surprise to some people, we did not know each other at that time. i realized my guess is what he was doing was going home to do some things for his city that seriously needed doing. he tried the mafia commission trial that began to get new york of the clutches of some people who were doing it now favors. he ran for mayor the first time in 1989. he said at that time that david dinkins won it would be more of the same and he was right. it was more of the same, perhaps even worse than before. not being a quitter he came back four years later and that time in a landslide. he lost the first time by forty-seven thousand votes or something like that out of two

million cast. came back the next time and won by better than 50,000. fifty-three my numbers tell me. he became the first mayor of new york ibm lea believe ever to re taxes. he did it 20 times and helped new york recovered. in the early days of the 60s and 70s when i went to new york it was my intention to leave as soon as i could get out. i noticed after rudy guiliani had been mayor only a brief period of time, my wife and i noticed a very substantial, palpable change in the city.

rudy giuliani made an enormous difference for that city and it has never looked back. much thanks to him. there is more to the law than being an academic, being an intellectual. part of the important thing about the law is how you use it. the reason that new york became as good as it is is because rudy knew how to use the law. there used to be people who came out of the lincoln tunnel with newspapers and white their windshield that you were afraid to tell not to because god knew what would happen if you did that. the police department went out and arrested them. they said you can't do that. he said find a reason. get it done. that is using the law within the confines of the law, good

impact. we have today and ed meese award winner which is the highest that we give, absolutely deserving of it and it is our pleasure to present it to you. i want to do as i always do read the precise description of the ed meese award because it is something that cannot be improved by at living or shoddy memories like mine. the ed meese is presented annually to a republican leader in recognition of a career of accomplishment and leadership for our country. this award recognizeds those leaders who protect freedom and the rule of law while upholding republican ideals in the face of adverse political challenges. our awardee is all of that. it is my pleasure to present you with this award and thank you

for being here. [applause] [applause] >> thank you very much for that award. it means a great deal to me. i have tremendous admiration for david. his contributions to the republican party and the direct and -- direction of our country are enormous. it is an honor to receive this award from you and all of these republican lawyers. there are more republicans in this room than in all of new york city. i was the first republican

elected mayor of new york city in 25 years. i was the first one to remain a republican in 50. that gives you a sense how tough it is to be a republican in new york. my predecessor republican change parties while he was mayor and my successor republican change parties about two years ago. i don't know who i go back to. for example, this is a city that didn't vote for abraham lincoln so you get an idea how democratic it is. but i love being a republican mayor of new york city because i got accused once of appointing too many republicans. i appointed all six republicans in new york city. i couldn't possibly have

appointed too many republicans. i couldn't find any. i used a republican approach to governing. i borrow a great deal from ronald reagan. i know you are especially commemorating at this meeting the idea that we should reduce the size of government, get government spending out of control. i learned that from having the honor of working with ronald reagan. the president appointed me as associate attorney general. before i was appointed but after i was designated that went for my senate confirmation hearing, before they were -- i had breakfast with 19 other people including president reagan and got to know him. the day i had that breakfast was the day he was almost assassinated. i have a picture of my shaking hands with ronald reagan that morning on the day he was shot. i spent rest of that day trying

to get hinckley out of the hands of the washington metropolitan police and turned over to the fbi because we were very worried maybe something would happen to him. the idea of lee harvey oswald and what happened to him was fresh and everybody's memory. the attorney general at that time was william french smith who believe hinckley had to be arraigned before the end of the day. along with judge webster who was head of the fbi at the time we had to clear out the court house, check it out and make sure there was nobody there and establish the number of people who went in and we had the arraignment in court in the federal courthouse. it was a very strange day. i had breakfast early in the morning with president reagan and their being in court with his attempted assassin.

are always wondered if, god forbid, he had been successful, what would have happened to the future direction of this country now that we look back on it. i am emotionally biased in favor of president reagan having worked with him at this as the attorney-general and united states attorney but i really do believe i am objective in saying he was the most consequential president since franklin roosevelt. had the most impact in changing the united states and changing the world. liberation of millions of people, most presidents don't get to liberate millions of people. ronald reagan did because he had such a firm, strong view on how to deal with communists which was a lot clearer and easier to understand than his predecessors. he had the conviction that communism was evil which he wasn't afraid to say and confronted rather than negotiated.

