Rick Perry: ‘We Need to Reassert Our Moral Authority at Home and Overseas’

“I’ve been movin’ across the country a lot now lately,” former Texas Governor and potential 2016 Presidential hopeful Rick Perry said on Saturday. He was speaking to attendees of the Unite IE Conference during a trip visiting multiple southern California locations.

“We need to make credit more available, not less so to those small businesses,” Perry began. “Instead of expanding the welfare state, we oughta be building the freedom state in this country.”

“I know for a fact that it can be done, cause we did it in my home state. And our formula was pretty simple: you control taxes and spending, you provide smart and predictable regulations, you develop an educated workforce, and you stop lawsuit abuse at the courthouse,” Perry listed.

The former Texas Governor recounted some of the 14 years he was in office, saying, “We helped build the best economy in this country. We have created nearly one third of the private sector new jobs during that entire period of time. As a matter of fact, in the last seven years, we created 1.4 million jobs. As a matter of fact, if you back those jobs out, minus those jobs created in my home state, this country lost a quarter of a million jobs.”

“The media pundits have called what happened in my home state, the Texas miracle.” He refuted that branding, saying, “I don’t call it that. Miracles cannot be explained or replicated. Economic recovery can.”

Perry transitioned to touch on energy policy. “America is now the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. We are larger than Russia. We are larger than Saudi Arabia. They haven’t even begun to tap that potential yet.”

“Now is the time for leadership,” he said, “We need to reduce our reliance on these hostile foreign energy sources.”

“For too long, this administration has led from behind,” Perry added. “In response to the great evil we face today, we need to summon up that spirit of old that led us to vanquish the communists and the fascists of the last century. Words didn’t stop Putin, red lines didn’t deter Assad, and I will suggest to you that diplomats will not contain Iran.”

“We need to rebuild our military. We need to reassert our moral authority at home and overseas. Now is the time for moral clarity, not moral confusion.”

Reviving a stronger Perry than we saw in 2014, he spoke to the issue of ISIS and foreign policy. Listing recent incidents of ISIS’s brutal murders, Perry asserted that these events “reminded us what the face of evil really looks like and the great moral imperative that we have to extinguish [it].”

“If you expect to live among us and yet plan against us, to receive the protections and the comforts of a free society while showing none of the virtues or its graces, then you can have your answer — No, never, not on our watch.”

“We need to fight the evil also that seeks to exploit our porous border. When 70,000 unaccompanied minors showed up on the Texas border last summer, my greatest concern was the ability of those drug cartels, those transnational gangs to exploit that human crisis.”

Perry faced criticism over the summer and a call for stronger leadership during a surge that marked at least a third year of exponential increase in unaccompanied minors from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador crossing the Rio Grande Valley portion of the Texas-Mexico border. For a period of time, he responded and called up the Texas National Guard.

Speaking of human smugglers, Perry said, “They could care less that’s a human soul. And way too many of those individuals, those human soul, have been left to die in the Texas desert. And that is exactly the threat that led me to take action and deploy the Texas National Guard to the border last summer. For years I had notified Washington of what was going on, what the potential was.”

Perry then took a moment to criticize Congress, “Just as President Obama should have seen it coming and acted, Congress has been aware of this problem for years, and they did nothing. And that’s kinda the problem with Congress, if you want to know the truth about it. It has become this debating society. They think about problems, they talk about problems, but they don’t solve them, and people die in the process.”

Perry asserted some general ideas for getting the country back on track: “If we revive our reforming and lowering the taxes, reducing regulations, reviving the golden age of manufacturing in this country again. If we reform the institutions of government, ending this disgrace of the IRS going after our citizens for political reasons, a Veterans Administration that has absolutely failed our heroes. If we secure our border with Mexico, we uphold the rule of law. If we do these things, then America’s best days are in front of us.”

“Ya know I may have a quarrel or two with my government, but I love my country. And there is nothing wrong with America today that cannot be fixed with new leadership.”

Perry closed, “So starting today, let’s roll up our sleeves, let’s get to work and let’s revive the American dream.”

Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana