Contract FROM America

POLITICO: Debt Ceiling Talks have Tea Party Ready for Disappointment – and Retribution

Editorial Staff — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:35:38 +0000

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Marin Cogan

Tea party activists braced for disappointment as negotiations on the debt ceiling finally resulted in a deal Sunday, but sent a clear signal to congressional Republicans that they are in no mood to tolerate compromise and will seek retribution against anyone who has not fully supported their agenda.

They are focused in particular on the fate of the concession they extracted from House Speaker John Boehner in order to get his debt ceiling bill through the House last week – a provision making a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution a prerequisite for raising the debt ceiling again that they regarded as a huge victory.

“If the final bill is passed by establishment Republicans and House Democrats and does not include a balanced budget amendment as a requirement, it will be completely unacceptable and will be seen as a violation of the mandate that the tea party and like-minded people gave Republicans in 2010,” said Ryan Hecker, the leader of a crowd-sourced tea party effort called the Contract from America.

“The tea party didn’t help elect Republicans because they liked Republicans. They elected Republicans to give them a second chance. And if they go moderate on this, then they have ruined their second chance, and there will be a real effort to replace them with those who will stand up for economic conservative values,” said Hecker, who helped conservative House Republicans rally support for the amendment.

Continue reading at Politico.com…

NYT: The Tea Party Plans Its Own Debt Panel

Editorial Staff — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:45:27 +0000

By Kate Zernike

While the Tea Party movement has led the charge for cutting the national debt, its supporters have often struggled to explain how, exactly, they would do so.

Now some are out to change that, joining a Tea Party Debt Commission that plans to hold hearings over the summer, in the hopes of delivering recommendations to lawmakers by January.

The commission is being organized by FreedomWorks, the libertarian advocacy group that helped grow the Tea Party movement and mobilize it for the midterm elections. And its recommendations are likely to line up with the goals of that group, which in turn tend to reflect those of libertarian organizations like the Cato Institute. (FreedomWorks’ motto is Lower Taxes, Less Government, More Freedom, and it has worked against environmental regulations and for increased privatization of health care.)

“If you look if you look at the landscape in Washington, D.C., there’s a lot of Democrats who control two-thirds of the process who are now sitting on their hands, waiting to point fingers at Republicans who propose something, and there’s too many Republicans who are afraid that the public won’t understand a serious proposal to solve the budget deficit,” said Matt Kibbe, the group’s president.

“We think, like with the first days of the Tea Party movement, that the only way we will ever reduce the debt and balance the budget is if America beats Washington and Tea Party activists take over this process, take over the public debate and engage the American people in the hard work of making tough choices.”

FreedomWorks held training for about 150 activists from 30 states at its headquarters in Washington over the weekend, with sessions dedicated to educating them about the budget proposals by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, both Republicans who strongly embrace libertarian economic principles.

The activists, along with FreedomWorks staff, came up with parameters for their budget proposals, declaring that they would have to balance the federal budget within 10 years, reduce federal spending to 18 percent of the gross domestic product, reduce the national debt to no more than 66 percent of the G.D.P., assume that revenue accounts for no more than 19 percent of the G.D.P., reduce federal spending by at least $300 billion in the first year and reduce federal spending by at least $9 trillion over 10 years.

All this is a tall order; for example, the debt now equals nearly 100 percent of the gross domestic product. And with its limits on revenue — and the politics behind those limits — it is unlikely that the Tea Party commission will allow anything that looks like a tax increase.

The commission, to be formally announced Monday, is intended as a rebuke to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that President Obama named, which delivered its recommendations last year. Those recommendations were met with generally negative reviews from both parties, who were unwilling to make the sacrifices that were called for. But the Tea Party commission is modeled after President Obama’s, in one way — it, too, will have 18 members (though this one is unlikely to be bipartisan, as the president’s was).

The members will be chosen from 18 swing states, and will hold hearings in those states over the summer, Mr. Kibbe said.