prior thinking about communism was we could live with it, we could work with it. they tongue. let's, exist. he found the idea of coexistence was an ideology and the practice that enslaved millions of people that had them in position of nuclear-weapons which could be used to destroy the world. found the idea of mutually assured destruction crazy. he had the desire to defeat communism and if you look up the decisions that he made, courageous and unpopular decisions, i believe that is

finally ended the soviet union, brought down the berlin wall. most presidents don't get to do that. tour and not have happened if anyone else had been elected president. the view on the economy was he reorder our economy. we are still reacting to the ideas that ronald reagan first promulgated when he ran for president in 76. we're still debating the size of government. how large should government be. should the approach to poverty be a government direct approach or a private sector approach? ronald reagan found the size of

government ridiculously large. he was a new deal democrat who converted to republican because he thought the new deal and finally the great society went so far that it had become counterproductive. people were being locked into a party as opposed to given a road out of poverty. he did everything he could to change that which he did during his administration by lowering taxes, beginning all the ideas that led to welfare reform, changing the way in which government interacted with the economy moving us closer to a free-market economy. he did something else we badly need today. remembering ronald reagan, all of that led to a resurgence of american exceptional ism, of american pride, of the ideas that we weren't at the end of

the american empire. in the 1970s you can go back and look. a lot of books were written and the lot of articles were written and a lot of speeches were given about how america was out of gas. we would be overtaken by japan and other countries and we had run our course and we were a country of limited possibilities. sounds familiar, right? there are people who believe that today in america. some of them are running america today. the idea that we are no better than anyone else, we are just another country with our set of problems and our set of assets or maybe not even as good as others. ronald reagan found that to be

totally wrong, not a correct view of this country and he changed in a short period of time how we felt about ourselves. that is the most important thing a leader does. the thing i am proudest of being mayor of new york city is not reducing crime which i am very proud of or changing welfare. we moved 6,000 people off of welfare, or changing the tax system and creating surpluses, all of those were building block for something bigger than that. when i became mayor of new york city the new york times took a poll. and the poll said 60% of the people in new york city don't want to live in new york city anymore. they want to live somewhere else if we could. 65% of the people in new york city felt new york city was going in the wrong direction. that is the most disturbing thing that can possibly happen because it means people started to lose hope.

when people start to lose hope they don't create great things anymore. what i wanted was to change them. by the time i left office we had a new york city in which roughly the opposite of that. 70% wanted to be there and like being there. 70% thought new york city was going in the right direction and not the wrong direction. often think that in new york city with the depressed attitude we had in the early 90s would have had a much harder time overcoming as quickly the tremendous damage done to us by the attacks of september 11th. it helped new york city that when we were attacked we were a strong and confident city, and optimistic city. a city that the leaves our best days were ahead of us. the attack was a temporary interruption of that feeling and the city was able to get back on track very quickly. most important thing that mayor

or governor or president can do is to reestablish people's believe in themselves because ultimately they are the ones who create things. they are the ones who produce jobs. there are the ones who invent great medicines or tremendous technologies. the government either hinders that were steps aside and encourages it and ronald reagan understood that and this country needs that right now. we need to be reminded that america's best they are not behind us. they are ahead of us. there is every reason to believe that. there is every reason to predict that. that is not an irrational prediction. we are stroll the strongest economy on earth. we are still the country that produces the most ideas and processes and most new ways of dealing with information. we are still the country that

has the most altruistic attitude of any country in the world. just think of the wars we fought over the last century. it has to be the first time in the history of the world that a big country like ours sent hundreds of thousands of its young people to die not to create an empire, not to expand their control of the world. the roman empire, the british empire, those empires were created for the benefit of rome and the benefit of england. what was america doing in the first world war? trying to make the world save for democracy. what was america doing in the second world war? trying to save the world from nazism and fascism. what with america doing in vietnam? whether people agreed or disagreed, what was the motivation? to save people from the spread

of communism. what is it america now doing in the middle east and specifically as we speak right now in libya? we are not conducting with things we're doing in iraq and afghanistan and libya in order to spread the american empire. only one that i can think of with any thoughts like that is donald trump. not that i totally disagree with him. new wants us to take some of that oil to pay the bills for the trillion dollars we spent. there's a certain logic to that. that hasn't been the way in our country. think about that. that is a very unusual, exceptional thing for a country to do. i can think of another country that has ever done that before. a country that actually worries about the condition of other

