Much like the
revolutionary Contract with America that the Republican Party produced in 1994
as a
promise if they won the majority of the U.S. Congress, newly elected
Michigan State Representatives Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat have issued
promissory contract with the citizens of Michigan. What made the Contract with America so
revolutionary was its
provisions represented the view of many conservative
Republicans on the issues of shrinking the size of government, promoting lower
taxes and greater entrepreneurial activity, and both tort reform and welfare
reform. Todd and Cindy’s new contract
hopes to promise the same. Here is their contract they are working to push through in
Lansing:
The Contract for Liberty Project
We have felt called and compelled to put together this
legislative framework to restore liberty. The Contract for Liberty Project is
the beginning of a roadmap to restore our Founder’s intent for the proper role
of government, free and independent states, individual liberty, and personal
responsibility. We believe it is important to start our tenure as State
Representatives being thoughtful and intentional in the steps that we take and
the paths that we choose, making sure we carefully focus our time and attention
with concern in advocating for the citizens of our districts and state. We feel
impressed to faithfully execute the duties of our respected positions by
advancing the ideas and commitments that we have made during our campaigns. We
pray that our efforts impact hearts and minds in a meaningful way and hope that
others will join us in the pursuit of the restoration of personal liberty,
stronger states, and a nation worthy of the blessings bestowed upon it.
The Priceless Gift of Liberty…
As Americans, we have been blessed with an incredible and
priceless gift called liberty, purchased at a great expense by courageous men
and women willing to sacrifice their fortunes, their lives, and their most
sacred honor. Our history records principled and dedicated leaders who stood
against tremendous pressures and adversaries, to see freedom birthed and
continued for our nation and for the world. America’s founding principles have
stood resolute and tested through time as each generation has been entrusted
with the privilege of stewarding this precious blessing of liberty to the next.
Thus, each generation must rise to the occasion with the fortitude and
dedication that an honor of this magnitude requires, and be willing to do what is
necessary to understand the meaning of liberty and to defend it at all costs.
Without this intentional care and attention, the flame of liberty will be
vanquished and our children and grandchildren will not experience this amazing
legacy and inheritance that so many generations have enjoyed.
Hearts Set Aflame for Liberty…
It is now up to us to renew and restore a culture of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is time for principled, conservative
leaders to stand firm in protecting America’s enduring national treasure of
freedom. As God gives us the freedom to choose salvation through Christ or
reject Him, our own government should allow us the self-determination of
personal success or failure. God’s Providence, individual liberty, and personal
responsibility make up America’s foundation, prepared and poured years ago. The
national treasures that symbolize our Constitutional Republic, our Capitol and
White House and all the other precious symbols, were crafted out of rock and
metal but bound together by the blood, sweat, and tears of the sacrificial
giving of our patriot leaders. All of these ideas flow from Divine inspiration
of hearts set aflame for liberty by the moving of the power of the Holy Spirit.
It is not the buildings, nor the documents, or even the people, but rather it
is these ideas living in the hearts of men that enshrine personal liberty and
freedom that keep the flame alive from generation to generation.
The Foundations of Liberty…
As government increases, individual liberty decreases. We
must restore the Founders’ plan of limited and restrained intent to the power
and scope of government and restore our government to its proper role as so
eloquently espoused in our Founding Documents. We the people have lost our
understanding of the proper role of government and the natural consequence of
this loss leaves us with a government that has drifted from its moorings and
guide wires etched in our Constitution. To get our state and our nation back on
the right course to be a shining city on a hill for our children and
grandchildren, we will first have to revive our understanding of our Founder’s
intent to have first, a limited and restrained federal government and second, a
government of general powers resting in the free and independent states. This
understanding is essential to preserve our freedoms and liberty for the next
generations. It is time to restore the strength of the states, and the intended
limited role of our federal government.
With the responsibility given as State legislators, we are
committed to be good stewards with the responsibility in advocacy for the God
given and Constitutionally protected liberties of the people in our districts,
state, and nation. We believe that it is important to articulate logical and
reasoned arguments in our efforts to restore the Founders vision while holding
to the clear inspiration of the Divine; believing that it will take the moving
of the hearts and minds of men and women by the power of God and the Holy
Spirit to restore to our nation and to the world liberty and freedom to all. It
is with all of this in mind that we have developed “The Contract for Liberty”
and in this spirit we have moved to submit legislation for drafting to restore
a conservative vision based on the Founders’ understanding of government,
society, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.
The Contract for Liberty
1. The Freedom to be Born
Our nation was founded on the precepts of Life, Liberty, and
the Pursuit of Happiness; life is inherently precious and at the core of all
liberty; to deny a person their life is a violation of the most basic of our
fundamental freedoms and absolutely conflicts with both God’s Word and our
rights as guaranteed under the Constitution. Life is a blessing from God; each
one of us has been fearfully and wonderfully made. Our state can and should
lead the way in declaring that each person has inherent value and worth and
that we will protect the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable among us.
