The Honorable Tom Feeney

         Thank you very much.  I am really honored.  I've gotten about 4 or 5 Jefferson awards, some Madison awards, I don't have any named after Sir Winston Churchill.  But it is timely because as part of my welcome, I was going to talk about some of the principles that I think are important here in Florida and at the national level.  And I'm reminded that Winston Churchill is the only leading politician that I know of who  changed parties twice in his career in parliament, if you'll remember, because of his principles. 

         When the conservatives decided they were going to protect the mercantilists and fight against free trade, he actually switched parties, in large part because the conservatives, in his view, had violated his fundamental principles.  Then, of course, he later switched back to the conservative party, based on some of the liberal problems both domestically and in the appeasement practices abroad.  Churchill, when he was asked how it came to be that he actually switched parties twice, said well you know anybody can rat, but it takes some real ingenuity to rerat.  And Lord Churchill was a fantastic man, but it's very timely because I did want to talk a little bit about the principles that we've had success with here in Florida that we hope to take nationally with us.

        Julia told you that in 1994, the only race that I've lost in my life was with my buddy Jeb Bush.  We lost by 1 percent.  Until the 2000 election we used to think 1 percent was a close election in Florida.  We now call it a land slide, and we're happy that we didn't have the 36 days in 2004 that we did in 2000.

         I wanted to talk a little bit about what a great state Florida is and is increasingly becoming, because there have been some dramatic changes in my lifetime, and a lot of those changes, in my view, are due, not just to the luck of great weather and environment, but because of some great policies that I think we can help other states and the federal government with around the world.  I will tell you that I have basically traveled the state twice campaigning.  Once for Speaker of the House, a position I held in 2000.  And of course back in 1994.

        To show you a little bit about how diverse this state is, I am an honorary member of the Irish politicians club in the panhandle, I've got a key to the city of Jacksonville, I went to the possum festival not once but twice.  The first time I was ushered into, this is in Wassaw, way up in the panhandle, this 70-year-old gentleman took me by the hand and said, "You know Mr. Feeney, you look awful young to be running for lieutenant governor, but I bet you've never tried possum."  That's true, so I ate possum and it was terrible.  And I turned around when I was done finishing my plate of possum -- I was trying to be a good guest, you'll do anything for votes if you're a politician --  I said, "By the way, you're not eating possum, don't you eat possum?".  He said, "Oh no, I just had a cheeseburger, I hadn't had possum since the depression Feeney."  So, my second time at the Wassaw Possum Festival, I had a cheeseburger.

        And finally, I'm an honorary Conk, a member of the Conk Republic of Key West.  For those of you who have been to the Keys, you know they do things a little different there.  But I want you to know why they call themselves the Conk Republic.  As wild as they are in the Keys, they do study history.  And they couldn't get Route 1 improved by the federal government.  It's the only way they can get in or out during natural disasters, it's the only way tourists get there to spend money.  And they couldn't get the attention of their congressman and the federal government, so they looked at a little bit of history and here's what they decided to do.  They seceeded from the Union, right there from where the biggest bridge separates them from Dade County, they declared war on the continental United States, they threw stale Cuban bread as their first attack, and then they surrendered.  And then they demanded that we come in and fix their country like we did Germany and Japan and elsewhere.  So I am a proud honorary member of the Conk Republic.

      Some of the political changes that we've seen in my lifetime are really extraordinary.  When I went to Tallahassee in 1990, we had not had a Republican governor or a Republican majority house and senate in over 124 years.  To put that in perspective, it was the same year Ulysses S. Grant was president, Custer was making his last stand

and a guy named Bell was playing around with 2 tin cups and a string.  We have had some dramatic improvements, not just in Florida, but obviously around most of the south.  And I think it's been for much the better, both for the Republican Party and the south itself.

     In 1900, the turn of the last century, Florida was a small state, 33 amongst the states at that time in terms of population with a total population of 529,000.  As one of 25 Congressman in Florida today, I represent over 740,000 people.  And Florida's population now totals 17 million.  We will be surpassing, in a little noticed event so far, New York sometime in the next year or two in terms of total population.  So that will show you some of the demographics that are going on around the country.

     Florida has traditionally relied on three things for our economy in order to fund our state and allow us to pay for schools and roads etc.  They have been agriculture, and we are losing agricultural land as we speak; tourism, which is a great industry and we're glad you're all here; we hope you brought plenty of cash and credit cards.  But it's sort of a double-edged sword.  While you’re helping us to pay for services you do not use, like our schools and other services,  many of the jobs that are created tend to be relatively low wage and low benefit jobs. 

