Glasses on and fists flying, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) on Friday belted out an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference that wandered throughout but landed a few big applause lines.
Perry at once warned that less people believe in the American Dream “than any time in the past 50 years,” but at the same time said “America’s best days lie in front of us.”
The Texan railed against the “corporate tax code,” government regulations, and declared that “the unemployment rate is a sham.”
Perry’s solution to an America in decline: “The answer is not to grow the welfare state, it’s to build the freedom state.”
On this prospect, he was optimistic.
“We had a civil war, two World Wars, a depression. We even survived Jimmy Carter!” he shouted to applause. “We will survive the Obama years too!”
By the Q&A section, Perry was panting. He scored one more big cheer after he demanded that the government “open up the Keystone XL pipeline.”
