Citizen Romney to the Economic Rescue

I wrote a speech for Mitt Romney. Wish he, or some other candidate, would use it.

Says the little speech:

Sometimes, in our rush to be elected to public office, we provide government answers when the problems might better be solved by someone else, someone other than government. Government does not hold all the answers to all our problems. Sometimes, it is the resolve of the people, themselves, that makes the difference. I am a candidate for president, so you might expect that I should be postulating government answers to all our problems.

But, I'm also a citizen, and as such I have citizen responsibilities. As a citizen -- say nothing of being president -- I have the responsibility to better this nation, if I am to be a "good" citizen.

I would like to take up that charge now. (Pause)

It has been noted that I have created thousands of jobs as an American capitalist. I've been very successful, as a person, in making a good livelihood and, as an accompanying result, the businesses I have helped create and the businesses I have helped preserve have created thousands of jobs.

But, note this was done as a citizen. My record as governor of Massachusetts has my state but at 47th in the nation in job creation while I was there. That's been the attack on me, hasn't it?  Some have suggested this shows I can't translate my successes in private sector over to what I can do in public office.

I say, though -- I repeat what I have already said -- that government answers are not always the answer. Sometimes it is we, the people, who must make the change. I do not want another $800 billion bailout. I do not see it wise to create jobs at government's expense at a time when government is strapped for cash and growing in debt. I say that instead of asking a person who doesn't have the money -- that would be Uncle Sam -- we should ask the people who do have the money to bail us out -- and that would be me and others who are well off. Let us ask the people who have the money to offer the help. Despite our economic troubles, the rich have remained rich. It is they -- us -- who have the resources to pull us out. Why would we not turn to that segment of our society that has the tools and is best equipped to solve the problem? Isn't it the entrepreneurs who have been creating jobs all along?

So, although I am running for president, and will be able to do things to help the economy if you elect me president, on job creation, on helping the poor find jobs, perhaps it is as a private citizen that I can do the most good. I have been successful and am well off. If I believe in using what the good Lord has blessed me with to help the lives of others, perhaps now is a time I should step forward and do it, as a citizen, as one of the members of our society who is in the financial position to make a difference.

Warren Buffet, where are you? I don't see you in this crowd. I hope you are listening. You have suggested higher taxes for the very rich. I believe you are among the civic-minded, love-to-help-your-neighbor types who are part of a fabric of America that has made this nation great. I call on you, and myself, and others who have been blessed, financially, to create jobs just for the sake of creating jobs. What is to stop us from doing this? We have the money to do so. Nothing is stopping us. Many of us are considered -- what is that word? -- philanthropists. If we are wanting to help others, and are already experts in job creation, what better thing can we do than to create new businesses not for the sake of making money, but for sole purpose of providing employment? Let these new companies operate at a loss, if they must.

Let us look down the street at our poor. Let us look at each one, and why they can't work. Let's offer everyone we can a job, not a job they cannot perform, and, if we cannot find it, not even a job that helps the company make a dollar, but just a job that the person -- whatever their situation -- can perform.

What I'm calling for today is not a small thing. I'm asking us to become what might be called a right-to-work nation, meaning a nation where everybody has the right to work, has the right to a job. But, it is not government I'm saddling with this responsibility, but it is the people, themselves, I'm asking to make a difference. We, as a people, are going to take up this charge. We, as a people, are sick and tired of government bailing us out. This is our nation. We, as citizens, can solve some of our problems. We need not look to government to solve everything.



What I have proposed today will make a difference. It will put people to work. That unemployment number will come down. It has to, if we are going out and finding the people who are unemployed and placing them in jobs tailored just for them, jobs custom made after looking at the reasons they are out of work. What I have proposed is to find the people at the bottom of the economic ladder and give them each not a handout, but a hand up.

I call on everyone who is here, and those who hear my voice across the nation, to rise up, to rise up and help your neighbor, to consider your own position and consider whether you can be part not of a government answer, but of a citizen answer. Please be wise. If you do not have a surplus so that you can go out and create a business that might lose money, then don't do it. Do not overreach. Do not overstep your means. If you do, you too might go broke, and our economy will only be the worse for it. But, if you are in position to help, now is the time your nation needs you. Now is one of the darker moments in our history, economically, and you are alive at a moment you can help. You can be a patriotic American, a good neighbor, a person who cares, and someone who helps save the economy.

The hope lies in the people, not in the government this time. Our economy became great through free enterprise, not government job creation. Dance with the one who brought you, it is said. Free enterprise made us great, and free enterprise can carry us out of dark times, if we will but turn to it. We don't need another $800 billion stimulus. We need the people who have, helping the people who have not. We need a society that values it own. We need a society so strong in values that it treats the welfare of others as a market value. Supply and demand? I call on us to apply this principle to our values, and if the market needs corrected -- if there is a need for help -- the market corrects itself, and people come rushing to help their neighbors. We do not need more government forcing us to help others, but we, as citizens, need to step forward and practice the principle of valuing others. We do not need government answers to people problems, we need people helping people -- people answers. We need good citizens being good citizens by helping each other.

Let us, the people, save the poor. If this works -- and there is no reason it shouldn't -- I will be very proud to be part of it. Thank you for listening today, and God bless America, and all the poor people in it.