     And then finally, the construction and real estate industry, which has been cyclically boom and bust for the better part of 150 years.  Florida, traditionally during recessions, gets hit much worse than the rest of the country; during the boom years, our real estate market tends to drive us even more rapidly.  So we have dramatic swings, although we've been more steady the last 30 years than we've been over our 150-200 year economic history.

     But there are some dramatic changes occurring in Florida.  We are becoming the high tech silicon beach of tomorrow in many respects.  From the Keys all the way up to Jacksonville and Tallahassee, we are making dramatic strides in terms of growing our high tech sector.  Just 30 miles from here at the University of Central Florida, we have the National Center for Modeling Simulation and Training.  Those of you who have been to amusement parks or have children or grandchildren who play video games, you should know that  many of those games were made right here in this district.  EA sports for example; they produce the Madden NFL football games.   

     But more importantly for our country, we are the lead with all 5 branches of the military focused on their simulation and training institute right here in central Florida.  You know, for example, in the Gulf War, the majority of our casualties were from friendly fire.  Much of it was just inadvertent mistakes or lack of communication between the different branches of the military.  We now have training capabilities so that soldiers in five different states can hook up on the internet and coordinate simultaneously with an Air Force helicopter, a Navy fighter pilot, and marine infantry on the ground to train on how to locate targets for all of the above.  And they can practice in real battlefield situations 100 or 200 times all before the actual conflict occurs. 

     And they can do that while all this equipment I just mentioned is being shipped to the Gulf or where ever the conflict is.  So, it is incredible.  It is one of the reasons we have, along with our GPS capabilities in space, the force multipliers we have with our technology nowadays.  This means that one American soldier on the ground in a place like the Gulf, is not worth just 1 or 10 or 100, but 1000 or 10,000 of the enemy in traditional conflicts.  And we do a lot of that tremendous work right here in Central Florida.

     Many factors contribute to the success we've had here in Florida and the enormous prosperity we've had, but I want to talk a little bit about the policy reasons that we have been so successful in the last few years.  You know, the Heritage Institute and the Wall Street Journal every year look at about 160 plus countries around the globe and they measure them based on economic freedom indicators.  I encourage you to get a copy of that book, because where policies in national government tend towards economic freedom, you also have prosperity and a high standard of living.  The one follows the other.  And that's true with states too.  Professor Gwartney at the James Madison Institute has done a study in terms of the relative growth of states, both in terms of economics and policy.  And it turns out, where you have a low tax environment and a free market, that you are going to have more rapid growth, more prosperity, and a better quality of life.  That's true from community to community, from state to state, and from nation to nation.  And here in Florida, we've basically enacted many of the principles of economic freedom over the last 15 years.  I think it's made a big difference.

     When I was elected to the legislature in 1990 as a back bencher, it took me 4 years of hard work annoying the Democratic leadership just to get ignored by them.  And as I mentioned, the Republicans in the mid 90's actually captured the leadership in both the senate and the house not to mention the Governor's mansion.  We now control every single elected cabinet position in Florida and with the exception of Senator Bill Nelson, we control every state wide elected office.  It has been a  miraculous turn around from a small minority party just 20 years ago.

     Jeb Bush, I have to tell you, is an extraordinary governor.  He's a man of deep thought and incredible principle.  In some ways he is very Reaganesque in terms of his conservative principles.  He has been a great leader for us, and he's a great friend of mine and someone I admire a great deal.  He individually has changed the heart of the Republican Party in many places in Florida, and he's changed our state.  He's a tremendous leader.

     I will tell you that one of the things I've learned in terms of being in the minority and now after two years in Congress, there are two key lessons I would share with you.  Number 1, it's better to be in the majority rather than the minority; I can assure you of that.  But secondly, with being the majority comes some obligations that are not easy to fulfill.  And so I have found that it is much easier to be in the majority if you will govern consistently on a set of principles.  You don't want to have to get up every day, look yourself in the mirror, and think, well which side of the battle am I going to be on today?

     What I did, with the help of the first Republican speaker in over 120 years, a fellow by the name of Dan Webster, was to establish five principles at the state level that we told every lobbyist, every interest group, every member of the House of Representatives, and the Governor, that we were going to support legislation, support bills, and support amendments to bills if they were consistent with these principles.  I wasn't going to decide how to fund projects, for example, based on who my friends were. 

     When I was Speaker of the House, if you were a powerful committee chairman, you didn't necessarily have any advantage over a freshman Democratic member.  And, as a matter of fact, in both my years as Speaker, we passed a liberal Democrat's bill first because she had advocated for some proposals and put together a 10 page booklet on why her specific proposal was consistent with the specific principles we adopted.  We ultimately put those principles on a little wallet-sized card.  We're going to pass those out.  For those of you who would like several you're welcome to take them.  These principle cards have now been adopted by the Speakers of the House in both Minnesota and Oklahoma, by the Senate President in Colorado. 

