Poll after poll has shown that Americans are not happy with the direction our nation is heading. Through tea party protests, town hall meetings, and Washington rallies, citizens are turning up the volume of their disapproval of bigger government, runaway spending, and disregard for America’s First Principles.

Last Saturday, an estimated 300,000 Americans gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the Restoring Honor rally hosted by conservative Fox News commentator Glenn Beck. Their cry: return our nation to “faith, hope and charity.”

While the rally didn’t have a specifically political message, the participants plainly supported America returning to the principles and ideals that made this country great from its inception, its First Principles. Rebuilding the foundation that America was built upon is strategy core mission of The Heritage Foundation.

Many Americans believe that policies implemented by this administration and this Congress are leading us astray from the fundamentals that the Founding Fathers had in mind at our country’s inception.  And they’re right.

Due to record “stimulus” spending and other misguided policies, this administration is doubling the national debt, threatening to bankrupt the government during one of the worst economic crises in decades. According to a Gallup poll, concern over the national debt is tied with terrorism as voters’ number one worry leading up to the November elections.

Or consider taxes. Small businesses are responsible for 64 percent of new jobs in the last fifteen years. But the administration isn’t acting to stop a massive tax increase on this growth sector of the economy. And as Heritage’s Brian Riedl points out, even the “stimulus” is based on tax increases: “Every dollar Congress injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy.”

These excesses are why Heritage has developed Solutions for America, a blueprint for conservative reform in the new Congress. Our plan promotes free enterprise, balanced budgets, marriage-friendly policies and a return to constitutional government.

Americans object to the liberal policies of the President and Congress at rallies like Beck’s, at tea party events, in the polls and at the ballot box. They do not seek a change in the fundamental character of the United States, but to preserve it. Americans continue to believe in American exceptionalism and that the American people can thrive if given the freedom to do so.

Bethany Murphy is a writer for MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. Nathaniel Ward and Amanda Reinecker contributed to this report.