Whether we’re talking about the EPA’s assault on my state, Texas, over pollution rules, or the National Labor Relations Board and Department of Justice’s meddling in South Carolina’s business affairs and election laws, or even Obamacare, the issue is the same. Under this administration, just like its predecessors, power has increasingly been centralized and hoarded in the nation’s capital, leaving government bigger, weightier, more cumbersome– and very, very far removed from the people it purports to serve.

It’s time for that to end.

As I said last night, when I am President of the United States, the states are going to have substantially more rights and the authority to take care of their own business. The federal government, and Washington insiders like several of those who stood on the debate stage with me last night, will have their powers—as well as their footprint—shrunk. Washington will become far less consequential in your life. It will be a vast improvement over the status quo.

But to accomplish this, we will need to take a number of radical steps.

We can start by overhauling the EPA so it takes account of economic concerns in its decision-making, and by eliminating entire agencies of the federal government.

Shrinking the powers and the footprint of the federal government and Washington insiders will also involve establishing a part-time Congress, cutting congressional sessions, and bringing staff numbers and salaries down by 50 percent. Congress will be more like everybody else, and less like the body that earns a stunning 84 percent disapproval number from those of us who, unlike them, must live under and with the laws they pass every day.

I will also give taxpayers the option of a simpler, flatter and fairer 20 percent personal tax rate, and institute that same rate for companies—both measures that will help bring an end to the IRS as we know it.

Bailouts and earmarks must stop, and as President, I will pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment so that we can finally draw a line under the out-of-control Washington spending that has put our nation more than $15 trillion in debt.

By putting a stop to out-of-control Washington, D.C., we will not only move power closer to the people and make sure their will is better reflected in decisions that impact them; we will reintroduce a measure of fiscal responsibility that has been lacking in our nation’s capital for a decade or more now. In addition, we will create an environment that inherently spurs job creation.

That’s something we know a little bit about in Texas, where over 11 years as governor of the world’s 13th largest economy, I have overseen the creation of a million jobs while the country as a whole has lost over 2 million. We have succeeded in that mission because we have created a climate where job creators know they can go out and risk their capital and see a return on their investment. And Americans from across the country continue to flock to our state, knowing they stand a better chance of getting a good job here than anywhere else.

It’s time to put a stop to out-of-control Washington, which begins with putting a stop to the out-of-control Obama administration by electing a real conservative with the ideas and determination to change the status quo. Let’s get that done in 2012.

Conservatives across the country are fed up with President Obama’s Washington approach to governance. Massive, budget-busting, deficit spending (except on defense, where he proposes cuts that are downright dangerous). Bailouts. An ever-mounting national debt. A federal government that has reached its tentacles further into Americans’ lives, by virtue of Obamacare with its noxious individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Excessive, bureaucratically dictated, job-killing environmental regulation. Dodd-Frank. The actions of the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Communications Commission, and countless other agencies. A President who has engaged in offensive recess appointments to pay back his political allies ahead of a race he could well lose. And so on.

Almost universally, Republicans hold in contempt the real-life “ends” of the Obama administration’s policies, though admittedly there are those self-described conservatives who have favored (and even authored) Obamacare-like approaches to health care and policies like cap-and-trade. To us, those ends look decidedly liberal and reminiscent of European social democracies, and out of step with our vision for America.

Yet some conservatives, while rejecting the “ends” have not yet fully rejected the means, despite the fact that many Americans—and not just conservatives or libertarians— have reached the conclusion that the federal government has just become too big and has its fingers in too many pies, with the predictable negative real-world consequences for the rest of us.

They argue that a big intrusive government is fine, desirable even, so long as it pursues “conservative” goals, which frequently when scrutinized are neither conservative nor worthy. Earmarks are okay, as long as they are directed by “conservatives.” Expansions of government like Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind were acceptable because they represented “Republican” policy. Congress spending all its time in Washington, DC, and legislating madly is fine, so long as the congressmen are Republicans and they are pursuing something that the Washington, DC, establishment has deemed “conservative.” It’s okay to have a government so big, so unaccountable and playing with so much money that serving Members of Congress can get rich while on the job, and once off the job, they can get even richer by becoming high-powered corporate consultants before skipping over to K Street itself, to try to grow government and spend even more of your money.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, we have reached a critical juncture at which government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.

