Americans for Prosperity tour visits campus

Getting in and out of Reber-Thomas Dining Hall proved a bit harder for students Thursday due to the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) rally staged at the entrance to the facility. Just before lunchtime, an ominous-looking tour bus crept through campus, black-wrapped with “November is Coming” and other slogans stating taxpayer costs for the government stimulus, the healthcare reform law and a proposed energy tax.

The bus is the roaming platform for the Virginia chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a grassroots organization of citizen leaders working together at the national, state and local levels to protect and advance the individual right to economic freedom.

Delegate Scott Garrett (R-Lynchburg) addresses the issue of economic freedom.

Speakers included Lynchburg City Council representative Turner Perrow (Ward IV), state Delegate Scott Garrett (R-Lynchburg), state Delegate Kathy Byron (R-22nd District), former state Delegate Vance Wilkins and Ben Marchi, state director for the Virginia chapter of the AFP.

“We are here today to embrace a common cause — a love for America,” said Garrett, addressing the crowd of about 50.

Speaking about the AFP, he said, “Friends, they get it, they understand it, and they are communicating our values statewide and nationwide.”

Alluding to the 2,000-page health care billed signed into law in March, Garrett quoted James Madison, who said, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if those laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”

Garret said that small businesses, which employ 75 percent of American workers, “need to be free from the yoke of governmental bureaucracy and intrusion.”

“Our economy is in peril, the government is spending money at an unprecedented rate, we have borrowed money beyond anyone’s ability to pay it back,” said Byron. “It is very fitting that we have this rally right here … where you can look out and see Liberty Mountain. I remember many dreams by Dr. Falwell of liberty and prosperity for everyone. And it starts right here on campus with all the students that are trying to create their American dream.”