Continue reading at the New York Times…

U.S. Senate Candidate, George Allen (R-VA), Signs Contract from America

Editorial Staff — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:55:55 +0000

The Contract from America Foundation announced today that U.S. Senate candidate George Allen (R-VA) has joined over 70 currently elected Senators and Congressmen nationwide by listening to the wishes of his constituents and signing the “Contract from America,” a Main Street, tea party-driven legislative blueprint for 2011 and beyond. He is the first to do so in Virginia for the 2012 election cycle.

Ryan Hecker, one of the organizers of the Contract from America, elaborated: “George Allen, by signing the Contract from America, has shown himself to be a true champion of Main Street and tea party values. He has illustrated that, if elected, he will listen to his constituents and be a true grassroots conservative leader in the Senate. We are especially glad that George is the first candidate in Virginia to sign the Contract in the 2012 cycle.”

In signing this bottom-up call for economic conservative and good governance reform, George Allen stated:

“Virginians are anxious about the struggling economy, out-of-control spending, and growing debt that is threatening to rob our children of the opportunities we had. Rather than the dictates, mandates and tax hikes coming out of Washington we need a pro-growth agenda based on our foundational principles of freedom, personal responsibility and opportunity for all. In the U.S. Senate I pledge to protect and build upon the basic principles of the Contract from America – individual liberty, limited government and economic freedom.”

Visit Mr. Allen’s campaign website: www.georgeallen.com

HUMAN EVENTS: Adam Hasner Signs the Contract From America

Editorial Staff — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:16:54 +0000

By John Hayward

Adam Hasner, one of the candidates striving to join Marco Rubio as a United States senator from Florida, signed the “Contract From America” today. This is a sequel of sorts to the “Contract With America,” a package of policies and principles that helped Republicans nationalize congressional elections back in 1994. Hasner is the first of the Florida Senate candidates to sign it.

“I’m proud to sign the Contract from America without hesitation,” said Hasner in a press release. “The foundational values represented in the Contract are the same pillars of liberty, economic freedom, and limited government that are the foundation of our campaign in Florida. With America facing generational challenges on spending, the debt, and entitlement reforms, values like the ones contained within the Contract are needed now more than ever.”

The importance of a document like the Contract From America extends beyond elevating a House or Senate race into a part of the national narrative. It is a sign of big-picture thinking, attractive to voters who want some idea of a candidate’s core principles, and his grand strategy for addressing the challenges facing the nation. Detailed policy should flow from big ideas.

“The purpose of our government,” the Contract declares, “is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.”

Continue reading at Human Events…

The Contract from America

Scott W. Graves — Tue, 17 May 2011 20:30:05 +0000

We, the citizens of the United States of America, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items and advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Protect the Constitution
Reject Cap & Trade
Demand a Balanced Budget
Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
End Runaway Government Spending
Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Stop the Pork
Stop the Tax Hikes

——————–

Click here for the full text version.

SLATE: No, the Tea Party Isn’t Stalling

Scott W. Graves — Sat, 14 May 2011 05:52:12 +0000

Yes, the Ryan plan for Medicare has become a political football -- we sort of knew it would. But has there been a backlash to the Medicaid block grant concept? No. And while the Ryan plan has become controversial, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner both confirmed this week that they want entitlement reform as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling. That's substantially more commitment to entitlement reform, with more urgency, than House and Senate Republicans gave George W. Bush in 2005. It might be useful to look at a metric of what the Tea Party wanted in 2011. Check out the "Contract from America," which was endorsed by basically every Tea Party group. No related posts.

Race Heats up for 26th Congressional District Seat

Scott W. Graves — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:34:06 +0000

By Erinn Cain, Penfield Post Staff Writer

As the election nears on May 24, the race is heating up to fill the 26th Congressional District seat vacated by Republican Chris Lee.

Here is the latest in the race:

Tea Party Express came to the Rotary Lodge Greece Canal Park today to endorse candidate Jane Corwin. According to the group, candidate Jack Davis is listed under “Tea Party” on the ballot, but “his political past reveals him as a liberal Democrat with a history of supporting higher taxes, ObamaCare, cap and trade legislation, contributing many thousands of dollars to far-left Democrat candidates, as well as endorsing Barack Obama for president.”

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer has endorsed candidate Kathy Hochul. Schumer said he accredited the endorsement to Hochul’s strong ties to Western New York, her plan to help small businesses create jobs and her fight to protect Medicare.