Big government conservatives will never truly overhaul Washington because they need the status quo in place to accomplish their objectives. They don’t want to rebuild the machine; they simply want to change the people pulling the levers.

But that is not what the American people want. There is such deep and widespread discontent that nothing short of a complete overhaul will satisfy their justifiable demands.

The American people expect changes equal to their concern, which is the highest it’s been in at least a generation, and I am the only candidate with a vision that is as strong and sweeping as the public is angry.

While others promise to tinker with the status quo, I am the outsider who will overhaul Washington. Others talk about trimming the bureaucracy; I will eliminate the Departments of Commerce, Energy and Education, gut the activist EPA, freeze bureaucrat salaries and make Congress part-time. Others talk about cleaning up the tax code; I say let Americans throw the whole thing out and pay a simple flat tax instead. Others talk about creating jobs; I alone have worked with the private sector to create more than 1 million jobs while the rest of the country lost 2 million jobs.

This is what the 2012 election is about with the Republican primary process ongoing, and it is what the 2012 general election should be about, too.

Do we want to stick with a big government approach that may, if self-described “conservatives” are in power, deliver up conservative ends, even though that same big government will be used by liberals to advance progressivism the second they get their hands on the reins of power?

Or do we want to try something different—making Washington, DC, as inconsequential as possible in our lives and scaling back the federal government to focus on legitimate national priorities like defense and border security, and leaving other matters like education, for example, to the states and localities?

This is the choice that I believe faces us, as more primaries approach and as Republicans select a nominee. Our answer to the question will determine the outcome of the nomination battle, and it will also determine whether this choice is ultimately presented to the American people in November.

I, for one, hope it will be. America cannot abide another four years of big, intrusive government, no matter its philosophical goals. It’s time for a change. That entails Americans getting a choice.

If you haven’t read the editorial yet, I recommend you do because while the professional political punditry class is more interested in superfluous items like the political horse race and candidate attire, the reality is that members of both parties in Washington, D.C., are abusing their positions and ordinary Americans have had enough.

As the editorial notes, “’60 Minutes’ reported that Pelosi and her husband participated in an initial public offering from Visa in 2008, just as credit card legislation started moving through the House. The Pelosis bought 5,000 shares at the IPO price of $44 a share. Two days later, the shares traded at $64. The legislation, which was likely to cut credit card company profits, went nowhere that year. It passed two years later.”

It’s not enough members of Congress make $174,000 a year, some are trading on inside information to use their public service to enrich themselves.

The Tribune is right, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department should be using every available tool to put a stop to this.  But they are not.  So, Congress needs to pass the STOCK Act as a matter of urgency, to do even more to ensure that this kind of thing is stopped dead in its tracks.

In addition to calling for tough measures to outlaw insider trading by Members of Congress, I’ve called for making Congress part-time, like the Texas legislature, cutting congressional pay in half, and amending FOIA to apply to Congress and the White House.

We have a $15 trillion national debt that is growing by the day, a direct result of establishment, insider politicians who are more interested in constantly increasing their personal power and profit than in reforming the system, bringing spending under control, and doing the work they were elected to do.  It’s time to uproot and overhaul Washington.  We can start with ensuring insider trading by members of Congress results in prison time, and not unseemly profits.

As Governor of Texas, I have worked hard to promote a culture of life. I’m proud to have supported and signed a number of key bills including bans on partial-birth abortions and taxpayer-funded abortions in Texas, as well as passing an informed consent law and a prenatal protection act that protects unborn children from assault.

Working together, we have better aligned Texas laws with Texas values, but I need your help on the challenges that remain. Please take a moment to sign this petition supporting a culture of life in Texas, and if you can make it to Austin this Saturday, I hope you will join me and thousands of our fellow Texans at the Texas Rally for Life on the Capitol steps.

God Bless,

Rick Perry