people and gives up lives in order to help other people and to make the world safer place for them because we recognize ultimately here's how it benefits us. it makes a safer world for s. if you look at what happened in the last six months, weather in is in tunisia or egypt or libya or syria or i am sure with iran, the whole set of values that america stands for are the set of values these people are demonstrating for, are protesting about, demanding more revolting for. in some cases they don't completely understand it. in some cases it is not the full version of what we mean by democracy but the reality is somewhere deep in their heart they have seen other people live in freedom and see the benefits of what other people get living for freedom and they are saying

why not us? why can't we have that freedom and that kind of control over our own lives? why can't we have the ability to have something to say about what i we spend our money? why can't we own property? couldn't possibly be a better time for the ascendance of the american ideas and ideals. a couple years ago when president bush said this in the second inaugural address there was skepticism about this, supporting freedom throughout the world. how can america do that? how can america participate in that? freedom is inconsistent with the muslim world or the middle east or other parts of the world. president bush understood that that isn't the case. freedom and democracy are not limited to religion, not limited to regions of the world. they are desirous that exist within the human heart, the human soul and it human brain.

the human desire is to have more control over your own life. in order to release that you have to see examples of it. you have to see that it is possible. the internet, the information revolution we lived through makes that information available to every one. people in china are watching what is happening in the middle east. make no mistake about it. it is creating in them this same questions that are created in egypt. why do we live in this kind of oppression? why do we live without a system of law that protects us? why can't we be the determining factor about what kind of education our children have or how many children we have rather than having the government decide that for us? what are these things portend? what they really show is a future in which more and more countries in this world, more places in the world will see the

american model as the models they want for themselves. it doesn't mean it will be a straight line in that direction. there will be the tours along the way. it is quite possible that in these revolutions we have going on we are going to have situations like we saw in iran. where dictators replaced by worst dictator. sometimes there will be improvement. the general thrust of the process is in our direction. instead of worrying about whether america is going to be the preeminent power in the world the question we should ask ourselves is if america doesn't lead the world, who will? who will do it as well as america? there is nothing arrogant about

that. there is nothing to be embarrassed about saying that. that is a simple reality. will the world be better with china leading the world? would america be better with some of these countries that are still struggling with the idea of the rule of law, freedom and democracy leading the world? the reality is the world has rarely had a superpower that has the altruistic motivations that we have. it doesn't mean we are perfect. it doesn't mean we don't make terrible mistakes but in the course of human affairs this is about as good as it gets. one of the things this country needs is re-establishing american exceptional isn't. first we have to believe it. we have to present it in the right way. not arrogantly or in a superior way but with a sense of humility because none of us deserve what

we have in america. we are very lucky to have it. most of the people that lived on this earth have not had what we have. the opportunities we have, the health we have, rights that we have, possibilities that we have. it is our obligation to try to share that with the rest of the world and it is our obligation to ourselves and our children to do that because it is quite correct that if this world were made up of countries that were all democracies with a rule of law, that is the way to end war. democracies don't go to war with each other. full-fledged democracy don't go to war with each other. date debate each other. they argue with each other. they have treaty negotiations with each other and sometimes they get real angry like each other like when we banned french fries from the united states congress.

remember? but we didn't go to war with france. we banned french fries. ok, we can deal with banning french fries or if they want to ban pizza. you can't ban pizza. my grandmother would turn over in her grave. the reality is that that is a correct view of what america can contribute. it is an absolutely correct thing for america to offer that to the world. doesn't mean we can intervene all the time. it doesn't mean we have the resources to intervene all the time. it does mean we can always help. you can help the spread of freedom and democracy without intervening militarily. sometimes you have to. it matches be the rare occasion. we didn't have to intervene militarily in poland, but poland is now free. how do we do that?

