Centennial Review January 2015
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Volume 7, Number 1 • January 2015
OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL:
HOW MY STORY BECAME
MY AGENDA
By Tim Scott
When I think about the challenges
we face as a nation, I always go back
to the song Amazing Grace. “I once
was lost, but now I’m found. I was
blind, but now I see. I thank the
Lord he saved a soul like me.”
That’s my story. I marvel at how the
combination of a strong God and
an amazing nation has made a guy
like me even possible. As a Republican I believe it’s also the
story of the GOP, which I like to call the Great Opportunity
Party.
Let me share my story with you and explain
how conservative principles made it possible.
Growing up in a single parent household,
my parents got divorced when I was about
seven, and I started drifting. By the time I
was 14, I flunked out of high school.
Publisher, William L. Armstrong
Editor, John Andrews
The second blessing that came my way was a small business
owner named John Monice, a Chick-Fil-A operator. He
was a conservative Republican, though I didn’t know it
yet. All I knew was that John showed up at the right time,
and he started telling me some very important lessons.
He said, “Tim, you don’t have to play football or be an
entertainer in order to be successful in America. You can
think your way out of poverty.” I had never heard this
before. I thought the only way out was playing for the
Dallas Cowboys.
Sorry, I know this is Denver Broncos territory. Three of
my top staff are from Colorado, and it does pain me to see
all the orange in my office.
John Monice, my mentor, also taught me that if you have
a job, you’ve done well. But if you create jobs, you’ve done
extraordinarily well. If you make an income, you can
support yourself. But if you make a profit, you can change
the life of your family and your community. This became
the very fabric of my journey toward
conservatism.
What can impact
a billion people?
As I freshman I failed world geography, and I failed civics
—maybe the only senator to do that. Yet when I got to the
Senate, I was comfortable after all, because lots of those guys
on the other side have failed civics too. I also failed Spanish
and English. After doing that, they don’t call you bilingual,
they call you bi-ignorant—and that’s where I found my
unhappy self.
A Mother and a Mentor
But I had two major blessings. One was a strong mama.
My mama is an amazing woman. She would work 16-hour
days as a nurse’s aide, making sure we stayed off welfare.
She believed she needed to set the example for her boys to
follow, and she worked hard at it. So when I flunked out,
she was none too happy with me.
Mama believed that sometimes love has to come at the
end of a switch. For those of you in the West who don’t
understand what that is, a switch is a Southern apparatus of
encouragement, typically applied from your beltline to your
ankles. And my mama “encouraged” me a lot that freshman
year.
t
ef
Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute
Amazing Journey
There I was, a 15-year-old kid learning
these very basic business principles—that
the free market works, and that making a profit can be
an amazing journey in America. I bought it fully over the
course of four years. But then when I was 19 years old and
John was only 38, he died.
Knowing him had changed the course of my life, though.
I set my mission statement to positively impact the lives
of a billion people with a message of hope, based on my
faith in Christ Jesus, and a message of opportunity, based
on John’s lessons of financial literacy.
I started on course toward business ownership, and in
time I had a great successful business. What a change from
the way we had grown up, living with my grandparents in
Tim Scott was reelected to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina in 2014 after moving
over from the U.S. House on a vacancy appointment in 2013. The Charleston
Southern University graduate was previously a city councilman and state legislator.
He delivered these remarks on July 19 at Western Conservative Summit 2014.
Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance
public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation.
By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom,
teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.
Let’s do a survey. Call out yes or no. How many of you
think Obamacare is a good idea? [Chorus of “no.”] How
many of you think the president is handling the border
situation with the Guatemalan kids in a good way? [Same.]
How many of you think he’s handling the Syrian situation in
a good way? [Same.] How about the IRS scandal? [Same.]
The economy? [Same.] The VA? [Same.] So with all the
things that are going wrong, we should be winning every
single election, right?
