The speed and seriousness with which Donald Trump is shaking up Washington has everyone's head spinning.
If the president called me and asked my advice how he should explain to the American people what he is doing, I would say he should tell every American to read our Declaration of Independence.
Donald Trump is working to restore the principles and foundations that the nation's founders clearly laid out there that define the American republic. The serious problems we are confronting today stem from our departure from those principles, that the nation's founders signed, with "a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence" pledging "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
"....all men are created equal...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles."
These are the words that liberated the American people from tyranny and established a new country and a new chapter in history, in which individuals could be free to take full responsibility for their own life, as given to them by God.
Men set up government "to secure these rights." Government is there to protect God-given life, not to become God.
As the Democratic Party soul-searches to understand why it has lost the trust of the American people, this is all they have to read. This is where the Democrats' take on America has gotten lost -- government is not God.
Joe Biden turned over to Donald Trump a country in which the federal government now consumes almost 25% of our GDP, the output of our national economy.
New treasury secretary Scott Bessent has been making media rounds explaining that we need to get the federal government's consumption of GDP back to 18%, where it stood for most of the half-century after World War II.
During those years when government was taking 7 percentage points less, our growth was averaging 3.5% per year. Now, the Congressional Budget Office projects 1.8% for 2026 and 2027, half that.
We will restore growth by cutting government and returning the country to its citizens.
Visit the Congressional Budget Office website and you will see a clear infographic summarizing the 2024 federal budget.
Total Outlays: $6.8 trillion. Total Revenues: $4.9 trillion. Deficit: $1.8 trillion.
Net interest on our debt (cost of what we must borrow to finance our deficit): $881 billion. Interest costs now are $31 billion more than our $850 billion defense budget.
The single largest government program? Social Security: $1.5 trillion.
It's a sign how far Americans have gone to turn their God-given lives over to government that so many are still happy to have government take 12.4% of their paycheck to finance a system whose own trustees say will not be able to meet its obligations beginning 2033.
Black Americans, who were forcibly left out in 1776, today are agreeing to be left out. According to the Federal Reserve Board Survey of Consumer Finances, in 2022, the average value of retirement accounts held by Black Americans was 39% that of White Americans. This would not be the case if they could take ownership of that 12.4% of their paycheck and invest it over a lifetime rather than government controlling it.
The press reports that many politicians cringed when Elon Musk called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."
But we have the problems we have because too many who pretend to be leaders are afraid of the truth.
Let's fix America's biggest and most broken government program by returning control to American citizens of their own earnings.
Star Parker is founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Her recent book, "What Is the CURE for America?" is available now.
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