we did it by supporting by giving them more support, giving them other forms of support, like information and ideas and being on their side. that is what we should be doing in iran today. it is inconsistent to me that we would call for the ouster of gaddafi who surely has to go and not call for the ouster of ayatollah khamenei and mark mahmoud ahmadinejad. gaddafi is a dictator who is horrible to his own people but doesn't pose any where near the threat that iran poses. gaddafi is basically a neutered foreign leader. he does terrible things to his own people all of which are unacceptable but the risk he presents to the united states is nothing like the risk that a sawed --assad presents or

mahmoud ahmadinejad freeze and. if we are calling for regime changes in certain places why not remove some of the most unfriendly dictators and not just the ones that are partially friendly or someone neutered yet removed without taking advantage of that movement to drive on a -- out of power those who are truly dangerous to us. what is missing is a clear vision of what our foreign policy should be. it would be very simple to state what our foreign policy should be. we should support freedom movements all over the world. we should support it with everything we could possibly think of short of military intervention. we should militarily intervene when horrible things are happening in a country and that

also presents a danger to the united states of america. that second element has to be present or we will have to be intervening in 1-third of the world or one quarter of the world. the confusion that this administration has shown in the last few months about egypt and libya is because they don't have a clear vision like ronald reagan of what they want to achieve and what they want to achieve it. when they get into the situation they don't have a clear philosophy to turn back on that helps them figure it out and how to do it. you can see it with hosni mubarak. demonstrations start in egypt and first thing we announce is mubarak is stable and the vice president says -- he is not a dictator. that was announced in the first two or three days and our policy at that point was we have to keep mubarak there because we are afraid of what might replace

him. then things got worse, pressure group, and policy change from mubarak is stable and mubarak is not a dictator to mubarak must go. without thinking out clearly what might replace mubarak or without knowing what might replace mubarak and it seemed as if the policy was being made on the fly rather than a superimposed policy that everyone can understand being used to guide us through that situation. than we come to libya and it felt the same. demonstration started in libya. this rebellion begins and our first reaction was that we are not going to intervene. we are not going to intervene because also gaddafi is terrible and those terrible things there's no clear and present danger to the united states posed by gaddafi or libya.

then as tensions mount. as the arab league decides gaddafi must go, the president announceds gaddafi must go. the president hasn't fought out what the implication of that was. and a couple weeks go by and the president is trying to decide whether to join a no-fly zone in france, england, arab league and the united nations. finally we join the no-fly zone. but we still with all of that don't have a policy that makes any sense. we have a policy that contradicts itself which is why it is very hard for nato allies to follow us. because we are not leading. we have intervened in libya with a no-fly zone to protect the people of libya and particularly the civilian population in

libya. but we are not in favor of regime change. we won't remove gaddafi. that may not happen. we won't do that. what are we protecting the people of libya from? if it is not from gaddafi? we are not protecting them from tornadoes or storms or some foreign elements that might come to libya. we are protecting them from gaddafi. how can you possibly end it? if it is correct we can only succeed in protecting the people of libya by doing what we're saying we will do which is removed gaddafi. he is a danger to them. our policy is to protect them

but not removed him. people can't understand this. that would be two acceptable decisions about libya. decision number 1 would be not to intervene on the theory that although it was horrible and terrible what he was doing to his people, this was not directly endangering the united states of america of the waya a wayassad and but what of it is not in danger the united states and participate in helpingassad in danger the united states and participate in helping the americans killed. the second decision was because of the location of libya being in the middle east, because the middle east is such a tinderbox and because gaddafi was engaging in such brutal action that could encourage others to do the same thing it was necessary for the united states to intervene. we should intervene for the purpose of removing him and thought with is totally contradictory policy that makes it hard for people to follow or

figure out what we are going to do next. and this is the failure of lack of vision. being willing to set forth a goal that people understand you are going to have to follow. and this is the greatness of ronald reagan. because his vision was clear and articulated. sometimes you can't always achieve every goal that you want but when you state it people know what to rally around and how to agree or disagree with you. we are going to face many of these questions in the next five or six or ten years because this movement is not stopping. it is not under our control. it shouldn't be. this is happening in our hearts and minds and souls of individual people and with the information revolution we are going through this is going to