Classroom at Hidden Treasure School, Taylor SC,
where Rachel Lewis transferred and graduated
a thousand square-foot house. My mother and my brother
and I shared one bedroom. My grandparents had the other
room. John had told me that we could change all of that
through business ownership, and I found he was right.
The reason my opportunity agenda focuses so much on the
entrepreneur is that I’ve experienced it firsthand. When the
government steps back and entrepreneurs step in, all things
change. A good economy makes all things possible.
Why, then, are we not winning elections? For one thing,
because people do not care how much you know until they
know how much you care. So one of the keys to success is
making sure our candidates are likeable. My friend Cory
Gardner, running for Senate here, is a great example.
Another key is making sure candidates are armed with the
right message. Part of that is what we’re standing against.
With a $17 trillion debt, we’re standing against spending
money you do not have. With a $600 billion annual deficit,
we’re also standing against those fiscal excesses of the left.
Declaring What We’re For
That’s the easy part. But next we have to answer the
question, what are we for? Do that and we’ll start winning
The next question, then, is what makes a good economy?
everywhere. We need a positive policy agenda that attracts a
Tax reform and regulatory reform are key ingredients. I
diverse group of voters to take a second look
can’t hire more people and pay higher taxes
at the Grand Old Party and start thinking of
and have higher regulations at the same time.
Why aren’t
it as the Great Opportunity Party.
I can only do two out of three. So if you want
good
ideas
me as an entrepreneur hiring more people, we
My opportunity agenda does just that. The
have to reduce the cost of doing business.
first pillar is education. The second pillar is
winning?
how to build a good economy. An example is
How many of you in this room are fans of
one
of
my
first
bills in the Senate, the Choice Act, creating
Obamacare? No hands, that’s good. Obamacare spends too
hope and opportunities for individuals and communities
much, taxes too much, and it destroys the best health care
through education.
system in the world. Over $800 billion of new revenues,
higher taxes, the destruction of the relationship between a
As a guy who did poorly as a freshman, my mother
doctor and a patient.
“encouraged” me into summer school. That helped me
catch up with my class. I then finished on time, earned a
Trust the 300 Million
football scholarship to college, finished in five years, and
In Obamacare we not only see taxes and regulations.
have done pretty well since then. The foundation of all that
We also see this march toward centralizing all the major
is education.
decisions and taking over another sixth of the economy. It
But look at the centralization of education today. It’s not
presents to the American people a clear choice:
working. Parents deserve more choices so that kids have
Do you believe in redistribution, or do you believe in the
a better chance. Embedded in the Choice Act that I’ve
private sector and entrepreneurship? Do you believe in the
proposed is a D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, allowing for
power of 300 million Americans, or do you believe in the
school choice in Washington, D.C.
intellect of 535 politicians? Let me tell you: it ain’t the 535.
CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. The authors’ views are not necessarily
those of CCU. Designer, Bethany Bender. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787
W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at www.CentennialCCU.org.
Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial donor, you can help us restore America’s moral core and prepare
tomorrow’s leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the envelope provided. Thank you for your support.
- John Andrews, Director
Scan this code with your smartphone to read this and previous issues online.
Centennial Review ▪ January 2015 ▪ 2
The Power of School Choice
In D.C. the cost per student for a public education is around
$21,000. Some of you said, “Wow.” Only 56 percent of the
students graduate, and very few of those students go on to get
a college degree.
For contrast, here are the results of school choice: 93%
graduate, 91% go on to a two-year or four-year institution,
and 93% of the parents are happy. That’s from the D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship program as it previously operated,
currently shut down, which my Choice Act would restart.
And it only costs $8500 per student, versus $21,000 for
typical public education.
If we are looking for a way to change the dynamics in who
votes for us, the issue of education cannot be owned by
the other side. We have to do our part, and when we do,
the results are amazing. I’m taking this agenda around the
country, and people love the concept of choice.
But why is it that when people start liking something, the
federal government sues? What’s the correlation? When
Louisiana went forward with a school choice agenda, the
U. S. Department of Justice took them to court. The theory
seemed to be that you cannot help poor kids get a better
education because it will hurt public education. [Editor:
Louisiana won.]
