Free Give Us Liberty by Dick Armey Page A

unequivocally NO.
    As an elected official who took the oath of office swearing to defend and uphold the Constitution, should you today feel a greater allegiance to a president, or a political party? I believe that answer is, emphatically, NO.
    This is a big vote, one likely to be studied and second-guessed for decades to come. With an understanding of the intense political pressures each of you face in this tough election year, I ask you to oppose this bailout. . . .
    As a public choice professor, I used to begin class each semester 28 with Armey’s Axiom number one: “The market is rational and the government is dumb.” Those quick to call for more regulation forget the power of markets and refuse to acknowledge government culpability in the current mess. Time and again, governments the world over have attempted to outsmart the market and the current legislation is no exception. And time after time, markets respond, toppling the best-laid government plans as they move to correctly price the underlying assets in exchange.
    This letter was being passed around the House floor several hours before the vote by members of the Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus of about a hundred Republicans then chaired by Jeb Hensarling.
    T HE F AT L ADY S INGS
    O N SEPTEMBER 29, WE gathered at FreedomWorks’ headquarters to watch the final deliberations on the House floor. The staff crowded into an office, watching C-SPAN on a small television. With the sound off, we followed the ticker of yeas and nays on the screen. We were tired and resigned. The fight was over and we considered the vote a formality, a fait accompli.
    But the vote tracker began to tell an important and surprisingly different story. We started to yell and clap and cheer for the nays as opposition to the bill grew. It kept growing. Turning up the sound and seeing the final tally, we were as surprised as anyone that the House bill failed.
    Against all of our expectations, at 2:07 P.M. , the first legislation was defeated 228–205, with 133 Republicans voting against their president. FreedomWorks had been doing everything we could to stir up opposition to the bailout bill, but our splash of cold water had been consumed by a grassroots tsunami that crested over the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
    In retrospect, September 29 is clearly the day the Tea Party movement was reborn in America. You can almost hear Samuel Adams calling us into action: “If ye love wealth better than liberty 29 , the tranquility of servitude, than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”
    There was a massive wave of spontaneous grassroots outrage that rose up against the government’s proposed actions, temporarily taking back the people’s house from the political elite. While FreedomWorks, our tiny coalition of like-minded organizations, and a handful of true blue legislators toiled away, surrounded on all sides by the Beltway establishment, the citizens of America—for a few days at least—took their country back. The New York Times reported: “Americans’ anger is in full bloom 30 , jumping off the screen in capital letters and exclamation points, in the e-mail in-boxes of elected representatives in the nation’s capital.” We were told by our allies who work in Congress that constituent communications were 100 to 1 against the Paulson Plan. It was a shining, if all too brief, moment where grassroots America and the cause of liberty beat the Beltway establishment. While the bill would ultimately pass, it had stirred the passion of the grassroots freedom movement.
    A few days after that glorious House vote, in what we now know was a harbinger for things to come during the health care debate, the Senate quickly porked up the bill to