spread throughout the world. what you see in libya you will see in china. there are seven hundred million people in china living in poverty. exactly why we are so afraid of china i can't figure out. the idea that china will have the preeminent economy by 2016 and will come about if we do everything wrong. right now we are doing a pretty good job of that. if we do everything wrong then china will become the preeminent the economy but china has to answer a question that nobody in the history of humanity has answered yet. somehow between now and 2016 they are going to have to move seven hundred million people out of blinding, horrible poverty which is unknown to anyone in the united states and they're going to have to continue to have their economy grow at 8% or 10% and still solve that problem. china's economy is built on a

false foundation, a foundation of hundreds of millions of people living in poverty. if we wanted to take half of this country or two thirds of this country and allow them to begin to live in the kind of poverty that chinese are living in we would have that gdp that would be three times the size of the gdp we have today but would be concentrated in the hands of just a few people. china is going to have to overcome that and deal with the contradiction of being essentially a free-market capitalist economy and an authoritarian political system. they don't know the answer to it yet. that answer may be superimposed on them. that is a tremendous challenge to have to go through. america should deal with china. america should have relations with china. americans should guide china in the right direction but we shouldn't be frightened of them because there's no reason for that.

i really think that this next election in 2012 is going to be about whether we can give ourselves the chance of another renaissance for america. a chance of reawakening america, inspiring us to lead rather a van to follow. of being proud of ourselves for the things that are good about us and have as to what we always do which is correct ourselves. there's another way in which america is exceptional. america has been the most successful country and society in the history of the world and self correcting. we recognize sometimes a leak but always be in justices and bad things we're doing and straighten out. we haven't had to someone come and straighten us out in all the years we have been a republic because we have a system that self corrects. there is no reason we can't do that again. and we figured it out in the

best we human beings do it, by conducting elections. we do it by conducting elections that are as fair as we can possibly make them and you help us do that which is why i love the work republican lawyers do. you help us make sure the elections are fair and honest. i will conclude with one story about the election that i lost in 1989, about four or five days before the election. i asked one of my political mentors, very experienced political figure. i said to him how many votes do we have to win by to overcome the cheating? there used to be a lot of cheating in new york. it wasn't quite like chicago. he said 50,000 votes. we probably have to win by 50,000 votes to win to make up for all the precincts in which

we don't have poll watchers. they won't let poll watchers to make up for all be dead people who voted. i said that is something i always felt very inadequate. every time i ran my democratic opponent who had better ability to appeal to dead people than i did. we had an entire cemetery. he said 50,000 votes and i lost my 47,000. that was the era before the 2000 election when you followed the will of richard nixon which is you don't contest the elections. however they get decided at the ballot box you leave them alone. i with a catcher in baseball. got thrown out of too many games where the umpire didn't change his mind to contest the election. the reality is the second time

we ran we organized 3,000 lawyers who went to every polling site in the city, along with about 3,000 firefighters and correction officers who volunteered. sometimes the lawyers were afraid to go. lawyers are very smart. firefighters and correction officers have a much bigger impact when a big bus of illegal voters show up who are voting for the third time that day and of course they are in contact with each other. they remember seeing them at one precinct and another precinct and when the firefighters and correction officers go up and say aren't you the same people that voted two hours ago in another precinct? somehow the bus turns around and goes the other way and because of that at least we felt we got

an honest result the second time around. that reality goes on in america. it is not correct. it is not right. it is awful. i'm sure there are times republicans cheat too. republicans aren't free of police. pretty equal amount of virtue and vice that go around. republicans don't control big cities and that is where you can get away with it much more than you can in rural areas and where it makes a big difference. we need you because i think the next election will set the tone for america for a long time. thank you for all you do. i am happy to take questions. [applause]

>> wait for the mike please. >> speaking of presidential elections and the necessity of beating obama and as a giuliani supporter in the last election is very possibility you would consider a run? [applause] >> sure, but not right now. i enjoyed the debate last night so much. i am kidding. i will shore think about it but not yet. it is too early and we will see how it all develops. my major goal is to elect a republican in 2012 and if it turns out i am the best one to do that i can probably be talked

into doing it or convince myself to do it. if i thought someone else had a better chance to do it i would be an enthusiastic supporter of someone else. let's see how it all develops. this is developing more quickly than last time so we will be able to make a decision closer in time to win the election takes place. i remember in 2007 by this time we had 12 republican candidates. i had lunch with john mccain as he and i ran against each other and we were very good friends and came out as very good friends. i announced during one of our debates the fund wasn't running i would be supporting him. my staff got very angry when i said that. the reality is in 2007 we were debating issues that ultimately had no relevance to the election of 2008.