We have
a priority
problem.
I believe, though, that the way
you improve public education
is to decentralize things from
Washington and send the control
and the money back to the states.
Do that very quickly. The average employee at the U.S.
Department of Education makes $103,000 a year and the
average teacher makes $53,000. That’s backwards.
People say we have a money problem in education. No, we
have a priority problem. This country spends $700 billion
annually on education when you add the states and the
federal government together. We can do better. We should
demand better.
Rachel’s Victory
The other part of the Choice Act simply says that kids with
special needs deserve to maximize their individual potential.
So if someone can’t get the education child needs in their
own zip code, we should make the IDEA grants, the money
for special needs kids, portable.
Just like we have school choice for vulnerable kids and failing
or underperforming school districts, we should allow the
same thing for our kids with special needs.
I like to illustrate this with the story of Rachel Lewis, a
kindergartner in South Carolina, a young lady with Down
syndrome but doing pretty well in mainstream classes when
she was five.
Voi ces of CCU
WILL DEMOCRATS GO THE WAY
OF THE WHIGS?
By William Moloney
Whenever the Democrats win an election,
they promptly issue an obituary for the
Republican Party. In mock solicitude
they advise the GOP on what it must do
to save itself and avoid the same oblivion
suffered by the 19th century Whigs. But
maybe it’s the Democrats who should
worry about becoming an endangered species.
Republicans now control 69 of 99 state legislative
chambers, 31 of 50 governorships, and both houses of
Congress. Electoral demographics also point to a growing
GOP dominance in the future.
For years Democrats have bloviated that the “gender gap”
was a mortal threat to Republican electoral prospects.
While it’s true that female voters have decidedly preferred
Democrats for years, the fact is that male voters show an
even greater preference for Republicans.
The Democrats’ edge with women narrows considerably
in some elections, and strong GOP candidates sometimes
win the female vote outright, as did Greg Abbott and John
Kasich in 2014. On the other hand, the GOP hold on
male voters has been stronger and more consistent since
the time of Ronald Reagan, particularly in the South.
Democrats are equally delusional in their belief that
America’s growing Hispanic population guarantees them
future political dominance. Even with projections that
the U.S. Hispanic electorate, currently about 10%, will
grow to 16% by 2030, that’s still less than one-sixth of
the nation’s total electorate. About 40% of all Hispanics
reside in just three states—California, New York, and New
Jersey—already safe for Democrats and thus offering little
political upside.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the Democrats’ future,
however, is their misreading of the country’s largest
“minority group,” seniors. In the last three election
cycles, Republican support among seniors has surged,
culminating in a 57% GOP landslide in 2014. And they
are the country’s largest and fastest-growing population
subset, to be 31% of the country by 2030. Whigs, anyone?
William Moloney is a Centennial Institute fellow in
conservative thought and a former Colorado education
commissioner. A longer version of
Centennial
this article appears on the ’76 Blog at
Institute
Centennialccu.org
Colorado Christian University
Centennial Review ▪ January 2015 ▪ 3
Opportunity for All:
How My Story
Became My Agenda
By Tim Scott
Flunking out of school at 14, learning
the ropes in business at 15, later a
college graduate and business owner
himself, Senator Scott credits his turnaround to a devoted
mother and a wise mentor who challenged him: “Think
your way out of poverty.” Such thinking prompted his
resolve “to positively impact the lives of a billion people
with a message of hope and opportunity.”
Teachers got uncomfortable with her being around the other
students, however, and tried to push her into a special needs
class. Her parents fought to get her back in the mainstream
class. After a year and a half, they were successful. But they
were concerned that these same teachers who fought to
push her out were now going to be the ones responsible for
educating her. Not good.
They were able to take her to a private school, Hidden
Treasure, and today at age 20 Rachel has graduated from
there with her high school diploma and gone to work. In
fact, she doesn’t just have one job, she has
two.
