Fed Up! Gov. Perry's Crusade to Rein in Washington

By Paul Strand

CBN News Washington Sr. Correspondent

Texas Gov. Rick Perry believes what ails America isn't the fault of its citizens, but the fault of the federal government.
    
Perry, who just won his third term as governor of the Lone Star state, said he's fed up with government telling Americans what they can eat, whether they can own guns, what prayers they can pray, and where.
    
The Texas governor is also preaching that Washington is spending money the country doesn't have for programs Americans don't want.
    
The Tea Party movement and its cries for less government, less spending, less taxing, and more respect for the U.S. Constitution have been a major source of hope and inspiration for Perry.
"The good news is that the people are taking action," Perry said. "The Tea Party movement began in earnest as the result of boiling frustration among Americans, triggered by the dramatic expansion of government in their private affairs."
    
He said following the Constitution would lead to much less rule by unelected justices and judges, who increasingly lord their power over America by legislating from the bench.
The Supreme Court "long ago wrested away from the people the power to decide what is right and what is wrong and at the most fundamental level how we should live our lives," Perry said.
The three-term governor says heeding the law of the land would stop much federal overreach, such as President Obama's health care plan. Perry believes that plan is the closest America has come to outright socialism.
    
He has tough words for programs like Social Security as well, charging that it's such a nasty Ponzi scheme even the infamous swindler Charles Ponzi would be ashamed.
"The fact is our children know that the money that they're putting into Medicaid they'll never see," he told Fox News Sunday. "And they need to fix it."
"And it is a Ponzi scheme," he reiterated. "I don't know how you would explain it any other way. There are fewer people paying into it and our kids are never going to see any benefit from it."
    
In his new book Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, Perry lays out solutions to get America back on track.
"I wrote this book because I believe that America is great but also that America is in trouble and heading for a cliff if we don't take immediate steps to change course," Perry wrote.
He insists the key is returning much of the power Washington now hoards back to the states and the people themselves, as the founding fathers intended.