opportunity the world has ever known. Generation after generation has flocked to our country in pursuit of the American dream. Of course opportunity is not a guarantee of success, but time and time again, Americans have achieved our aspirations in everything from starting a small business to owning a farm to raising a family to making a difference in thousands of lives. My own family’s story is that of risk and reward and loss and renewal—the same journey that continues to beckon as we move further into the twenty-first century fueled by new technologies that hold limitless promise.

  And third is American exceptionalism. Our remarkable fusion of political and economic freedom has given America a unique position in the globe. The phrase “American exceptionalism” has been much misunderstood: President Obama famously said in 2009 that he believed in it, “just as the British believe in British exceptionalism or Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” But with all due respect to our British and Greek friends, American exceptionalism is different. We are the leader of the free world. The indispensable nation, the country that sets the example for the rest of the world. That doesn’t mean that we impose our model on other nations, but that we set the aspirations of what free men and women can achieve. The economic mobility we enjoy has had a global impact, lifting millions out of poverty. Equally remarkably, we have used the greatest military the planet has ever seen to liberate rather than subjugate. America leads. From the Boys of Pont du Hoc battling the evil of the Nazis to the many unsung heroes of the Cold War who fought the Soviets, America has been an extraordinary—and unique—force for good.

  The American Constitution, the American dream, American exceptionalism—these are the enduring foundations on which our ongoing national experiment is based. And the good news is that they are permanent things; they are not bound by time or circumstance but are as applicable today as they were in 1776. But just because they are permanent does not mean they are inevitable, and it is our challenge now to defend them so they hold true for our children as well.

  Today, a growing number of Americans believe that the promise is receding. In 2014, Pew polling found that 65 percent of Americans believe that our children will be worse off than we are. That is unprecedented. Never before, in more than four centuries of our nation’s history, has a majority of Americans not believed that our kids would have a better future. Indeed, from our founding, that’s been the American ideal: that our children would have better lives than we did, and their children would have better lives than they did. That ideal is in real jeopardy.

  This brings us back around to the challenges that face us in 2015, and the urgent need to reverse the insidious expansion of government power, spending, and debt that has occurred over the last half century, and accelerated dramatically during the Obama administration. This trend threatens to undermine our basic commitment to limited government and liberty and to restrict America’s global role, and it makes it imperative that we get back to the commonsense principles upon which this nation was built.

  So, how do we reignite the promise of America?

  The answer is threefold. First, we must bring back jobs, growth, and opportunity. Economic growth is foundational to every other challenge we face. With growth, we can solve our debt and deficits, lift people from poverty, preserve and reform our entitlements, and rebuild our military strength; without growth, we can do none of those things. Since World War II, our nation has averaged 3.3 percent growth a year. There are only two postwar four-year periods where growth has averaged less than 1 percent: 1978–82 (coming out of the Carter years) and 2008–2012.

  History shows a clear cause and effect for jobs and growth. Every time we have pursued out-of-control spending, debt, taxes, and regulation, the result has been economic stagnation and malaise. Conversely, every time we have pursued tax reform and regulatory reform—in the 1920s, in the 1960s, and in the 1980s—the result has been booming economic growth.

  What are the policies that will bring back growth? Repealing Obamacare. Reining in abusive regulations. Stopping the EPA from strangling the American energy renaissance that can create millions of high-paying jobs, in energy and in heavy manufacturing. Sound money, auditing the Federal Reserve and stopping its endless quantitative easing that is debasing our currency and making daily life more expensive for hardworking Americans.

  And fundamental tax reform. The best tax reform? A simple flat tax, that is fair to everyone. So that everyone can fill out their taxes on a postcard. And, critically, so we can abolish the IRS. To be sure, that’s bold, but we are capable of bold accomplishments when the American people get behind them. Two decades ago, Steve Forbes began to build the case for a flat tax, and now—with the political weaponization of the IRS under the Obama administration—conditions are stronger than ever for fundamental reform.

  If, after the last recession, the United States had enjoyed the rate of economic growth it has enjoyed in an average recovery, American families would have about $10,000 more income per family than they now do. But because President Obama imposed unprecedented taxes and regulations, the United States is right now missing around a trillion dollars in expected productivity.4

  We should set an audacious goal of enacting policies to encourage the private sector to create 10 million new jobs. Enough for full recovery. Good, blue-collar jobs with strong wages and work with dignity. High-paying white-collar jobs in expanding technologies. Full-time jobs, not people trapped in endless part-time positions. Multiple, exciting job opportunities for young people coming out of school. Get government out of the way and unleash the creativity of millions of small businesses.