Centennial Institute
Colorado Christian University
8787 W. Alameda Ave.
Lakewood, CO 80226
Return Service Requested
driven by energy production. Yet today the president is
considering whether to federalize the regulation of fracking
and horizontal drilling, practically taking over the energy
industry. That’s a bad idea.
I have a bill called the SEA Jobs Act aimed at unlocking
resources on the Atlantic outer continental shelf, deposits
of natural gas we could seismically identify. If we do that,
South Carolina could see $1.8 billion of new revenue. The
four-state region could see over $10 billion of new revenue.
Nine million jobs today in America are connected to oil
and gas, and that could double in the next 15
Let’s help more years. We could see North Dakota levels of
unemployment all across America. But here
It shows that if we give people the opportunity
kids
rise
up.
again, as with school choice, if something
to maximize their potential, they can succeed
starts working right, the president thinks it’s
beyond the wildest imagination. Like what
wrong.
That’s
a problem we have to solve. And we can.
it says in Ephesians 3:20: “He is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or even imagine.” That’s
We can return America to the brightest path forward,
the picture I want for our kids.
with the greatest opportunities for success. We’ll see more
kids like me rising up, not to be senators, but to be CEOs
Energy Potential
and presidents, leaders and difference-makers in their
The second part of my opportunity agenda is how to build
communities. God bless you all. God has already blessed
a better economy. Time permits me just one example,
the United States of America.
energy. Our economic recovery, anemic as it is, has been
America’s story is fading? Your story doesn’t matter?
Some say so. We’ll show’em different at
WESTERN CONSERVATIVE
SUMMIT 2015
“Your Story: Freedom Alive”
June 26-28 at the Colorado Convention Center
Plus: Young Conservatives Leadership Conference II
“City on a Hill” with Hugh Hewitt
June 21-26 at Colorado Christian University
Save big when you buy WCS or YCLC tickets by January 31
westernconservativesummit.com or 800-937-8728
Centennial Review ▪ January 2015 ▪ 4
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Volume 7, Number 1 • January 2015
OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL:
HOW MY STORY BECAME
MY AGENDA
By Tim Scott
When I think about the challenges
we face as a nation, I always go back
to the song Amazing Grace. “I once
was lost, but now I’m found. I was
blind, but now I see. I thank the
Lord he saved a soul like me.”
That’s my story. I marvel at how the
combination of a strong God and
an amazing nation has made a guy
like me even possible. As a Republican I believe it’s also the
story of the GOP, which I like to call the Great Opportunity
Party.
Let me share my story with you and explain
how conservative principles made it possible.
Growing up in a single parent household,
my parents got divorced when I was about
seven, and I started drifting. By the time I
was 14, I flunked out of high school.
Publisher, William L. Armstrong
Editor, John Andrews
The second blessing that came my way was a small business
owner named John Monice, a Chick-Fil-A operator. He
was a conservative Republican, though I didn’t know it
yet. All I knew was that John showed up at the right time,
and he started telling me some very important lessons.
He said, “Tim, you don’t have to play football or be an
entertainer in order to be successful in America. You can
think your way out of poverty.” I had never heard this
before. I thought the only way out was playing for the
Dallas Cowboys.
Sorry, I know this is Denver Broncos territory. Three of
my top staff are from Colorado, and it does pain me to see
all the orange in my office.
John Monice, my mentor, also taught me that if you have
a job, you’ve done well. But if you create jobs, you’ve done
extraordinarily well. If you make an income, you can
support yourself. But if you make a profit, you can change
the life of your family and your community. This became
the very fabric of my journey toward
conservatism.
What can impact
a billion people?
As I freshman I failed world geography, and I failed civics
—maybe the only senator to do that. Yet when I got to the
Senate, I was comfortable after all, because lots of those guys
on the other side have failed civics too. I also failed Spanish
and English. After doing that, they don’t call you bilingual,
they call you bi-ignorant—and that’s where I found my
unhappy self.
A Mother and a Mentor
But I had two major blessings. One was a strong mama.
My mama is an amazing woman. She would work 16-hour
days as a nurse’s aide, making sure we stayed off welfare.
She believed she needed to set the example for her boys to
follow, and she worked hard at it. So when I flunked out,
she was none too happy with me.
Mama believed that sometimes love has to come at the
end of a switch. For those of you in the West who don’t
understand what that is, a switch is a Southern apparatus of
encouragement, typically applied from your beltline to your
ankles. And my mama “encouraged” me a lot that freshman
year.
t
ef
Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute
Amazing Journey
There I was, a 15-year-old kid learning
these very basic business principles—that
the free market works, and that making a profit can be
an amazing journey in America. I bought it fully over the
course of four years. But then when I was 19 years old and
John was only 38, he died.
Knowing him had changed the course of my life, though.
I set my mission statement to positively impact the lives
of a billion people with a message of hope, based on my
faith in Christ Jesus, and a message of opportunity, based
on John’s lessons of financial literacy.
I started on course toward business ownership, and in
time I had a great successful business. What a change from
the way we had grown up, living with my grandparents in
Tim Scott was reelected to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina in 2014 after moving
over from the U.S. House on a vacancy appointment in 2013. The Charleston
Southern University graduate was previously a city councilman and state legislator.
He delivered these remarks on July 19 at Western Conservative Summit 2014.
Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance
public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation.
By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom,
teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.
Let’s do a survey. Call out yes or no. How many of you
think Obamacare is a good idea? [Chorus of “no.”] How
many of you think the president is handling the border
situation with the Guatemalan kids in a good way? [Same.]
How many of you think he’s handling the Syrian situation in
a good way? [Same.] How about the IRS scandal? [Same.]
The economy? [Same.] The VA? [Same.] So with all the
things that are going wrong, we should be winning every
single election, right?
Classroom at Hidden Treasure School, Taylor SC,
where Rachel Lewis transferred and graduated
a thousand square-foot house. My mother and my brother
and I shared one bedroom. My grandparents had the other
room. John had told me that we could change all of that
through business ownership, and I found he was right.
The reason my opportunity agenda focuses so much on the
entrepreneur is that I’ve experienced it firsthand. When the
government steps back and entrepreneurs step in, all things
change. A good economy makes all things possible.
Why, then, are we not winning elections? For one thing,
because people do not care how much you know until they
know how much you care. So one of the keys to success is
making sure our candidates are likeable. My friend Cory
Gardner, running for Senate here, is a great example.
Another key is making sure candidates are armed with the
right message. Part of that is what we’re standing against.
With a $17 trillion debt, we’re standing against spending
money you do not have. With a $600 billion annual deficit,
we’re also standing against those fiscal excesses of the left.
Declaring What We’re For
That’s the easy part. But next we have to answer the
question, what are we for? Do that and we’ll start winning
The next question, then, is what makes a good economy?
everywhere. We need a positive policy agenda that attracts a
Tax reform and regulatory reform are key ingredients. I
diverse group of voters to take a second look
can’t hire more people and pay higher taxes
at the Grand Old Party and start thinking of
and have higher regulations at the same time.
Why aren’t
it as the Great Opportunity Party.
I can only do two out of three. So if you want
good
ideas
me as an entrepreneur hiring more people, we
My opportunity agenda does just that. The
have to reduce the cost of doing business.
first pillar is education. The second pillar is
winning?
how to build a good economy. An example is
How many of you in this room are fans of
one
of
my
first
bills in the Senate, the Choice Act, creating
Obamacare? No hands, that’s good. Obamacare spends too
hope and opportunities for individuals and communities
much, taxes too much, and it destroys the best health care
through education.
system in the world. Over $800 billion of new revenues,
higher taxes, the destruction of the relationship between a
As a guy who did poorly as a freshman, my mother
doctor and a patient.
“encouraged” me into summer school. That helped me
catch up with my class. I then finished on time, earned a
Trust the 300 Million
football scholarship to college, finished in five years, and
In Obamacare we not only see taxes and regulations.
have done pretty well since then. The foundation of all that
We also see this march toward centralizing all the major
is education.
decisions and taking over another sixth of the economy. It
But look at the centralization of education today. It’s not
presents to the American people a clear choice:
working. Parents deserve more choices so that kids have
Do you believe in redistribution, or do you believe in the
a better chance. Embedded in the Choice Act that I’ve
private sector and entrepreneurship? Do you believe in the
proposed is a D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, allowing for
power of 300 million Americans, or do you believe in the
school choice in Washington, D.C.
intellect of 535 politicians? Let me tell you: it ain’t the 535.
CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. The authors’ views are not necessarily
those of CCU. Designer, Bethany Bender. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787
W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at www.CentennialCCU.org.
Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial donor, you can help us restore America’s moral core and prepare
tomorrow’s leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the envelope provided. Thank you for your support.
- John Andrews, Director
Scan this code with your smartphone to read this and previous issues online.
Centennial Review ▪ January 2015 ▪ 2
The Power of School Choice
In D.C. the cost per student for a public education is around
$21,000. Some of you said, “Wow.” Only 56 percent of the
students graduate, and very few of those students go on to get
a college degree.
For contrast, here are the results of school choice: 93%
graduate, 91% go on to a two-year or four-year institution,
and 93% of the parents are happy. That’s from the D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship program as it previously operated,
currently shut down, which my Choice Act would restart.
And it only costs $8500 per student, versus $21,000 for
typical public education.
If we are looking for a way to change the dynamics in who
votes for us, the issue of education cannot be owned by
the other side. We have to do our part, and when we do,
the results are amazing. I’m taking this agenda around the
country, and people love the concept of choice.
But why is it that when people start liking something, the
federal government sues? What’s the correlation? When
Louisiana went forward with a school choice agenda, the
U. S. Department of Justice took them to court. The theory
seemed to be that you cannot help poor kids get a better
education because it will hurt public education. [Editor:
Louisiana won.]
We have
a priority
problem.
I believe, though, that the way
you improve public education
is to decentralize things from
Washington and send the control
and the money back to the states.
Do that very quickly. The average employee at the U.S.
Department of Education makes $103,000 a year and the
average teacher makes $53,000. That’s backwards.
People say we have a money problem in education. No, we
have a priority problem. This country spends $700 billion
annually on education when you add the states and the
federal government together. We can do better. We should
demand better.
Rachel’s Victory
The other part of the Choice Act simply says that kids with
special needs deserve to maximize their individual potential.
So if someone can’t get the education child needs in their
own zip code, we should make the IDEA grants, the money
for special needs kids, portable.
Just like we have school choice for vulnerable kids and failing
or underperforming school districts, we should allow the
same thing for our kids with special needs.
I like to illustrate this with the story of Rachel Lewis, a
kindergartner in South Carolina, a young lady with Down
syndrome but doing pretty well in mainstream classes when
she was five.
Voi ces of CCU
WILL DEMOCRATS GO THE WAY
OF THE WHIGS?
By William Moloney
Whenever the Democrats win an election,
they promptly issue an obituary for the
Republican Party. In mock solicitude
they advise the GOP on what it must do
to save itself and avoid the same oblivion
suffered by the 19th century Whigs. But
maybe it’s the Democrats who should
worry about becoming an endangered species.
Republicans now control 69 of 99 state legislative
chambers, 31 of 50 governorships, and both houses of
Congress. Electoral demographics also point to a growing
GOP dominance in the future.
For years Democrats have bloviated that the “gender gap”
was a mortal threat to Republican electoral prospects.
While it’s true that female voters have decidedly preferred
Democrats for years, the fact is that male voters show an
even greater preference for Republicans.
The Democrats’ edge with women narrows considerably
in some elections, and strong GOP candidates sometimes
win the female vote outright, as did Greg Abbott and John
Kasich in 2014. On the other hand, the GOP hold on
male voters has been stronger and more consistent since
the time of Ronald Reagan, particularly in the South.
Democrats are equally delusional in their belief that
America’s growing Hispanic population guarantees them
future political dominance. Even with projections that
the U.S. Hispanic electorate, currently about 10%, will
grow to 16% by 2030, that’s still less than one-sixth of
the nation’s total electorate. About 40% of all Hispanics
reside in just three states—California, New York, and New
Jersey—already safe for Democrats and thus offering little
political upside.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the Democrats’ future,
however, is their misreading of the country’s largest
“minority group,” seniors. In the last three election
cycles, Republican support among seniors has surged,
culminating in a 57% GOP landslide in 2014. And they
are the country’s largest and fastest-growing population
subset, to be 31% of the country by 2030. Whigs, anyone?
William Moloney is a Centennial Institute fellow in
conservative thought and a former Colorado education
commissioner. A longer version of
Centennial
this article appears on the ’76 Blog at
Institute
Centennialccu.org
Colorado Christian University
Centennial Review ▪ January 2015 ▪ 3
Opportunity for All:
How My Story
Became My Agenda
By Tim Scott
Flunking out of school at 14, learning
the ropes in business at 15, later a
college graduate and business owner
himself, Senator Scott credits his turnaround to a devoted
mother and a wise mentor who challenged him: “Think
your way out of poverty.” Such thinking prompted his
resolve “to positively impact the lives of a billion people
with a message of hope and opportunity.”
Teachers got uncomfortable with her being around the other
students, however, and tried to push her into a special needs
class. Her parents fought to get her back in the mainstream
class. After a year and a half, they were successful. But they
were concerned that these same teachers who fought to
push her out were now going to be the ones responsible for
educating her. Not good.
They were able to take her to a private school, Hidden
Treasure, and today at age 20 Rachel has graduated from
there with her high school diploma and gone to work. In
fact, she doesn’t just have one job, she has
two.
Centennial Institute
Colorado Christian University
8787 W. Alameda Ave.
Lakewood, CO 80226
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driven by energy production. Yet today the president is
considering whether to federalize the regulation of fracking
and horizontal drilling, practically taking over the energy
industry. That’s a bad idea.
I have a bill called the SEA Jobs Act aimed at unlocking
resources on the Atlantic outer continental shelf, deposits
of natural gas we could seismically identify. If we do that,
South Carolina could see $1.8 billion of new revenue. The
four-state region could see over $10 billion of new revenue.
Nine million jobs today in America are connected to oil
and gas, and that could double in the next 15
Let’s help more years. We could see North Dakota levels of
unemployment all across America. But here
It shows that if we give people the opportunity
kids
rise
up.
again, as with school choice, if something
to maximize their potential, they can succeed
starts working right, the president thinks it’s
beyond the wildest imagination. Like what
wrong.
That’s
a problem we have to solve. And we can.
it says in Ephesians 3:20: “He is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or even imagine.” That’s
We can return America to the brightest path forward,
the picture I want for our kids.
with the greatest opportunities for success. We’ll see more
kids like me rising up, not to be senators, but to be CEOs
Energy Potential
and presidents, leaders and difference-makers in their
The second part of my opportunity agenda is how to build
communities. God bless you all. God has already blessed
a better economy. Time permits me just one example,
the United States of America.
energy. Our economic recovery, anemic as it is, has been
America’s story is fading? Your story doesn’t matter?
Some say so. We’ll show’em different at
WESTERN CONSERVATIVE
SUMMIT 2015
“Your Story: Freedom Alive”
June 26-28 at the Colorado Convention Center
Plus: Young Conservatives Leadership Conference II
“City on a Hill” with Hugh Hewitt
June 21-26 at Colorado Christian University
Save big when you buy WCS or YCLC tickets by January 31
westernconservativesummit.com or 800-937-8728
Centennial Review ▪ January 2015 ▪ 4
