Republican leader greets Latinos on Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo! There’s nothing more unifying for Mexico and the USA than a holiday that commemorates the defeat of France. That’s what I call cross-border relations.
Ronald Reagan got it right when he said, god must have placed this land here between the oceans to be found by a certain kind of people: “that whatever corner of the world they came from, they had the courage—and the desire for freedom that went with it—to uproot themselves and come to this strange land.”

Like so many immigrants, Hispanic-Americans and Latinos have endured danger and hardship and sacrifice, many risking it all for a chance at the American dream. All of us are here today because we want to help unleash that dream. The first step, of course, to living the American dream is to be an American. That requires an immigration process that is rational and user-friendly.

During the campaign, president Obama promised the Hispanic-American community that he would work in a bipartisan way to reform immigration in 2009. Another broken campaign pledge. Now, in a sign of desperation, he and his congressional accomplices are pushing a partisan immigration bill to cover up for his unpopular, economy-killing agenda – an agenda that has only hurt the Hispanic-American community. Far worse than doing nothing, this process – which he knows cannot succeed right now – actually poisons the well for those of us who really want to work toward a compassionate and unifying solution.

At this point, Americans are fed up. They just don’t trust Washington to address their priorities on this issue – their safety and their job security. They want leadership to address the basics – securing our borders, treating people with human dignity and preserving our economy – with more than broken promises or unenforced laws on paper. They desire nothing more than for America to be a welcoming place once again; inviting good-faith newcomers to help themselves to a little apple pie, hum a few bars of the star spangled banner, and to go to work building America, one dream at a time.

That’s what most of us want to do — to chase that American dream. And the dream is basically this: to work hard, to save smart, to enjoy the benefits of ownership, and to pass on a legacy of lasting wealth to your children. You see, for Americans, success and prosperity are not our enemies, because we all expect to succeed and prosper. That’s the grand audacity of America! This is the one place where the government is supposed to get out of the way of your dreams. That’s what freedom is. That’s why our economy succeeds and that’s what it’ll take for our economy to recover – freedom.

So how do we get there?

To advance the cause of freedom is to pursue policies based on faith in people, not in government – policies that empower and encourage big dreams and bold moves. That means we have to reject whatever chokes off the entrepreneurial spirit, bails out large enterprises that can’t succeed on their own merits, or insulates people from the consequences of their free choices. Republicans don’t reject these things because we’re the party of “no.” We do it because we know that every dollar spent growing government is a dollar not spent by an entrepreneur, growing a legacy for future generations. We are the party of “yes” to individual dignity, freedom and opportunity.

That’s why it’s such a straw-man argument to say that promoting economic liberty is merely siding with the fat cats or corporate titans who have already succeeded. It’s exactly the opposite – those guys can weather a recession or two. Pro-growth policies are really about making sure that we do right by those who won’t weather such economic storms, or who are just starting to chase or are still chasing the American dream.

But freedom can only truly flourish when opportunities are abundant. Since president Obama signed his trillion-dollar-plus, so-called “stimulus” bill in February 2009, unemployment among Hispanic-Americans has risen from 11 percent to 12.6 Percent. Helping companies get in a place where they can start hiring again has to be our number one short-term priority, period. As we do that, we also have to look ahead to the future toward the creation of lasting wealth. We can’t saddle our grandchildren with crushing debt and a bankrupt welfare state. We need a long-term economic policy that sees beyond bills currently due. The American dream isn’t just getting to a place where you can pay the rent on a nice apartment, make the car payment, and have some free time to watch the kids play soccer on weekends. That may be the dream of others, but here in the land where hope meets opportunity, the American dream is like the Grand Canyon and the Mississippi Delta – it’s big.

And you don’t have to be a Rockefeller, Vanderbilt or ford for that dream to be realized by future generations. There’s Sergey Brin, immigrant from Russia, who co-founded Google, and Kevork Hovnanian, immigrant from Iraq, founder of one of the largest home building companies in the U.S. There’s Hector Ruiz, Maria Elena Lagomasino, Carlos Gutierrez, Ralph Alvarez, who all became CEOs of famous companies.

And there are millions of immigrants who are looking to follow their footsteps to achieve legacy wealth. In Los Angeles county, for example, first-generation immigrants accounted for 22 of the 100 fastest-growing companies.

What makes this dream so special is it’s there for for me, the son of a sharecropper’s daughter who worked as a laundress her whole life, or you, the daughter of a skilled laborer. We may share cultural and religious traditions with some Americans, but we share the American dream with all Americans.