Corwin has recently joined over 70 currently-elected Senators and Congressmen nationwide to sign the “Contract from America,” a Main Street, Tea Party-driven legislative blueprint for 2011 and beyond.

“For too long, Washington politicians have failed to take the lead on cutting spending and reforming our tax system,” said Corwin. “As someone who has helped run a small family business, I will fight to cut spending and reduce taxes so we can strengthen our economy and create good-paying jobs.”

Continue reading at the PendfieldPost.com…

Trade Deals Unite Left and Right in Opposition

Scott W. Graves — Wed, 11 May 2011 06:49:35 +0000

By Ambreen Ali, Roll Call Staff

Some tea party organizations have been quietly trading notes with left-leaning advocacy groups as both sides work to derail a series of upcoming free-trade agreements.

Together, they hope to deliver what one opponent of the deals described as a “one-two punch” to proposed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. As liberal groups and labor unions lobby Democrats, tea party members have been calling the Republican freshmen they helped elect.

Some tea party groups have a protectionist slant, opposing pacts that might increase competition faced by U.S. producers, but other groups oppose trade deals because they oppose “big government.” For this faction, free trade should simply be freedom to trade with anyone, instead of a detailed treaty written by governments.

Those concerns differ from labor rights issues and offshoring concerns raised by labor unions and liberals, but Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach said many of the arguments are “different sides of the same issue.”

“I’ve certainly talked to them. We’re not working with them, but I have called them at different times to ask how it’s going,” said Wallach, who is director of the left-leaning group’s Global Trade Watch.

The alliance is less surprising when viewed in light of a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll from last fall that found a majority of Americans believe free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S. In that poll, 90 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats agreed that outsourcing is a reason the domestic economy is struggling and people are not being hired.

Coordination between liberal and conservative advocates could be the opposition’s best hope to overcome a strong bloc of support for the trade agreements. Top Republican leaders including Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) have urged the president to deliver these deals, and the White House strongly favors the deals.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers and Heritage Action — the advocacy wing of the conservative Heritage Foundation — are all pushing for passage.

Even FreedomWorks, which works closely with the tea party movement, has argued, “Protectionism only robs Americans of their income and their freedom of choice. The cost of trade tariffs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.”

Some tea party members agree. Ryan Hecker — who helped devise the tea party’s policy platform, dubbed the Contract From America — said he is “100 percent for free trade and for anything that opens up trade barriers.”

Continue reading at Roll Call…

CASE STUDY: Tea Time in America?

Scott W. Graves — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:15:24 +0000

Christopher F. Karpowitz, Brigham Young University
J. Quin Monson, Brigham Young University
Kelly D. Patterson, Brigham Young University
Jeremy C. Pope, Brigham Young University

The Impact of the Tea Party Movement on the 2010 Midterm Elections
Given the extensive media attention that Tea Party rallies and other aspects of the movement have received, a key question is: How have Tea Party efforts translated into votes? Specifically, in the 2010 midterm elections, did a Tea Party endorsement lead to an increase in vote share for Republican candidates?1 One of the challenges of studying this movement is that by philosophy and design, it lacks a central leadership structure that coordinates nationwide efforts. Instead, the Tea Party is a far-flung patchwork of organizations, some local and some national, with a related set of issue concerns and positions. Some of these organizations—the Tea Party Patriots, the Campaign for Liberty, or Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, for example—choose not to endorse candidates. Other Tea Party–affiliated groups do offer official or public endorsements, although their efforts do not appear to be coordinated, and, as will become evident, patterns of endorsement vary widely across the different groups.