     In Congress, we now have a 100 plus member Republican Study Committee, which is sort of the social and free market conservatives, that has adopted these principles.  And I'll read them to you very quickly.  Less government, lower taxes, personal responsibility, individual freedom, stronger families, domestic tranquility, and national defense.

     I believe that you ought to encourage legislators in your home state, and your congressmen, to establish a set of principles.  They don't have to be exactly the ones I’ve outlined.  But to have legislators judge every proposal based on some principles  that made this country great makes life a lot easier.

     One of the problems we have in government, and this is especially true when one party controls both the senate, the house, or the presidency, is that nobody wants to say “No” to fellow legislators.   It's awfully hard to have some spending discipline when it's your friend's pet projects back in their district.   Did you know that right before the  Democrats lost control of  the house in 1994, they added 4,500 special projects to the budget?  However, the Republican majority added 14,500 projects.   Things are really out of hand.  And one of the reasons is because it's almost impossible to say “no” to your friends and you tend to engage in a bidding war.  It makes life very difficult.

     I will also tell you that there are times that you are not only required to say no to your friends if you're going to adhere to these principles but sometimes you have to say no to personal heroes of yours if you think they are mistaken.  Last year, the Republican-led Congress, under the prompting of President Bush, passed the largest increase in entitlements since Lyndon Johnson was President.  I admire President Bush and I think he’s a hero because I think in many cases he has been responsible for saving America both from foreign enemies and domestic threats.  I think, next to Ronald Regan, he's clearly been the best president in over 100 years. 

     When the president calls you from Air Force 1 and specifically tells you he needs your help, and he needs your vote, and it's critical, unless you have a strong solid set of principles, and a history of adhering to them, it's almost impossible to resist.  The fact of the matter is, I think most Republicans who ended up supporting that bill wish they had that vote back.  And I felt that it was not only bad policy, but in the long run for Republicans, in my view, it was bad politics because we have now built this Christmas tree which will grow and grow.

     This program is already being attacked by liberals for not covering additional things.  We've now taken Medicare to a 20 trillion dollar unfunded liability.  I never thought I'd see the day when I would call Social Security a relatively financially sound program.  But compared to Medicare, it actually is.  And, unfortunately, when we added about 8 trillion dollars of unfunded liability, the Democrats will be able to say in every election cycle from here on out that we need to fill that doughnut, we need to cover more of the deductible, we need to add more things like Viagra, and goodness knows what else to cover. 

     And if the voters are insisting on this, it's going to be awfully hard to say no.  So I think we’ve started down a bad policy path that I think is going to lead us to some very difficult political dilemmas in the future.  Instead, we should have reformed Medicare using free market principles so that people are responsible for their own ultimate opportunities.  So I think this legislation was a huge mistake.

     And the only reason that I was able to tell somebody who I admire, somebody that is a friend, somebody who I think is a living hero, is because my principles were more important than our friendship. 

     It was in light of these principles that in Florida we did some things that I'm especially proud of.  And again, Jeb Bush was a critical lead in this.  We have one of the most effective emergency management responses anywhere on the planet.  We dealt with 4 hurricanes this summer with a minimal number of casualties.  We dramatically reduced the fiscal damage that was done by those hurricanes because of some great planning on a natural disaster that the government has to help people with.

     We've privatized dozens of services.  Jeb has what he calls the phone book test.  If there are more than 2 or 3 companies that are advertising in the phonebook in the private sector, we have to ask ourselves whether government ought to be involved in it at all.  That's a pretty simple test to follow, and we've been pretty successful with privatizing.  We have the most comprehensive school choice system in the country.

     When I started in 1990 talking about school choice, people thought I was engaged in the pro-life debate in the Education Committee.  Nobody knew what school choice was in 1990.  Although, in the year I was born, Milton Freeman was advising all of us that unless we fundamentally change the monopoly that government had on our K-12 education system, two things would happen because they always happen with government monopolies.  Costs would soar and test results would decline dramatically.  Milton Freeman warned us all back in 1958 about this.   So, we have the most comprehensive system of school choice involving both public and private, religious, although it's always being tested in the courts, of anywhere in the country.

     We did dramatic tort reform which is also caught up in the judicial system today.  But I will tell you, in my view, there is a huge tort tax that is extracted from individuals and businesses and this is a foolish way to have a productive and prosperous society.

     We did civil service reform.  This may shock you, but in Florida today, if you're a bureaucrat that does a lousy job or no job at all, you can be disciplined or fired.  Can you imagine that?  It was not like that for the last 50 years in civil service in Florida.

