jefferson, washington, and chuck norris

Our President & Congress desperately need a history lesson from Thomas Jefferson & George Washington...and Chuck Norris.

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.
George Washington, letter to James Welch, Apr. 7, 1799

To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39

All of this courtesy of Chuck Norris, who has compiled a great many quotes from our founding fathers in this article: I may run for president of Texas. A good, quick read if you're up for it! Maybe Chuck Norris will join the ranks for Jefferson & Washington as a great President some day, hehe.

And props to Ryan for pointing these out to me and issuing a challenge to us all - write letters/emails to the President and your elected officials and ask them what they think of what our founding fathers said!