We identified several organizations or political leaders that either explicitly adopt the Tea Party label or are often identified by news organizations as affiliates of the movement. Groups that endorsed numerous candidates in numerous states and thus seemed to acquire a national presence included the Tea Party Express, the Independence Caucus, the Boston Tea Party, and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks. Based on information from Tea Party organizations themselves and local and national press accounts, we compiled a dataset of variables charting whether each of these organizations endorsed the Republican candidate in every congressional district in the country.2 Because of her high profile within the movement and the fact that her candidate endorsements were heavily publicized,we also included a measure of whether Sarah Palin endorsed the Republican candidate. In addition to these national organizations and individuals,we searched the major newspapers within every state for any evidence of endorsement of congressional candidates by local Tea Party groups.
…
However, affiliation with the Tea Party also mattered in other important ways. Candidates endorsed by the Tea Party Express and Sarah Palin garnered approximately 8 to 9 percentage points more than candidates who did not receive an endorsement. Candidates who adopted the Tea Party label themselves by signing the Contract from America did even better, with their vote shares increasing by more than 20 points.11 In the 2010 Republican primaries, either bearing a Tea Party stamp of approval or showing a willingness to affiliate with Tea Party principles clearly improved a candidate’s electoral prospects.

Read the whole study here…

HUMAN EVENTS: Why Newt Gingrich Will Be a Formidable Contender

Scott W. Graves — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:00:56 +0000

By Tony Lee

In the next two weeks, the 2012 field of GOP presidential contenders will congeal. Last week, Newt Gingrich showed why he will be a more than formidable candidate. During a series of events, he displayed how he can combine politics, policy, and publicity to leverage his ideas and brand.

During a tele-townhall co-hosted by The Contract From America (Gingrich was its first signatory), BBA Now, and The TeaParty.net, Gingrich showed his depth and range on a variety of issues ranging from immigration, to allowing people to opt-in to a flat tax rate, to criticizing President Obama for seemingly caring more about offshore drilling in Brazil than in America.

During the tele-forum, Gingrich also called on George Washington University to invite Paul Ryan back to give a counter to President Obama’s speech at the university, which Gingrich said was a “demagogic” speech that was “cheap” and “nasty” because it used Ryan as a “prop.”

The next day, on an appearance on The Kudlow Report, Gingrich said he would make an announcment regarding his candidacy during the first week of May. He then said that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should not get a second term.

During an appearance in Charleston, South Carolina on Thursday, Gingrich outlined some innovative approaches to energy security, summarized below:

Replace the Environmental Protection Agency, which has become a job-killing regulatory engine of higher energy prices, with an Environmental Solutions Agency that would work cooperatively with local government and industry to achieve better environmental outcomes while considering the impact of federal environmental policies on job creation and the cost of energy.
End the ban on oil shale development in the American West, where we have three times the amount oil as Saudi Arabia.
Give coastal states federal royalty revenue sharing so that state’s budgets directly benefits from offshore development.
Enact a loser-pays law to force the losers in environmental lawsuits to pay all legal costs for the prevailing side, which will reduce frivolous lawsuits that are employed simply to stop energy production.
Finance cleaner energy research and projects with new oil and gas royalties.
Appoint a commission of engineers and scientists, not politicians, to study the damaged nuclear reactor in Japan and determine if any changes need to be made to US nuclear power standards.

Then, at the Brookings Institution on Friday, Gingrich gave a substantive, compelling, and engaging speech regarding health policy.

Continue reading at Human Events…

Collapse of the omnibus spending bill: rise of the ‘tea party Congress’?

Scott W. Graves — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 06:42:28 +0000

On the anniversary of the actual Boston tea party some 237 years ago – when pesky colonists dressed up as Indians and threw the King’s tea into Boston Harbor – the modern invocation of that revolutionary spirit tossed another expensive package overboard Thursday: a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill.

After leading a Republican charge into the House in the Nov. 2 midterm elections, the anti-debt, anti-federalist tea party movement notched its first major legislative victory Thursday by standing up to big-spending Democrats and Republicans and forcing Republican leadership to revoke its support of a bill laden with $8.3 billion worth of legislative earmarks – lawmakers’ pet projects known as pork-barrel spending.

Among other spending priorities, the bill included a total of $1 billion to kickstart the first phase of the federal health-care reform law passed in April, meaning that its defeat likely lays the groundwork for Republicans to follow through on their promise to gut funding for the landmark legislation – per the tea party’s wishes, by the way.

Beer museum? Five famous ‘pork barrel’ projects

The failure of the omnibus bill “is a reminder for Democrats that their ‘historic’ legislation may be short-lived,” writes Washington Post conservative commentator Jennifer Rubin.