We did something that will be very important as part of the national social security debate.  We have over 600,000 state employees or retirees depending on the state retirement system.  Three years ago, after inviting in the unions that represented the teachers, the police, the fire fighters, and other state employees, after talking to the retirees, after doing focus groups, do you know that we were able to convince, with a minimum of opposition, these employees to go to a voluntary defined contribution system that looks very much like a 401k or an IRA as opposed to the traditional defined benefit plan? 

     This is a model for Social Security reform.  And I will tell you, you'll hear actuarial arguments why it is so critical that we go to a system where we are basically providing for our own retirement needs from the time we start work at age 18 or 20 or 22 as opposed to relying on a system we know will go bankrupt.  Roughly in the year 2042, it will be out of money and will be a huge burden on our treasury.

     But aside from the actuarial reasons, I want you to think about this as a free people: 50 years from today -- and this is the way statesman should think and not about the election cycle -- seniors will be asking themselves 1 of 2 questions as they hit their retirement years and as they go to the voting booth.  They will either ask which politician can I count on to either give me more money and benefits from the federal treasury, or they will ask which politician can I count on to keep his grubby hands off the nest egg that I have put aside the last 40 or 45 years of my lifetime.  If we can have seniors asking the later question as opposed to the former, we will be a much freer society as a consequence, and that's the ultimate test of social security reform.

     Finally, I'm so proud to be here with CNP; they do great work.  I was really heartened by the inaugural speech the other day for two major reasons.  Number 1, it was freezing outside in Washington, and the president kept his speech to 21 minutes.  You'll remember, I think, it was William Harrison who spoke in a freezing rain in, I think, 1845,

for two-and a-half hours and he died 30 days later of pneumonia.  I think the president spared a lot of us.  But what he said in that 20 minutes I thought was terrific.  He used the words liberty or freedom in excess of 50 times.  And he talked about democracy only twice.

     I think that's important.  I'm a small “d” democrat, but more importantly, I'm a big “L”

Liberty, Libertarian, a big “F” Freedom guy.  And there's a big distinction between the two.   We often hear our politicians confuse the terms liberty and democracy as though they are interchangeable, but they are not at all.  You know, Hitler was brought to power in part based on democratic institutions.  Slavery in the south and other nefarious institutions were popular with the majority in most communities in the south up until the 1950's.  The United Nations is a democracy of sorts.  Because every sub-Saharan dictator and every Middle Eastern dictator has say in the United Nations and the UN is a democratic institution in the sense that they legitimize a bunch of horrible dictators who

enslave their own people.  But they vote at the UN so in a sense they're democratic.  Democracy can be described, at its worst, as what happens when two wolves and a sheep sit down and decide what's going to be for dinner. 

     Milton Freeman likes to suggest that the difference between freedom and democracy, and maybe this is probably the key way to think about it, democracy is what happens if every man in this room gets together and we decide that from here to eternity that we're going to wear a gray suit and a black tie and a white shirt from here on in and then everybody has to follow suit.  Freedom is what happens when we all get to choose our own suits and ties.   But this is a huge distinction, so we need a president that will talk more about freedom and sometimes less about democracy.    

     Edmond Burk, one of my philosophical heroes, certainly never believed, if you read his writings, that all people at all times are ready and  prepared for self government.  Edmond Burk believed that it took a mature civilization that had to be prepared and ready culturally in terms of their society and that they had to understand the importance of liberty and freedom.  And I think Burk was exactly right.

     I am more hopeful than I am optimistic that some Thomas Jeffersons will emerge in Iraq but none the less, I think it's worth the effort, and I'm glad we're having a vote this weekend.  But I hope that ultimately Iraq will base their system on whether every man and every woman in Iraq is able to pursue economic freedom and enjoy religious freedom, and I think that we have to constantly remember that.

     We need to remember that Hong Kong is the second most prosperous country on the face of the planet.  They are one big rock.  They have no natural resources worth anything.  They have to import 99 percent of their own food supply.  They have never had a democracy in the sense that we think of it.  They've been a British colony.  But what they had was the rule of law, free trade, low tax rates and they had all sorts of protections of property, both real property and intellectual property.  And if we will use the Hong Kong model around the world to judge who we think is a successful society, I think we would be doing an even better job in spreading what we call the American empire. 

     Whether we like it or not, what scholars are saying is that we are an empire.  We're not mature enough as a citizenry to acknowledge that because a lot of us come from the day when we were anti imperialists.  The fact is, like it or not, we're the sole super power on the globe, and it's not a hard empire, it's what's called a soft empire.  It's the McDonalds that has some 150,000 franchises around the country; it's Hollywood for better or for worse.  It's the American culture; it's our corporations and institutions.  The fact of the matter is, like it or not, Americans have the responsibility in world leadership, not to be the military policeman, but to be the moral leader in terms of what freedom can be like and what freedom can look like.