Former Arkansas Governor, GOP presidential candidate says U.S. survive current problems

Singer Lee Greenwood performed his hit song "God Bless the USA" following Huckabee’s speech.

The O. Wayne Rollins Center was nearly standing room only Tuesday evening to hear former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speak about "Leadership in a Free and Strong America," and to hear country music legend Lee Greenwood perform.

"This is my first time to this community," Huckabee said. "Williamsburg is a beautiful community. Nestled here in the mountains, it is just full of extraordinary beauty and for that I am grateful to be able to be here. This campus is lovely."

Huckabee, who served as governor of Arkansas for 10 years, ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 finishing second to eventual nominee John McCain.

He is currently the host of the number one rated weekend hit "HUCKABEE" on the Fox News Channel, and is heard three times daily on ABC Radio Network’s "Huckabee Report," one of the nation’s fastest growing radio programs.

Huckabee noted that several people in America are probably concerned about gasoline being twice as expensive as it was two years ago.

"I think you are concerned about the fact that there are almost 15 million Americans, who are looking for work and can’t find it," Huckabee said. "You are concerned about the fact that this country is more than $14 trillion dollars in debt."

Huckabee put the debt in terms of an analogy that many in the analogy that many in the audience might not have heard before.

"If someone started spending a billion dollars a day on the day Jesus was born, and spent a million dollars a day from that day until now, they would still have 716 years left spending a billion a day before they had spent their first trillion dollars," Huckabee said. "Does that give you some idea of how big a trillion is."

He said the biggest proposal by some of the folks in Washington is that they would like to spend about $60 billion less.

"It would be like me chopping off one 157th of my finger. I can assure you if I did, I would still be able to comfortably play the guitar without pain," Huckabee added.

"It is going to take more than that. We are in many ways a country in trouble, but I am not here tonight to be a pessimist. We are an incredibly resilient country."

He said that the essence of the economic meltdown by Wall Street a few years ago wasn’t as much a money problem as it was a moral problem.

"Wall Street used to be a place where people invested in products and services," Huckabee said. "There was a tangible value for a product or service that they invested. They invested in something that was real. People worked really hard to make it valuable."

He said that business people then realized they could make more if they started investing and betting on how much a service or good would be worth in the future.

On Wall Street, instead of companies paying for their recklessness, many were deemed too big to fail, and were rewarded for their recklessness, he said.

"The government’s response to that was utterly ridiculous. It rewarded companies that had been reckless at the expense of those that had been effective and largely a success," Huckabee said.

"Here, we came up with an economic system in which we penalized productivity, and we rewarded reckless irresponsibility."

After Huckabee’s speech, Greenwood performed his 1985 hit, "God Bless the USA," which has been voted the most recognizable patriotic song in America, taking the top honor over "God Bless America" and the "National Anthem."

University of the Cumberlands’ President Dr. James H. Taylor noted that having Huckabee speak and Greenwood perform on campus is an item that he has had on his Bucket List for a long time.

"I am so delighted to be able to check that off my Bucket List tonight," Taylor said.

"The theme for the program tonight is ‘Leadership in a Free and Strong America.’ It is entirely appropriate that we recognize and promote a strong free America as evidenced by the graduates of this institution and former students, including two governors of Kentucky," Taylor noted.

The annual lecture series is made possible by an endowment from local business owners Dr. Terry and Marion Forcht, who founded the Forcht Group of Kentucky Center for Excellence in Leadership in 2006. The purpose of the Center is to provide programs and activities that enhance the development of leadership, character and good citizenship. This year’s event is the first to feature special music by a prominent figure.

During Tuesday’s program, Taylor and Huckabee also handed leadership awards to several people, including Kentucky Senate President David Williams, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor; Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer, who is running for lieutenant governor; Greenwood; 82nd Rep. Dewayne Bunch; former Rep. Charles Siler; Sara Walter Combs, tom Jensen, and Hilda Legg.