CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In front of hundreds of Republican Party members Friday night, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee urged his party to stand up for its beliefs.
“Lets quit apologizing for being who we are and lets boldly stand for the dignity and worth of every human being,” urged Huckabee.
Huckabee discussed how the current government tends to base the value of people on their status or by how much money they make. He argued that America was not built on that idea.
“In America, your worth and value is given by God and it is not less than, and it is not greater than the wealth and value of any others,” he said.
Huckabee also talked about how he believes work is not valued by the government as much as it should be. He said work is one aspect of a strong economy.
“I think that when people go out, get a job, work hard it’s fine for them to come home tired and dirty,” he said. “That’s better than just to sit at home and to never turn a lick.”
He mentioned that a strong economy has people doing work that results in wages that they can use to buy stuff. On top of that people are investing and also saving money. But Huckabee said this economy is being hindered in those areas because the government punishes and penalizes every aspect of productivity .
“Work, we punish it because we tax it. Savings, we punish it because we tax any interest that we actually earn on the savings,” he said. “Investment, we punish it because if you do well we are going to tax it.”
Huckabee criticized the government for enabling people who would rather not work and rewarding those who fail at investing.
“We should be the party that says we don’t bail people out, we help you out and help you up, but we’re going to reward you when you work and when you save and when you invest because it’s not our reward it’s your own reward for having done the responsible thing,” he said. “And if you don’t want to have any rewards then you can sit back and put your feet back, but we’re not going to bail you out.”