i remember our debates were about immigration. they were about stem cell research. they were about a whole host of issues. very little about the economy. i went through a 11 debate and asked five questions about the economy. a lot of questions about iraq as you would imagine because that is when the president first decided on the surge and the democrats were in favor of pulling out of iraq and republicans were mostly in favor of the surgeon but not everyone. the election turned out to be decided on the economy and we haven't debated that at all. ask the very few questions about it. we did not think about who was the best candidate to lead the economy. this year it is developing later, probably will help and we will get a better idea of who

can be the best candidate in the general election and we have to do that. you have to win general elections to win primaries. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> we are now fortunate. the icing on the cake is we have with us to my right the current chairman of the republican national committee, a man i have come to know over the last couple of years very well. a man who made a very hard decision when he decided to run for chairman this time. fortunately for all of us he made the right decision. he ran a vigorous forthright campaign, led for every ballot,

won going away. the day he took office he began to repair what needed to be repaired. and frankly there was a lot that needed to be repaired but certainly not the least was our finances and overconfidence of our major donors. reince priebus started that, the election was over on a saturday and he began that on sunday. i talked to some of those people and i know he has already accomplished much of that. given his tireless effort and his abilities, i should say that when he ran for the chairmanship he was chairman of the state party of wisconsin and i think all of us can be rightly proud of wisconsin in its most recent supreme court election. the election of the freshman

senator and the election of a very vigorous governor who is doing the things we need to have done. all of that happened on the watch of chairman reince priebus. i would be very appreciative, mr. chairman, if you would join me and tell us how you did it and what you are going to do next. [applause] >> good afternoon. i hope they try to keep the remarks brief. but i do want to thank the mayor and david and larry for having me this afternoon. i have to say to david,

layperson who has led us for many years. four years as general tells will and instead of life tells will to the rnc and to me. he gives me advice and i appreciate people like that who take you under their wing and our statement to our party. sosman to our party. so thank you, david. it is true. my name is reince priebus. i know it is a bizarre name. i am as normal as they come. my son's name is jack. my daughter is graced. i am reince priebus. what happens when a greek and a german gets married? it is a cultural disaster.

this is howard -- i have a lapel pin once when i was at a fund-raiser in orlando. there's a lot of that stuff right now. someone pulled my lapel stickers off and said look at this. if you take the vowels out of the name reince priebus the first thing you get, rnc and the last thing you get is prbs. sino this is made for me, this job. so the cheese heads have had a pretty good run. we want to start talking about the packers. i will mention a few cheese heads as i walk through some short remarks today. it is obviously great to be back with you.

i was in grand rapids. we're celebrating ronald reagan's 100th birth day. it is an honor to stand with mayor guiliani. he had one of my favorite line in the 2008 campaign when he said i like fred thompson. he plays me on tv. i know how dedicated this group is to voter integrity. i know how important you are in insuring the integrity and that our elections are fair. all of you are familiar with the election laws in wisconsin because there's a test case of how bad elections can be run. with governor scott walker we are ready to change that. [applause] i can tell you as chairman of the party you have always done a great job of sending us the best

and the brightest into our state, assisting efforts in wisconsin, making sure we can do everything we can do to help run our elections fairly and as accurately as possible. ronald reagan obviously is your honoree for your meeting. he charmed us with his few -- humor and blessed us with his leadership. my task as chairman of this party is to help elect a republican president who shares ronald reagan's vision of an america that removes government's intrusive obstacles to opportunity. and america built on principle and purpose. and america that is strong, safe and free. that is the america of ronald reagan created. and i fear that is the america we are losing with each passing day under our president, barack

obama. [applause] that is what i want to talk about today. there is no doubt about it. the president is a gifted politician. but good politics do not inherently yield good policy. good speeches do not create good jobs. winning the bates does not implicitly mean you are winning the future. the president says he wants an america to live within its means. says we need to reduce the deficit and wasteful washington spending. we agree. we all agree. in this debate in washington co-president has said a lot of things but here's the problem. the results don't match the

rhetoric. the president says, and he says and he says. but this is what we have seen. every day washington borrows roughly $4.5 billion just to pay its bills. $0.43 on every dollar spent in america is borrow. when my children are my age we will spend $0.46 on every dollar made in america to run the federal government. in the past two years non-defense discretionary spending has increased almost 25%. how many families in america had their own personal budgets increased 25%? total federal spending as a percentage to gdp will rise from 25% of where it is today to 40%,