  Abolishing the IRS will also weaken the power of career politicians, and the ability of Washington to frustrate the will of the American people. So too will passing structural reforms, like a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment, term limits for Congress, and a lifetime ban on former members of Congress ever lobbying.

  Second, we need to protect our constitutional rights. Our founding charter has served us well for more than two centuries. It protects liberty by separating powers, limiting the authority of the federal government, and guaranteeing every American the freedom to speak your mind, pray to God, and protect yourself and your family by bearing arms in their defense. Every single one of those constitutional protections has come under assault from the Obama administration, which has usurped the power of Congress through executive amnesty, redefined the relationship between the federal government and the governed through Obamacare, and attempted to repeal and undermine the First and Second Amendments through abusive campaign finance regulations, coercions of religious consciences, and repeated attacks on the right to bear arms.

  We need to vigorously protect free speech and religious liberty, and make clear that the federal government has no authority to undermine the Second Amendment. Likewise, we need to prot
ect the Fourth and Fifth Amendment privacy rights of every American. We need to defend life, from conception to natural death. And we need to respect the Tenth Amendment, the fundamental limitation on the authority of the federal government.

  The Tenth Amendment makes clear that there are a host of issues that should be decided by the states. Issues like marriage. Rather than the federal government or federal courts trying to impose new definitions of marriage, it should be left where the matter has been decided for two centuries: in the hands of democratically elected state legislatures. Personally, I strongly support traditional marriage between one man and one woman. A covenant ordained by God. But if people want to try to change the legal standards of civil marriage, the proper way to do so is to convince their fellow citizens. It is not for unelected judges to tear down the traditional marriage laws adopted by the people.

  Likewise, education is primarily a matter for the states. The federal government has no business trying to determine curricula in our schools. Education is far too important for it to be dictated from Washington; ideally, it should be at the local level, where parents have direct control over the education of their kids. For that reason, we should repeal Common Core, and make clear that matters of curricula are outside the authority of unelected federal bureaucrats.

  Third, we must restore American leadership in the world. Reigniting the promise of America means more than defending freedom at home; it requires the defense of American interests abroad. Here again, President Reagan is a strong example. Viewed from the perspective of the Obama era—in which Russia annexed Crimea and ISIS seized much of Iraq—it is remarkable that in Reagan’s nearly three thousand days in office, not a single inch of ground fell to the communists. How did he accomplish that? Well, he did not begin his presidency with an apology tour. He did not draw red lines that he later ignored. And he did not betray our allies, reward our enemies, or “lead from behind.” As Reagan said after leaving the White House, his foreign policy showed “the sky would not fall if America restored her strength and resolve. The sky would not fall if an American president spoke the truth. The only thing that would fall is the Berlin Wall.”

  In 2013, I was proud to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela—the only senator to attend, and one of only two Republicans. I admired Mandela because he was a freedom fighter, he stood up to racial injustice and transformed his nation and the world. But, when his odious supporter Raul Castro spoke at the funeral, I walked out of the stadium.

  “Tear down this wall” changed history, and we need to return to being a clarion voice for freedom. We should be calling evil by its name and speaking out for the unjustly oppressed, whether it is Pastor Saeed Abedini in Iran or Meriam Ibrahim (now freed from) Sudan or Leopoldo López in Venezuela.

  At the same time, America has always been reluctant to engage in military conflict, and we should show humility in our foreign policy. It is not the job of our military to try to democratize every country on earth, or to turn Iraq into Switzerland.

  It is, however, the job of the military to protect our nation, and we need to rebuild and modernize our armed forces to do so. And we cannot hide from the hard work of defending our national security. That means standing by our friends and allies and standing up to our enemies when needed. If and when military force is required, it should begin with a clearly defined objective, directly tied to our national security interests. We should use overwhelming force, and then we should get the heck out.

  Peace through strength means that when our enemies believe America will act, it often is unnecessary to do so. Weakness, however, of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry variety, only invites more aggression and escalates the chances of military conflict.

  So, if we understand what to do substantively to turn our country around, how do we get it accomplished? How do we actually win at the ballot box?

  The secret to GOP victory in 2016 really isn’t much of one. It is, in fact, obvious to those who are willing to learn from the past. The most consistent pattern of the last forty years is that Republicans win the White House whenever we nominate a candidate who runs as a strong, principled conservative with a positive, optimistic, hopeful message. We lose whenever we nominate the “more electable” candidate who runs as a mushy establishment moderate.