Sen. Harry Reid, who had to shelve the bill when Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, under grassroots pressure, swayed nine critical Republican lawmakers to resist it, complained that its failure indicated that Republican leadership has become “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the tea party.”

Faint praise, perhaps, but tea party activists across the country clearly took the repudiation of the pork-laden spending bill as its first major legislative victory and a sign that the grassroots movement will be able to wield influence over the Republican agenda.

“The sun rises tomorrow on a new political landscape” said commenter “reheiler” on National Review, in response to the failure of the omnibus bill. “I grew up on a horse farm. They behave differently after they’ve been broken.”

“The Republicans recognized the lesson from the election: that the grass roots, the tea party, does not want unnecessary federal spending, and they realized that they ignore that sentiment at their own peril,” adds Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, R.I. The Democrats, meanwhile, “miscalculated the internal pressure that fiscal conservatives are putting on Republicans – they didn’t think that some of these Republicans … would be willing to walk away from these earmarks,” she says.

Earlier this week, Reid apparently believed he had locked in nine key Republican votes that would have ensured passage of a bipartisan spending package before the government officially runs out of money on Saturday.

Continue reading at the Christian Science Monitor…

NATIONAL REVIEW: Gingrich Weighs in on GOP ‘Pledge to America”

Editorial Staff — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:25:39 +0000

The former speaker comments on the Pledge:

Like with the Contract with America in 1994, a new generation of reform Republicans is offering the American people a clear choice about America’s future. Reconnecting Congress to the Constitution and based on listening to citizens in every part of the country — especially the 2010 Contract FROM America — the reform Republicans offer a choice between the job killing, big government, high tax agenda of the Democratic Party and a Republican Party agenda to reverse out-of-control spending, restore fiscal accountability leading to a balanced budget, create confidence in the private sector to spur new job creation, and strengthen the family.

Be sure to visit the National Review’s ‘The Corner’ for frequent updates on Washington politics.

POLITICS DAILY: Republicans Officially Unveil ‘Pledge to America’

Editorial Staff — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:20:41 +0000

By Patricia Murphy

STERLING, Va.– Far from the steps of the U.S. Capitol, 13 Republican members of Congress gathered Thursday at Tart Lumber Co. to unveil “Pledge to America,” a 45-page booklet they promise will guide their efforts to reform the government Americans say they no longer trust.

House Minority Leader John Boehner stood in shirt-sleeves between rows of raw lumber to explain that the pledge was drafted by listening to the American people and reflected their number one priority — jump-starting the American economy.

“Our pledge to America is that Republicans stand ready to get it done, beginning today,” Boehner said.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Cali.), the man who led the effort to draft the Pledge, said he blamed the Obama administration’s “disastrous policies” for the country’s current economic struggles.

Pledge to America”The land of opportunity has become the land of shrinking prosperity,” he said. “From the bill to bailout the banks to the stimulus that failed to stimulate anything but the deficit to the government takeover over health care, [the American people] said stop. Well, we heard you, we heard you loud and clear.”

Unlike Republicans’ 1994 Contract With America, no candidates or members of Congress will sign the Pledge and no group will march up the Capitol steps to support it. And while the 1994 Contract aggressively promised to enact term limits, amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget and cut off welfare payments to teen moms, the 2010 document softens the tone and broadens the focus to include familiar GOP proposals on health care, national security and shrinking the size of federal government.

Boehner explained that the Pledge covered five areas — jobs and the economy, lowering government spending and reducing the size of government, repealing the recently passed health care law, reforming Congress, and strengthening national security.

Continue reading at Politic Daily…

FOX NEWS: Is GOP “Pledge” A Direct Descendant Of Tea Party “Contract from America”

Editorial Staff — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:30:07 +0000

STERLING, Va. — House Republicans came to TART Lumber in suburban Washington, D.C. Thursday to unveil their “Pledge to America,” a sweeping conservative agenda that calls for reigning in federal spending, permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts and repealing President Obama’s democratically passed health care reform law.

Republicans are hoping the document serves as a rallying call for conservatives to get out the vote this fall and propel them back into the majority in the House of Representatives. “The Pledge” also gives us a preview of the issues Republicans would push should they succeed in their efforts.