- Legislation has
been submitted for drafting
2. The Freedom to Defend Ourselves
Our Founders bought and paid for our right to keep and bear
arms because they understood, through their experience, that in order for a
people to remain free they must have the ability to defend themselves from the
forces of an overreaching government. The 2nd Amendment was not only a
protection against other individuals but rather was intended to place a check
on the tyrannical power of an unfettered government. This freedom to defend
ourselves and our families must apply to everyone, not just a privileged few.
It is not the 2nd Amendment that keeps us free, but rather it is the people's
understanding of the importance of the 2nd Amendment and their willingness to
defend it.
- Legislation has
been submitted for drafting
3. Health Care
Freedom
There is no more fundamental right than to be free from
government intrusion into the intimacy and privacy of our own bodies. The
integrity of the patient/doctor relationships, along with our healthcare
choices and decisions, should be free and protected from government intrusion.
To allow the expansion of government to decide who receives care and who does
not, in and of itself, will result in government determining who lives and
dies. Health care and health insurance should be voluntary and people should
have the freedom to choose their own health practitioner.
-Legislation has been
submitted for drafting
4. The Freedom to Worship
The Pilgrims were not attempting to set in place a
theocracy; they came to the New World to escape from government-imposed
religious worship. Our Founders established a nation built on the freedom of
religion not freedom from religion. They recognized and invited God’s blessings
and providence on our nation. Worship should be free from governmental
interference into the family, marriage, business, and how we raise our
children. This is an absolutely fundamental right and individual liberty that
is core to the very being of each person. Religious faith permeates everyday
living and our right to worship should not be limited to the doors of our homes
or churches, but rather our right to worship should be allowed to extend into
every area of our lives and this right should not be infringed upon by
intrusive government. Religious freedom is an extension of our freedom of
speech. The Founders felt so strongly about the need to restrict the government
from interference with religious freedom, that they proclaimed and guaranteed
religious freedom inside the very First Amendment in our Constitution.
- Legislation is being considered for drafting
5. The Freedom from Regulatory Tyranny
When government is left unbridled or grows beyond its
restraints and its totality overwhelms all Constitutional restrictions, its
weight suffocates and obstructs and is a boot on the neck of our pursuit of
happiness, leaving in its wake a destitute wasteland where once a proud,
strong, Constitutional Republic stood. These laws, most times, are passed into
perpetuity, leaving us with rules and regulations too numerous to be counted.
Regulations do not limit government but rather its citizenry, creating
obstacles that inhibit our pursuits of happiness and stem economic growth,
preventing avenues for people to provide for their families.
As Ronald Reagan eloquently stated, “Man is not free unless
government is limited. There is a clear cause and effect that is as neat and
predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”
-Legislation has been
submitted for drafting
6. The Freedom to Own Property
The Founders’ vision for property ownership in America was
driven from their personal experience of having very little ownership or property
rights under tyranny. Our Founders’ intent was that property owners would be
first in ownership without a government with the ability to deprive owners of
their property, but for limited circumstances. Property owners should be first
in ownership, second to none, and their interest should not be subservient to
government.
-Legislation is being
considered for drafting
7. The Freedom from Economic Intrusion
The Founders believed that benevolent giving was giving from
your own resources, not by the use of the power of government to take the
resources from one man to give to them to another. It was the role of families,
churches, and neighbors to provide assistance to those in need. True charity is
giving from your own kitchen, not from your neighbor’s kitchen. The Founders
never envisioned an entitlement society for individuals or corporations. Adam
Smith referenced the free market as the invisible hand which creates unintended
social benefits derived by an individual’s efforts. Our nation was not established
with the intention of subsidizing half of our population by the hand of
government. Our Founders did not envision economic favoritism through corporate
entitlements that allow for politically connected groups and individuals to
profit from governmental intrusion into the marketplace. Those bent on the
power to pick winners and losers for political advantage are in direct
contradiction to the proper role of government. Our Founders understood that
free markets provide boundless opportunity for prosperity and equal opportunity
for all to pursue success or experience failure through the merits of their
efforts and ideas.
-Legislation has been
submitted for drafting
8. The Freedom from Unjust Taxation
Government does not produce anything and can only give what
it has first taken from someone else;thus the power to tax is the power to
destroy. Oppressive taxation was the kindling on the fire for the Revolutionary
War; the Stamp Act and the Boston TEA Party were pivotal to our Founders’ cause
for freedom. Taxation should be blind, equal and as level as possible on each
citizen. It should not be a tool to take away a man’s bread or income or the
fruits of his labor nor should it be used to take from one person to give to
another for political profit. Regressive, or unequal, taxation is legalized
plunder which in any other instance would be called theft.
-Legislation has been
submitted for drafting
9. Restoration of the Right to Privacy from Government Intrusions
The Founders experienced no limitations on the government’s
ability to violate their private affairs. Federal government, in its awesome
and newly created authority, needed to be limited in the scope of its power.