30 years from now in 2040. if we do nothing, we just stay on the current trajectory and give speeches and ignore reality, in 2040 our national debt will equal twice the size of our entire economy. that is the economic definition of bankruptcy. on top of it all, medicare itself will be bankrupt in nine years. this is america. this is the greatest nation the world has ever known and it is a nation that is going broke. as a matter of principle, a government that loses its sovereignty to its bondholders cannot possibly guarantee prosperity or freedom. a government that buries the next generation under an

avalanche of debt cannot claim any vestige of the moral high ground. a government that stifles economic growth with excessive taxation, litigation and regulation cannot create a competitive climate for economic expansion. at the end of the day, a government that is controlled by china cannot possibly compete with china. [applause] the fact are as staggering as they are unsustainable. they constitute more than just a political case against president obama. they constitute an economic case against barack obama. make no mistake. the battle we are in is more than just financial. the battle we are in is a

fundamental battle about freedom, opportunity and self-determination. ask yourself. do you think we are winning the future? for the first time in many years, more americans believe that the next generation, your kids and my kids will be worse off than this generation. on the day after the government had this scare that we were going to shut down the government the president made a special trip to the lincoln memorial and he stood in front of the hallowed monument to announce with inexplicable pride that the lincoln memorial will stay open. this debate is not about keeping the lincoln memorial open. this debate is not about keeping the washington monument open. this debate is about keeping america open.

it is about creating an economic climate that will facilitate demonstrable growth and encourage american business owners to keep doing business and america, not overseas. this is a debate about making an america that creates opportunity, not an america that facilitates its tendencies. a few weeks ago the president took a second shot at proposing a budget. remember there was a speech. a budget that even if the speech was a budget would do little to address the perilous economic climate we are facing. and it turns out that this new budget was little more than a political speech. and clearly our president, barack obama, is willing to sacrifice for future for short-term political gain.

we all know the president can talk about hope all he wants. but here is the problem. cohope isn't hiring in america. the president's economic advisers privately urged standard and poor's not to lower its outlook on the united states from stable to negative status. their argument, obama's advisers said the s&p was underestimating the ability of politicians in washington to fashion a compromise to curb deficits. the change in ratings was not needed because the debt was manageable. the administration had a viable plan in the works. the s&p ignored them. i am no economist. i am not an expert on the s&p. but i do know the importance of having a good credit.

we all do. and america's credit just went from stable to-. americans have not only seen but they have felt the consequences of barack obama's america. as ronald reagan said, don't be afraid to see what you see. i believe like i am sure a lot of view that we are in a battle for freedom in america. the same battle of freedom that founded our country. the same battle of freedom that james madison reaffirmed in the bill of rights. the same battle of freedom that founded our party in 1854. we are in a battle for freedom. we are in a battle for opportunity and a battle for and america and our children and their children. do we want to have a country

that leads or do we want to have our country that follows? do we want to have a country of makers or country of takers? do you want more people writing of the wagon or more people driving the wagon? the stakes are high. the consequences are very real. that brings me to the rnc. i can promise you on my life that like all of you here i didn't run for chairman because i am worried about the future of the republican party and you are not here because you are gravely concerned about the future of the rnc or your local or state party. i ran for chairman of this party because i am concerned about the future of this country. i know that we have a battle to fight. i know that we have to save america. that is why i ran for chairman

of this party. we are the only organization in america that can coordinate our ground operation, our election day operation and phone to phone calls, absentee ballot, we are the only entity in america that can take our operation and the work in a it was a presidential candidate. i believe that all of us in this room have been blessed in different ways. everyone of us. in order for all of us, we have a battle for freedom to fight but in order for us to do that, in order for us to win. in order to make barack obama a 1-term president we need to work together. that is what i am here. i am here to say thank you but i am also here to engage you and invite you into the our nc family. work with us and we will work with you. let's work together to save our country and we