Although they won’t admit to it publicly, “The Pledge To America” bears some striking similarities to a Tea Party backed document called “The Contract From America.”

“There are a number of ideas in their document that come straight from ‘The Contract From America,’ said Tea Party Society Member and the “Contract From America” organizer Ryan Hecker. “Their ‘Pledge to America’ includes many of our Contract’s planks, including the top-voted idea to ‘Protect the Constitution’ by requiring every bill to cite Constitutional authority, rejection of Cap and Trade, the imposition of meaningful spending limits, repeal of government-run health care, and extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.”

When asked about any connection between the two documents during Thursdays event, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, downplayed any link. “We listened to all Americans as we put this together,” Boehner said. “Our members over the last four months have done thousands of town hall meetings, public forums, private meetings to listen to the American people and bring their ideas back to Washington.”

However, after the event a senior member of the Republican House leadership told Fox News, “That document had a lot of influence on ours. No question about it.”

Continue reading at Fox News online…

Statement on the Republican “Pledge To America”

Editorial Staff — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:53:32 +0000

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A HARDCOPY OF THIS STATEMENT

The Contract from America Foundation made the following announcement today regarding the newly released Republican “Pledge to America”:

We are pleased that the Republicans were so heavily influenced by the message of the grassroots Contract from America that their “Pledge to America” includes many of our Contract’s planks, including the top-voted idea to “Protect the Constitution” by requiring every bill to cite Constitutional authority, rejection of Cap and Trade, the imposition of meaningful spending limits, repeal of government-run health care, and extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. We are also pleased that they so admired the Contract’s model of allowing for real citizen input that they created their own website, America Speaking Out, to approximate the same function. This is evidence that Republicans are beginning to listen to the millions of ordinary Americans that are fed up with Washington’s ways.

Republican Congressmen, Senators, and candidates should still sign the Contract from America, which boldly tackles the challenges of fundamental tax reform, passage of a balanced budget amendment with a supermajority requirement for any tax hike, and real earmark reform.

The Contract from America is handed up from the true grassroots in this country. After garnering nearly half a million votes in less than two months, the Contract from America is a blueprint that reflects what the people want for their future. If Republicans sign the Contract, they will prove that they are listening to the will of millions of grassroots activists that have protested the unconscionable expansion of government.

Over 300 candidates have signed the Contract from America, including Senators DeMint and Coburn, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Representative Michele Bachmann, and Senate candidates Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Jerry Moran, Dino Rossi, Ron Johnson, John Boozman, Kelly Ayotte, and John Raese.

CBS NEWS: “Pledge to America” Unveiled by Republicans (Full Text)

Editorial Staff — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 21:50:43 +0000

By Brian Montopoli, Jill Jackson

CBS News has obtained a final draft of House Republicans’ legislative agenda for the next Congress, a 21-page “Pledge to America” that they will formally unveil Thursday morning at a Virginia hardware store.

“The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated,” the introduction says.

It continues: “With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America.”

Highlights include:

Jobs:

Stop job-killing tax hikes
Allow small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income
Require congressional approval for any new federal regulation that would add to the deficit
Repeal small business mandates in the new health care law.

Cutting Spending:

Repeal and Replace health care
Roll back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels before TARP and stimulus (will save $100 billion in first year alone)
Establish strict budget caps to limit federal spending going forward
Cancel all future TARP payments and reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Reforming Congress:

Will require that every bill have a citation of constitutional authority
Give members at least 3 days to read bills before a vote

Defense:

Provide resources to troops
Fund missile defense
Enforce sanctions in Iran

To continue reading the complete text of the document, please visit CBS News…

UK’s MAIL ONLINE: ‘Tea Party’ Rebels Score Stunning Poll Victories

Editorial Staff — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 17:00:13 +0000

By Tom Leonard

They want to purify their party and their country, returning America to the honest, founding traditions of thrift, small government and self-reliance from which, they say, it has strayed.

And, like the protesters from whom they take their name (the Bostonians who demonstrated against British taxation by dumping tea into the city’s harbour in 1773), the Tea Party rebels are – by their own account – as ‘mad as hell’.

But whether they are a bunch of dotty extremists or not, the Tea Party phenomenon suddenly poses a serious threat.

