Jim DeMint called the GIVE Act “a huge, well-intentioned mistake” on the floor of the Senate yesterday. In a speech lasting almost 15 minutes, the conservative firebrand spoke judiciously about the motives of the bill’s backers, but points out that charity and volunteerism belong in the heart, and not as a federal program subsidized by massive infusions of taxpayer money. After all, the revenue GIVE uses won’t exactly be voluntarily given:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TPi0gR-P8w]
I’ve included the full text of DeMint’s speech below, for those who’d rather read it than watch the video. I think the best part comes near the end, when DeMint offers this observation:
These are not Government decisions. We need to focus on what we were set up to do and do it much better than we are doing, instead of every week coming in here, bringing our good intentions and our compassion and every problem we see across the country we say something needs to be done. Then we say: The Government needs to do it.
That is the fatal flaw of the Congress today, is we forget that sacred oath of office that says: We will protect and defend the Constitution which says this Federal Government has a very limited function. And those functions that are not prescribed in the Constitution are left to individuals and to the States.
Source – Hot Air