Now, the dream doesn’t happen on auto-pilot. It requires policy makers with economic competence, exercising fiscal stewardship that secures freedoms, protects private property, creates opportunities, encourages growth, and promotes risk-taking. But risk-taking is impossible when all the levers on the economic switchboard are being pushed in the wrong direction. And therein lies the danger of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime – they just don’t understand the cause and effect relationship between the recession, their policies and your dream.

They’re raising taxes on everything and everyone while forcing massive health care mandates and penalties on employers and individuals. They’re taking over industry after industry, as if the people who have run the postal service and Fannie Mae into bankruptcy should now be trusted with car companies, banks and hospitals.

And while you scratch your head and ponder your children’s future, the white house is crunching numbers to prepare the way for a vat tax. They’ve got a job-killing, economy-choking cap-and-tax scheme waiting in the legislative wings to launch at the right moment as well. And then there’s the spending! What was an unacceptable annual deficit under the last administration has been transformed overnight into monthly deficits under the spending frenzy of the current one.

The economic bumblers in congress and the white house have pronounced that america’s job creators are enemies of the state.
Over the next decade, the president will burden Hispanic-American small business owners with job-killing taxes, including $1.4 Trillion in new income taxes, $570 billion in tax hikes from his government takeover of healthcare, and $846 billion in energy taxes if the senate passes his “cap-and-trade” scheme.

Democrats have embarked on a purge of profit, a siege on success, a crusade against capitalism. They missed the memo about the policies, and more importantly, the values that make America work.

Hispanic Americans and Latinos share a tradition steeped in the values and wisdom of the ages, focused on faith and family;
In other words, conservative values are part of the rich tradition of your community as they are of mine, and as they were for our founders.

A deeply religious tradition means that many Hispanic and Latino-American parents would prefer to send their children to parochial schools that work, rather than the failing public schools in their neighborhoods. The republican party stands with these parents in demanding quality educational opportunities for their children. We also stand with the entrepreneurial class that’s been such a vibrant part of this community.

The purveyors of big government would choke small business owners’ ability to grow jobs and wealth, with union mandates, health insurance penalties, crushing tax rates, and suffocating bureaucratic red tape. Instead, we think the key to your success is for the government to get out of your way and out of your cash register, and for your elected leaders to listen to your call for them to help you usher business-friendly, pro-growth principles in to your community.

Your healthcare should reflect your values too. The freedom to choose a doctor who speaks your first language or attends your church belongs to you.

The freedom to choose a faith-based hospital that respects life and the rights of parents; or a clinic that has extended hours, childcare, or other services designed to help out workers belongs to you. This freedom is what we stand for, rather than mandates handed down by bureaucrats in Washington.

With all this common ground, there are more reasons than ever for Hispanic-Americans and Latinos to vote republican. Hispanic Americans and Latinos should be valued as more than faceless members of some identity group. Republicans refuse to imitate the paternalistic, utilitarian approach of democrat party bosses.

I want to propose to you instead what i’ll call a covenant between our party and the Conservative Hispanic American and Latino communities. A covenant is more than a promise. It’s our word of honor that our tent will always be a “safe haven” for the views of Hispanic-Americans and Latinos on the issues that matter most to them.

Still, inclusion is about more than votes – it also means ownership and leadership. That’s why we’ve worked hard to ensure that over 50 talented Hispanic-American or Latino candidates are on ballots across the country. Recruiting and equipping Hispanic American and Latino candidates for victory as republicans isn’t just the right thing to do, or the politically smart thing to do. It’s the only thing to do.

Unlike so many other countries, America wasn’t founded along tribal, ethnic or geographical lines. Instead, we were born of ideas – heroic ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity. Our founders rightly insisted that our unalienable rights are a unifying gift from our creator. Our indivisibility as sons and daughters of god gives us infinite worth, infinite dignity and is, therefore, the essence of our equality and the basis for how we treat one another. In this light, our unity is not based on our skin color, or our native language, or where our parents came from. Our oneness as a nation under god – our indivisibility — is rooted instead in the Conservative values of our founding, the same values that still secure the most freedom and prosperity for the most people.

Allow me to close with a quote by James Madison which is particularly relevant today: “It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours. But why is this desirable? Not merely to swell the catalogue of people. No, sir, it is to increase the wealth and strength of the community.”

Indeed. May god bless each of you as you pursue the American dream. Su sueño es nuestro sueño para usted: libertad. Mayo dios bendice ese sueño como nueva fruta para America