I was asked to give a speech at a TEA Party on July 4, 2009 in Venice, Florida. I thought long and hard about what to say. I then realized that, after reading Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense" that we today are addicted to our government's generosity much like our founding fathers were to King George III and Great Britain.

On July 3, 1776 the people of the colonies were dependent on Great Britain for their health, safety and well being. Our Fore Fathers recognized this dependence and on July 4, 1776 declared their independence from the government they had long known. Today we Americans have become just as dependent on our own government. I decided to admit my addiction to government generosity and break myself of my habit. I ask you to listen to or read my speech and break your addiction to government generosity and declare your independence.

Please take the time listen to my presentation which is 19 minutes long or read the text of my speech titled, "Dependence Day - 2009":

Dependence Day – 2009

I come before you today to confess my dependence. My dependence is greater than from any narcotic, prescription drug or alcoholic beverage. My dependence is deeper and more troubling because it has taken away our collective virtue, destroyed families, and encumbered everything our children will own.

Hi, I am Rich Swier and I am here to confess my Dependence this 4^th Day of July – Dependence Day 2009.

Our founding father Thomas Paine told me about the evils of my dependence and asked me to use Common Sense to overcome it. He told me that “society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.”

He said, “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one…”

I come here today to confess to you that I am addicted to government generosity.

I am dependent on it for my health, welfare, and well being. My dependence has made me a slave in every sense of the word for as President Gerald Ford wrote, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

I have given up everything I have to keep getting that which I crave most – more government generosity; for you see I can no longer control myself.

We the people began to learn about government generosity 104 years ago. It began in 1905 when America was first exposed to an idea called progressivism. This idea was imported from Europe, the continent our fore fathers escaped from to find freedom and liberty. The idea of progressivism is that government generosity is good if not absolutely necessary for the body and soul.

At first the idea of government generosity did not seem so bad, after all many of my great grandfather’s friends and comrades in public life, at his school, his college and job were exposed to it. The idea of taking government generosity seemed harmless enough; he saw no negative effects then.

It made many in America feel good because we were helping those “in need” who had not partaken of government generosity as yet. Progressives began to sell it to others until finally Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson became addicted and subsequently began pushing government generosity.

On February 3, 1913 Congress passed and the states ratified the Sixteenth Amendment to our Constitution, which allowed government to fund our addiction with everyone’s money. Congress called this new method of payment the federal income tax. As an aside the original idea was only supposed to tax the top 1% of wage earners. That turned out well didn’t it. With the millions, then billions, and now trillions of dollars that Congress collected, they could entice or even force the strongest American to take the government generosity drug.

In 1913 Congress also created the Federal Reserve, patterned after the Bank of England, and gave the Fed control of our government credit system despite objections of "alarming foreign influence and fictitious credit," favoritism to foreigners and unfair competition against less corrupt state banks.

Then on April 8, 1913 Congress passed and the states ratified the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution which transferred U.S. Senator Selection from each state's legislature to popular election by the people of each state.

These two events made it much easier to collect and distribute government generosity as now banks were part of the government distribution system and Senators were no longer loyal to their state or concerned with state sovereignty. Now U.S. Senators, along with U.S. Representatives, saw the value of spreading the government generosity drug amongst the people in return for votes.

During the Great Depression Congress created a new drug named Social Security. It was to be a social insurance program run by government, in other words guaranteed government generosity for life. What could possibly be wrong with that?

The Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935 by President Franklin Roosevelt. He and Congress said this new drug would keep those unemployed, retirees and the poor financially secure. He called it the New Deal. All we needed to do was just pay in and all would be well.

With the passage of the Social Security Act we rapidly gained more addicts and many of you here today are dependent in whole or in part on Social Security. Congress in effect created an entirely new social insurance and social welfare program to disperse their drug – government generosity, also known as the third rail in politics.

I know Congress told you that the money was going into an insurance policy so it would always be there for you and that your family would receive a cash payment upon your death. But in reality Congress changed the rules and took the money and spent it. Today your children and grand children are paying for your drug addiction, not you. So your drug is free, except your children are becoming less and less free as they pay more and more for your addiction.

Then Congress added a new ingredient to the powerful Social Security drug called Medicare on July 30, 1965.

Congress created Medicare as a single-payer health care system. It sounded so innocent – single payer, no one cared enough to ask what that meant. Medicare was for those over 65 years old and was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. President Johnson called it part of his Great Society program.  Congress immediately got more addicts to begin taking this drug.

At the same time Congress added a second even more powerful ingredient to this drug called Medicaid. This new ingredient brought into being an entirely new distribution system – all of the states of the union. Even though this new program violated state sovereignty it was passed anyway, in no small part because Senators were no longer accountable to the State Legislatures but rather addicted to pushing government generosity.

The states were now helping pay for and distribute this powerful and expensive designer drug. The drug was offered to low-income parents, children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Congress now has more people on the Social Security drug than ever before. Progressives in Congress had turned a corner – addiction to government generosity was now imbedded in our society.

