A wise friend of mine once said, “There is nothing new under the sun or in politics. You should steal a good idea as often as you can.”
In 1994, Newt Gingrich had a brilliant idea. He offered the Contract with America. It was a list of ten things the GOP would do if the American people gave it the majority in the House.
As we go into this fall’s election, the Tea Party needs to do the same thing. This Wednesday, the Tea Party Caucus will meet on Capitol Hill in DC. The members of the Tea Party Caucus will be there, as will a number of leaders from various Tea Party groups.
I am fortunate and have been given the opportunity to speak to the Caucus for a few minutes.
I am going to talk about a Tea Party Agenda for this fall.
We need something specific to tell the American people that if you elect Tea Party candidates to office in the Senate and the House, this is what we are going to do. We need good, simple and workable ideas.
The Tea Party Agenda should have five or six items on it. These need to be 90% issue. If you are not familiar with the term “90% issue” it is a term I use to refer to issues that 90% of Americans will agree with.
Why five or six issues? It is simple. The leadership of the House of Representatives is not sympathetic to the Tea Party movement. John Boehner will give it lip service but last year under his watch, the House approved spending that was 3% higher than when Nancy Pelosi ran the House. He surrendered on every major issue including the budget and the debt ceiling. Eric Cantor has shown scant more leadership, with his Young Guns PAC helping out RINO Richard Lugar against Tea Party Candidate Richard Mourdock.
These need to be issues that the leadership of the House and the new Republican leadership in the Senate have to address. We need to find good issues that would simply be too painful for the leadership to ignore or let die. We need those 90% issues that are popular with the American people. We need issues we can point to as victories next year.
What are those issues?
This is where I need your help. This movement remains a leaderless movement. It is bottom up, grassroots. I could stand up and announce the five or six items that would be the Tea Party Agenda. That and fifty dollars is going to get me a small cup of coffee at Starbucks.
These issues must come from the people, so I am asking each of you to do the following. Take the link to this blog and share it on every Tea Party and liberty website you can. Share it on Facebook and on the pages of Facebook groups. We need people to come on to this site and suggest items for the Tea Party Agenda.
I need people to come to Tea Party Nation because there needs to be one central site.
I am going to make the first contribution for what should be on the Tea Party Agenda. Louisiana Congressman John Fleming has proposed HR 2680. This is the Federal Realignment and Closure Commission bill. The idea behind the bill is that a commission goes through the Federal budget, looking for agencies and programs that are wasteful, duplicative or have just failed. These would be targeted for elimination.
The commission would submit its findings to Congress for an up or down vote, without amendments. Pork barrel projects and earmarks could not be protected. Then it would go on to the President for signature or veto.
With the Government Accountability Office having identified hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, this is an easy 90% issue. 90% of Americans are outraged by government waste and fraud. 90% of Americans believe we are spending too much and our debt is now a major problem.
What other issues can we put into a Tea Party Agenda?
This is a grassroots effort and we need your input.
What issues should we put in the Agenda?
Permalink Reply by Jo Gonzalez on Get rid of entitlements, that is, go through them, and weed out the ones, that are just plain "Playing Santa Claus" with our Taxpayer money, and whittle it down.. .One of Newt's ideas was, in order to receive Unemployment, you should be required to have to study a trade to qualify. Also, drug testing for anyone receiving any Welfare. I don't mind helping the truly needy, but by God, I will be damned if I am going to buy your dope for you.
This is a good post Judson, thank you.we have many truly creative People with us, and everyone can ccontribute.
Permalink Reply by FRANK CARTER on 
Permalink Reply by Monica Babcock on I've passed this petition around online and it gets alot of support.
In all fairness, David, sometimes copy/paste does that ... except when you want it to (as I found out)! One solution is to paste to a Word doc first, adjust, then copy/paste.
Permalink Reply by Lizzie on David, LOL!
although,
If I only have 4 choices for a Tea Party agenda, Frank's congressional reforms would definitely be on it.
Permalink Reply by Robert Burton on First, we need to admit that we require a strong and healthy economy in order to have a strong entrepreneurial presence, strong job growth as well as a strong military, strong domestic and border security.
Next, we need to overturn ObamaCare and vote to create legislation for and replacement of ObamaCare with the bipartisan Ryan Plan for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Rescind the reductions in military budgets as well as review and update the NASA mission.
Then, we must rescind, through legislative action the tax increases set to go into effect January one 2013. Legislate that the AMT, with minor modifications, become the Federal Income tax system for all Americans. Then commit to pay off all debt to sovereign foreign nations over a period of sixteen years.
Next, waive all White House agency regulations and Presidential orders created by the Obama Executive Branch. Then one by one immediately either reimpose or eliminate those that that do or do not fit within the Constitution of the United States.In addition, review all treaties and agreements approved by the Senate, over the past four years and re-legislate to overturn UN agreements or treaties with the U.S that are not consistent with the Constitution or in the best interests of the nation.
Next, remove retroactively one year or multi year extraordinary crisis spending (TARP, STIMULUS, WARS) from the base budget for normal operations and reconfigure what the base budget should have been plus inflation or population increases before moving forward for year over year future budget purposes. Then insure that any and all crisis spending be separately budgeted and no longer included within the base budget for normal operations. In addition, no longer will the government include automatic budget increases year over year before considering what the new follow-on yearly budgets should be. Going forward, the government will indicate the actual funds expended for the current year and then indicate the actual dollars to be spent in each of the following years. No more automatic 10% year over year budget increases as the starting point for consideration of new spending targets for each of the following years.
Finally, reduce the size of the Federal Government workforce. Start with the Czars and all employment that grew exponentially since 2008. Employ zero based budgeting to analyze those needs the Federal Government must provide and those that can be provided by private companies. For example, start with the privatization of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Sallie Mae; then privatize the Postal Service, Amtrak, FEMA and others. Sell off the majority of federal civilian airplanes and limousines, sell empty buildings, sell little used military lands and other assets.Reduce the duplication of committees and programs across all branches of the Federal Government. Provide for an efficient accountable, productive government that Americans can be proud of.
Permalink Reply by Ellen Burton on Overturn Obamacare/replace with market based options Reform entitlements (start with Paul Ryan's plan) Go to zero base budget--no auto increases in spending. Create strong military/defense inluding space(we need satellite ability to spy and knock down an attack from another nation) Reduce size of government/reduce salaries, benefits to match non-gov. employment. Rescind tax increases and replace current system with either a flat tax or sales tax. Ditch all regulations,treaties, etc. put forth by this administration as fast as possible
Worth repeating: " Create strong military/defense inluding space(we need satellite ability to spy and knock down an attack from another nation) "
Also, put some meat back on the bones of FBI/CIA.
Permalink Reply by dbadj1949@yahoo.com on How about we eliminate all taxes and have a National sales tax. This way everyone would pay including the 48% that pay no taxes now. Repeal Obamacare--all of it. Make it easier for our businesses to operate without Uncle Sam having his nose in everything? This is just for starters.
Permalink Reply by Ronald Sorrells on Let the states set up a 10% consumer tax but let's not do "anything through Washingon...again!
Repeal the 16 th Amendment & return the "funding of the Federal to the States "like The Founders had it" !
Ron
I strongly favor the Fair Tax. Check out the calculator and I think you will, too: http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=calculator
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