On Tuesday night, the upsurge in anger among grassroots American conservatives, with both Barack Obama and the Republican Party, made itself spectacularly felt in the tiny, affluent state of Delaware.

In one of the least expected results of the primary season – in which candidates are chosen for November’s mid-term elections – Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party-backed dissident Republican, beat a moderate and establishment favourite to win the party’s nomination for vice-president Joe Biden’s old seat in the U.S. Senate.

O’Donnell is a perennial candidate and former abstinence counsellor, who promotes complete celibacy before marriage and has a fierce stance on guns (pro), government spending (anti), abortion (anti) and masturbation (anti – it’s a sin, she says).

Her strong beliefs had prompted many – especially local Republican leaders – to write her off as unelectable.

But then Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate and a poster girl of the Tea Party movement, endorsed O’Donnell.

In a move that has proved electorally successful across the U.S., Mrs Palin described her as one of her ‘mama grizzlies’ – a term she has coined to describe her uncompromising conservative allies.

Grizzly bears may be common in the rough and ready Palin home state of Alaska, but in the more sophisticated environs of Delaware they are unheard of outside the zoo.

As the significance of O’Donnell’s victory (accompanied by similar Tea Party success in New York, where its multi-millionaire candidate, Carl Paladino, won a Republican primary for state governor) sank in yesterday, there was a feeling across America that if it can happen in Delaware, it can happen anywhere.

O’Donnell trilled from the podium to huge cheers: ‘Don’t ever underestimate the power of we the people.’ There is fat chance of that now.

Carl Paladino has won a Republican primary for state governor in New York

‘Nightmare’ was a common verdict among political commentators — not for Mr Obama’s Democrats, who are chuckling at the idea of a divided opposition, but for the Republican Party.

It sees its hopes of grabbing power in Congress and crushing key Obama immigration and global warming legislation dashed by the election of Tea Partiers who have little hope of attracting the crucial independent floating voters when it comes to the election in November.

That is why the Tea Party movement is such a mixed blessing for the Republicans.

Yes, its energy has galvanised the party as Obamania once electrified the Democrats. But it also has the potential to frighten away moderate, mainstream voters, disillusioned with the Obama regime.

Republicans shouted themselves hoarse insisting that O’Donnell, who has a history of financial problems and dubious claims about her education, would be unelectable in November — but the Tea Partiers still backed her.

For them, keeping the Democrats out of power matters less than ideological purity.

But then commentators admit to being baffled by the Tea Party movement. Much of the problem is that it is hardly a party at all — in fact, it is more a network of like-minds than an organisation.

Completely decentralised, true to its libertarian principles, it has no real leader (every Tea Partier is his or her own spokesman) and no formal membership structure.

If you call yourself a Tea Partier, then, hey, you are one.

More than 200 leaders of local tea parties, in an umbrella group called Tea Party Patriots, discuss developments every week in a conference call, but that is as far as any party hierarchy goes.

Jonathan Rauch, an academic who has studied the movement, describes the average member as ‘white, bright and right’ – a well-educated conservative who is now an independent, even if he or she generally supports Republican policies.

Accusations of racial exclusivity have dogged the movement, but Rauch says members are largely white as few blacks and Hispanics are conservatives.

Membership numbers are vague, but there are estimated to be tens of thousands of activists.

The movement itself claims to have 17million supporters, but that could include anyone who has ever expressed sympathy with the Tea Party philosophy.

As for that philosophy, congressional candidates are expected to follow a ten-point Contract From America agenda aimed at making Washington more accountable.

NYT: Tea Partiers Bring Cause to Washington

Editorial Staff — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:16:13 +0000

By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON — Thousands of Tea Party supporters marched to the foot of Capitol Hill on Sunday, declaring their determination to topple the Democratic majority in Congress on Election Day.

“If we do not succeed in November, all that once was good and great about this country could someday be gone,” warned Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the chairman of the House Republican Conference. He added, “Let’s give them a November that they never forget.”

The event, organized by FreedomWorks, a libertarian advocacy group that has helped the Tea Party grow, was a repeat of a march on Washington that was a defining moment for the nascent movement a year ago. And it was intended as a political bookend to the religious revival that Glenn Beck called for at the Lincoln Memorial two weeks ago, drawing many of the same people.