  History is on the side of conservatives on this point. In 1968 and again in 1972, Richard Nixon ran for the presidency as a strong “law and order” conservative. He didn’t always govern as one, but that was how he ran for office—highlighting clear contrasts between his positions and those of his liberal opponents, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. The contrast between the conservative Nixon and the liberal McGovern was so great in 1972 that Nixon won forty-nine states.

  In 1976, Ford ran as an establishment moderate, and lost.

  In 1980 and 1984, Ronald Reagan, perhaps the most unapologetically conservative candidate since Calvin Coolidge, won two straight elections, defeating Carter’s reelection bid and then winning a forty-nine-state landslide in 1984.

  The following election, in the year 1988, offers the most compelling example in the entire litany. Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush, ran as a strong conservative. As, in effect, the third term of Reagan. He won in a landslide. Then, in 1992, Bush had moved to the middle. He had violated his pledge not to raise taxes. He put a liberal justice, David Souter, on the Supreme Court. In style and substance, he publicly distanced himself from the Reagan years. Bush 41 is a good and decent man, but, running for reelection as the “electable” establishment moderate, he lost, in the process giving the nation two terms of Bill Clinton.

  In 1996, Bob Dole—another courageous war hero—likewise ran as a moderate, and lost.

  Then, in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush ran for office as a principled Reaganite and won both times.

  After that, we were back to the candidacies of the “electable” John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, both honorable men running hard to the middle.

  The Romney loss, the most recent defeat for the GOP on the presidential level, really stung because it should not have happened. By the end of President Obama’s second term, our economy was on the ropes. The rich were richer and the poor a whole lot poorer, notwithstanding Obama’s rhetoric about fixing the income inequality that reached new heights under his policies. Labor force participation had plummeted, and nearly 90 million Americans were not working. Our international standing was an embarrassment. Our commander in chief was a textbook study in indecision and vacillation.

  Governor Romney is a good man who ran hard, but he failed to “win the argument,” as Thatcher would put it. Indeed, the entire 2012 race can be summed up in two words: 47 percent. Romney’s infamous gaffe arose after a liberal surreptitiously gained entry into a private fund-raising event and taped Romney’s off-the-cuff remarks to donors. The particular comment that sparked outrage was the following:

  There are forty-seven percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are forty-seven percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. . . . And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

  Romney’s initial observation, that the Democrats are using entitlements to try to make voters dependent on the big government, has some substantive force. But his conclusion—“my job is not to worry about those people”—is precisely backward. Rather than writing off the 47 percent, we need to reach out to them with the economic opportunity that has been our greatest advantage as a country.

  I believe—no, I know—that the vast majority of our citizens desperately want to stand on their own two feet. To know the dignity of work. No grandmother, no abuela in Texas, wants her children or grandchildren to subsist on welfare. Americans want to provide for t
heir families—to give them a shot at a better life than we ourselves have had.

  For too long, the left has gotten away with the lie that Republicans are the party of the rich—even as the rich get richer under big-government policies and a large percentage of the richest Americans give generously to the Democrats in every election cycle. But Republicans play into that theme when they seem to write off a huge swath of the country—and refuse to make the case for our beliefs and ideals. Nobody is going to vote for you if they believe you don’t like them. Nobody is going to vote for you if you don’t even talk to them.

  I recognize that Romney’s comment was likely a verbal slip, but it became the overarching narrative of the last election. Designating any group of Americans—let alone almost half our population—as helpless dependents is directly contrary to our values as a nation.

  That is not how conservatives think. We understand that you cannot build a lasting governing coalition by telling nearly half the country that you don’t care about them.

  Conservatives should—and must—champion the Americans who’ve been forgotten and left behind. After nearly seven years of President Obama, there are more of them than ever before. They see a skyrocketing stock market on the one hand and stagnant real wage growth on the other. They see the Washington insiders getting fatter while real families struggle to get by. And they are, in some ways, the nation’s foremost experts on the limits of liberalism—because they are paying the price for liberalism’s empty promises.

  When Reagan ran for president, he campaigned in cities destroyed by liberal policies and he spoke to Americans who’d likely never before looked a Republican candidate for any office in the eye. In Detroit, he said, “More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country, to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose. I want to carry our message to every American, regardless of party affiliation, who is a member of the community of shared values.” Four months later, he carried Michigan by six and a half percentage points—a quarter of a million votes.