But Congress was not finished for it kept looking for more clients until we now know that the unfunded liabilities for these four drugs (Social Security, Medicare Part A, Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D) will cost our children $99.2 trillion dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, the gross domestic product of the entire world in 2007 was $69 trillion.

Had enough yet?

How about 1977 when Congress created the Community Reinvestment Act designed to address discrimination in loans made to individuals and businesses from low and moderate-income neighborhoods. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it, except this act was just a new strain of the government generosity drug much like injecting pure heroin into the veins of our society. This drug was given to those who wanted the American dream of home ownership, even though they could not afford to pay for the drug. An entirely new group of potential debtor addicts was created – low to middle class Americans and real estate speculators. A whole new distribution system of government generosity was co-opted – America’s home town banks.

So who did the Congress put in charge of making sure this new form of deadly concoction was properly distributed, none other than the Federal Reserve, created by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. The CRA was in large part responsible for our financial meltdown.

At the beginning of my remarks I said that my dependence has encumbered everything my children will ever own. The government has committed the typical family of four to $1.3 million in debt to pay for our addiction. A typical high school graduate can make as much as $1.53 million over his or her life span. I hope you now understand how our addiction has forever indebted our children.

Are you starting to see a pattern? Can you recognize who the pusher is? More importantly are you starting to realize that you too are addicted?

I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation that my dependence has destroyed families and taken away our collective virtue.

How can government generosity designed to help people, destroy a family? Let me briefly explain.

Congress expanded our addiction to government generosity by creating social welfare programs beginning with the New Deal, which have directly led to broken families. In 1935 under the Social Security program the Congress included the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Act (AFDC).

During the late 1950s many states realized that this act, while created to help widows with children, was being used to subsidize women having children with men they were not married to. Louisiana alone took 23,000 women off the AFDC act rolls based upon their immoral behavior.

In 1960 Arthur Flemming, then head of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Dwight David Eisenhower and a key architect of Social Security, issued an administrative ruling that states could not deny eligibility for income assistance through the AFDC act on the grounds that a home was “unsuitable” because the woman’s children were illegitimate.

In 1968, the United States Supreme Court’s “Man-in-the-House” rule struck down the practice of states declaring a home unsuitable (i.e., an immoral environment) if there was a man in the house not married to the mother. Thus, out-of-wedlock births and cohabitation were legitimized. In very short order, the number of women on welfare tripled and child poverty climbed dramatically. The assault on the family was on and Congress and the Supreme Court were co-pushers of this new government generosity drug called AFDC.  

In effect the federal government became the pimp, the homes of single mothers became the brothels and the fathers became the Johns. The children begotten by these women became the next generation of addicts. Just as surely as a baby born to a mother doing crack is addicted to cocaine, so too are these children born with a life time addiction to the onerous and destructive drug – government generosity.

Since 1968 government generosity expanded to include public housing, expanded social welfare programs and added new Medicare benefits like the prescription drug program enacted by Congress in 2005 and signed into law by President George W. Bush.  Each has destroyed the role of the father as the sole provider for his family and replaced him with – government generosity.

Finally, a brief note on how virtue has been sacrificed in the name of government generosity.

On June 17, 1963 the case of Abington Township School District v. Schempp, was settled by the United States Supreme Court. In this case, the Supreme Court decided 8-1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp, and declared school sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the United States to be unconstitutional.

This single government act more than any other shifted power from God as our savior to Government as our master. Beginning with this Supreme Court decision we have not only taken religion out of our public schools we have taken it out of the public square and with it virtue, for you see virtue is moral excellence.

Karl Marx wrote, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” I disagree. I believe government generosity is the opiate of the people. Without virtue we as a people cannot govern ourselves responsibly, let alone others.

Many Americans today are asking what we can do to break this cycle of addiction. The first thing we must do is admit we are addicted. Once that is done we must take the cure, no matter how painful it may be.

We must tell our supplier, the United States Congress, that we no longer want their government generosity. We must together begin the long process of detoxification. We must all join together to rid ourselves of this addiction or we will surely fall off the wagon separately.

Let us all today take the first step in breaking our addiction by declaring our independence. Let us all take an oath as did those fifty six men in 1776 who signed the Declaration of Independence with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence. Let us today mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor as they did two hundred and thirty three years ago.

This is the same oath every member of our military takes. Many of you have never taken this oath unless you have served in our military.  It embodies what it means to be a citizen of the United States.

I ask you now to please stand and raise your right hand and repeat after me:

"I hereby declare, on oath, /that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America/ against all enemies, foreign and domestic;/ that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;/ and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation/ or purpose of evasion;/ so help me God."

You are all now on your way to independence. As Thomas Paine said in Common Sense, "The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." For the cause of America is the cause of all mankind.

Thank you for your patience and May God bless you and the United States of America.