Kenny McMillen, age 4, wanted nothing more than to have Bob the Builder on his sign for the Tax Day Tea Party last month.  His mother, Paula, explained to him that he could not and -- after Kenny became upset at this refusal and had a little fight with his sister -- gave him a timeout to calm down.

Later, as he watched his mom become upset while watching a news story about the recent increases in government spending, Kenny was confused and asked his mom, "Are they being bad?"

"Yeah, they're being bad," she answered.

"So give THEM a timeout!"

And so Paula grabbed a marker and wrote, "You spend my future, you need a timeout," on a sign as she waited for her husband Jason to get home from work before they headed to the tea party at the Douglas County Courthouse in Roseburg, Oregon.

Kenny, who is just learning the Pledge of Allegiance, was thrilled as he placed his hand over his heart and recited it as best he could, joining in with the crowd of roughly 1,000 people who spoke it to kick off the tea party.

Kenny was living it up, enthusiastically waving his sign and offered to hold up signs for people who had put them down, even if the sign was bigger than he was.  

One lady asked Kenny if he knew why he was there, to which he answered, "It's a party about saving money in my penny bank!"

Paula had struggled with how to explain the problem about excessive spending and debt to her young son.  "When Daddy makes money, he needs to pay some of it to the government to do things like fix the roads," she explained.  "But now they're taking so much of the money, it's getting hard for Mommy and Daddy."

Though that explanation was good enough for Kenny, for Paula, the issue is far more personal than that.  

Several years ago, she was told by doctors that she wouldn't be able to have kids.  Now she has two—Kenny and a two-year-old girl named Felicia—and considers that nothing short of a miracle and a blessing.  

So, when she sees her government piling enormous amounts of debt on her children's shoulders, she gets very protective.  She doesn't want them to grow up and find they have to pay a 50% income tax or have a huge government limit what they can do with their lives.  What she wants more than anything is to see Kenny and Felicia grow up in a country where they can be anything they want to be if they work hard enough for it.  She unfortunately sees that opportunity slipping away.

Paula and Jason, who were never active in politics until recently, now take every possible opportunity to stand up and make their voice heard.  They attend meetings of local government and of the Oregon chapter of Americans for Prosperity, as well as frequently write letters to the editor of local newspapers.

Though Paula recognizes the threat these issues bring today, she is more concerned about what is on the horizon.

"It's not like these issues don't affect me at all," she says.  "But they will decide what sorts of lives my children have, and my kids need someone to stand up and fight for them."

We congratulate Paula McMillen, the winner of Stop Spending Our Future's Spread the Word Contest.  This story was not a direct submission, but was inspired by her entry.  We hope the $1,000 can go a long way towards keeping Kenny's penny bank filled for a long time.