This crowd was not nearly as large as the one that marched last year, or the one at Mr. Beck’s rally. Ending up on the western slope of the Capitol, it stretched back, stopping just short of the National Mall. But in many ways the crowd was louder than the one that had amassed for Mr. Beck. He had asked people to leave signs at home; FreedomWorks encouraged people to bring their signs, and to get loud.

The crowd cheered wildly as speakers celebrated the victories of Tea Party candidates who have upset establishment candidates in Republican primaries, and proclaimed that the Tea Party would now turn its ire against the Democrats.

“I believe we’ve got the Republican Party’s attention — we’ve been beating the establishment all over the country,” said Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader and the chairman of FreedomWorks, to a burst of cheering. “It’s time we give the same lesson to the other party.”

Mr. Pence taunted the Democratic leadership: “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job. A recovery is when Nancy Pelosi loses her job.”

As the crowd cheered, he gave a taste of what a Republican-led Congress might look like, calling for a repeal of the health care overhaul legislation “lock, stock and barrel,” and an end to “bailouts, once and for all.”

Speakers talked about the 10 points in the so-called Contract From America, a Tea Party manifesto that was created online as people proposed and then voted on what they wanted Congress to do. The provisions include a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget and requiring all legislation to state the exact provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to enact such a law.

“We run things,” Ryan Hecker, a young Tea Party activist from Houston who conceived of the contract, told the crowd. “Not only should we be listened to, we should be shown deference.”

Continue reading at the New York Times…

USAToday: ‘Tea Party’ rallies put focus on November races.

Editorial Staff — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:10:21 +0000

By Gregory Korte, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — “Tea Party” activists marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on Sunday, almost taking for granted that their movement will help change Congress during elections Nov. 2.

The date they’re more focused on: Nov. 3.

A roster of speakers — talk show hosts, bloggers and politicians, but mostly grass-roots organizers — told a crowd on the west lawn of the Capitol that they can’t let up if they want to repeal the health care law, cut spending and lower taxes.

“It’s also time to talk tough to the Republican Party, which all too often thinks this movement is about what’s good for their careers, rather than what’s good for America,” said Bob McGuffie, the Connecticut activist who helped develop the strategy of disrupting congressional meetings last year in an effort to derail the health care bill.

“We’re not here to split the Republican Party. We’re here to take it over,” he told a crowd whose yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags were as ubiquitous as the U.S. flag.

“I believe we’ve gotten the Republican Party’s attention, because we’ve beaten the establishment all over the country,” said Dick Armey, the former House minority leader who now chairs FreedomWorks, a 26-year-old conservative group that organized Sunday’s rally.

Activists held similar rallies Sunday in Sacramento and St. Louis. Dampened by morning rain, attendance in Washington was considerably smaller than either last year’s Sept. 12 event or last month’s gathering by talk show host Glenn Beck.

The rally lacked the household names — such as Beck or former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin— that have highlighted previous events.

“I’m sure the press is going to focus on the numbers, but the only numbers that matter are 51, 218 and one,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., referring to the majorities needed in the Senate, House and White House.

“Government belongs to those who show up,” Armey said in an interview. “The only people showing up are the small-government conservatives.”

Continue reading at USAToday…

Support the Tea Party Movement

Scott W. Graves — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:20:21 +0000

Conservatives understand the importance of planning, saving, and fiscal discipline. They also know the best way to reach a financial goal is to invest a small amount of money each month until that goal is achieved. With those values in mind, we introduce The Tea Party War Chest.

During the next 18 months, President Obama plans to raise $1 BILLION for his re-election campaign. That’s more than $8.00 per voter so that he can continue his destructive policies that tear at the fabric of America’s greatness. We must ensure his efforts fail.

We ask that you set aside a small amount each month to help the tea party movement build a competitive campaign war chest. Your generous support will go directly to helping defeat President Obama and to elect congressional leaders who will embrace the principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty.

Start today. Click the Donate button below and setup a simple monthly payment of $5, $10, $100, or more. Every dollar counts!