The precepts of innocence until proven guilty, what can be searched and how and
for what reasons are all well settled in law in this country, but today with
new incredibly powerful electronic technology, governmental reach and
surveillance into our private affairs is virtually unlimited. The assembly and
accumulation of personal data threatens the Constitutional protections of the
people who are not under investigation, and can result in a disturbing
Orwellian-like relationship between citizens and their government.
-Legislation is being submitted for drafting
10. Free and Independent State
It is time to re-establish the rights of a free and
independent state; states under our founding documents were to be free and
sovereign from the intrusions of a federal government that is clearly operating
outside the intended scope of its enumerated powers. Our Founders experienced
the oppression of living under the most powerful governmental entity in the
world and clearly recognized the danger of the centralization and accumulation
of power. These men, divinely inspired, recognized that the right to
self-determination came from the awesome and benevolent hand of God, not from
government, and out of this recognition moved to create these United States of
America. Our states, governed by their own Constitutions, gave limited power to
a federal government and put in place checks and balances to protect against an
overreach of this power. The concepts of nullification, the 9th and 10th
Amendments, and how the U.S. Senators were appointed by the states are just a
few examples of how the states themselves were meant to be a counterweight to
federal imperialism. All of the protections included in our founding documents
were meant to keep a government “of, by, and for the people”.
States lose their independence as they become dependent on
federal government programs that bind the state with legacy costs in
perpetuity, this results in the states becoming more and more an extension of
the federal government, no longer free and independent. When 40% of our state’s
budget is controlled by federal edicts, our state becomes an indebted slave to
its master. This dependence prevents states from crafting their government in a
unique fashion that fits their people’s needs and resources. Independent states
create a dynamic framework for economic activity and allow for a localized
definition of the relationship between government and society. The closer the
government body is to its citizens, the more control and engagement the people
have and this closeness allows for increased accountability and oversight.
Our federal government has refused to take the steps to
restore its own fiscal soundness and is presently borrowing or printing half of
the money it spends. In response, our state needs to preserve its fundamental
soundness, by lessening its dependence on the federal government and the
federal treasury, and by limiting and reducing the number of laws that create
legacy costs in perpetuity.
-Legislation has been
submitted for drafting
Restoration of Liberty
Our Country was founded by men who looked at the very act of
their rebellion and the beginning steps of our country as an act of their
expression of faith; they were inspired with a vision of something the world
had never seen before and went forward to birth a nation based on ideas that
had never before been achieved. These ideas are individual liberty and freedom;
to achieve this vision they took their very inspiration from the Divine
Inerrant Word of God. They believed in a freedom and liberty far different than
what many understand today. These men believed that protecting liberty and
freedom, for all to use as they wished, was their God given duty and it was
their act of worship and faith to carry out this responsibility. They aspired
to these very ideas with an understanding that a true protector of liberty and
freedom protects another man's right to use that liberty and freedom as he sees
fit as long as his use does not interfere with another man's rights. Our whole
story as a nation was a personal quest by men and women who sacrificed
everything to birth into the world a never before seen vision of human dignity.
To many people these patriot leaders were beyond
comprehension and in some circles they have been assigned almost deity status,
albeit as a group they were intellectual giants, but in their lives they were
simply plain honest humble men and women, some of whom were deeply flawed
personally, but they chose to set aside their own self interests and failings
and in doing so carried forward this impossible vision of beating the greatest
superpower in the world and forming a new nation based on humanity having
Divinely granted rights; it was their highest and most sacred sacrifice setting
aside their own self interests to give us these national treasures of liberty
and freedom. For our nation to continue to see this flame of liberty burning
bright it will take that same very personal sacrifice.
We have before us a choice of liberty and servitude. Either
we can renew our minds to the divinely inspired Constitutionally protected God
given rights and act to preserve and protect our heritage of liberty and
freedom, or we can watch as the last vestiges of our heritage disappears. We
have an opportunity to rise above and reach for a standard fought for and purchased
with full measure of devotion, by working to restore the greatness of our state
and nation by relying on the Divine hand of God which is calling us to a
greater purpose than ourselves.
It is time for servant leaders to put their political and
personal motives aside and stand firm on the Biblical principles of
self-determination to restore and protect these freedoms as laid out for all of
us in our Constitution. We believe we can and will be the generation that
remembers and restores liberty and freedom for the future of our nation. We are
all here for such a time as this and each of us has been created for a unique
and special purpose in our lives. We have living inside of us the same Divine
Power and capacity for love of freedom, generosity, fortitude, and ingenuity
that our Founders had burning in them. We, as Americans all have the inherent
responsibility to do our part as stewards and guardians of this incredible
blessing called freedom.
It is our prayer that
the flame of liberty will be reignited in the hearts and minds of the people of
our state and nation, and that history will record that in this moment of time,
Americans renewed their spirit to stand for freedom. It is in this spirit that
we humbly submit these precepts for your prayerful and thoughtful
consideration.
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