Texas business leader "Joe from Texas" Penland Sr., who has been asking candidates to sign onto the "Contract from the American People," a 10-point initiative to fight the spiraling national debt, told Newsmax that he's endorsing former President Donald Trump, saying his platform to revive the economy closely matches what Americans are demanding.
"If you look at Donald Trump's platform, what he has, about eight of these 10 [on the contract] are on his 15-point script that he has," Penland told Newsmax's National Report Friday.
Still, Penland said he and others working with the initiative didn't support Trump from day one because two years ago, they didn't know who would be in the election.
"We held off until we talked to thousands of people to see what they really want," said Penland, explaining that the contract contains demands that make sense to the American people, and politicians are being asked to sign on and take the pledge to better the country.
Penland told Newsmax that the economy has gotten worse for the "last several presidents."
He added that when the election started, he got requests for money for campaigns, and decided to "take the money that they want" and launch an investigation into what is going on with debt and other problems.
"We hired some people and we put a team together and we started researching, and as you researched it, it got a lot worse than what you hear on the news or reading the paper," said Penland.
And while on tour around the country, Penland said the group learned that "people are really further into this than what the politicians give us credit."
"They think that the American people are completely in the dark, that we don't know what we're doing," he said. "Look at all the businesses that this country has. You know, we are the empire of the world as far as business and people all want to come to this country. They all want to start their business here."
But the United States is "subbing that market out," he said.
Penland is the founder and chairman of Quality Mat Company, one of the oldest and largest producers of rig, oilfield, and crane mats in the world, and has served on several bank boards over a quarter of a century, and he said he thought it was important to "unmask the American financial situation."
"This contract is not from me and is not from Dave Walker, who's the former comptroller general of the United States who helped author it," he said. "This is from the American people. This is what the American people want. And the politicians need to listen to that."
The national debt is now at almost $36 trillion, and Penland pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the United States will go $2 trillion more in the hole per year for the next 10 years.
"That would be $56 trillion," he said. "We'll pay $2 trillion a year in interest. That money should be helping children go to school, should be helping elderly people, should be taking care of our streets and our border.
"It took us over 220 years to get to $1 trillion in debt, and now we go $2 trillion every year in debt for the next 10 years," he said. "I think it's unacceptable. And I take offense to it."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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