Louisville Tea Party

WHITE HOUSE LAND GRAB

An unofficial memo from the White House has revealed plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New Mexico, halting job creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining and energy development.  This land grab would dry up tax revenue that is essential for funding schools, firehouses and community centers, says Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). 

The 21-page document marked “Internal Draft-NOT FOR RELEASE,” names 14 different lands President Obama could completely close for development by unilaterally designating them as “monuments” under the 1906 Antiquities Act.  Rep. Robert Bishop (R-Utah) made the memo public because he did not want another unilateral land grab by the White House, like what happened under former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, says DeMint: 

• Using the Antiquities Act, President Carter locked up more land than any other president had before him, taking more than 50 million acres in Alaska despite strong opposition from the state.
• President Clinton used the authority 22 times to prohibit hunting, recreational vehicles, mining, forestry and even grazing in 5.9 million acres scattered around the country (the law allowed him to single-handedly create 19 new national monuments and expand three others without consulting anyone).
• In Nevada, the Obama Administration might make another monument in the Heart of the Great Basin because it supposedly is a “center of climate change scientific research.”
• In Colorado, the government is considering designating the Vermillion Basin as a monument because it is “currently under the threat of oil and gas development.”  

The government currently owns 650 million acres, or 29 percent of the nation’s total land.  Federal bureaucrats should not be wasting time thinking up ways to acquire more, especially in the middle of a recession, says DeMint. 

Taking the nation’s resources offline will stifle job creation and dry up tax revenues.  If anything, the government should be selling land off, not locking more up, says DeMint. 

Source: Jim DeMint, “White House Land Grab,” Washington Times, March 2, 2010. 

For text:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/white-house-land-grab/

Senator Jim Bunning (R), the 2nd term junior Senator from Kentucky, has been roundly criticized by the Democratic candidate for the Senate, Daniel Mongiardo, for blocking additional deficit spending.   What the main stream media does not point out is that Bunning has suggested the use of Stimulus Funds to cover the extension of benefits rather than reaching into tax-payers’ pockets for an additional $10 billion.  Other candidates have weighed in on this issue:

• “I support Senator Jim Bunning.  Frankly, unemployment benefits are currently 99 weeks or almost two years. While I support extending the benefits for a short period of time longer, we must find a way to pay for those benefits.  I do not support extending unemployment benefits beyond two years.  Even Germany limits unemployment benefits to one year.  Benefits here in America are exceeding those offered in the most liberal countries of Europe.  Two years of government support is not a safety net. It is an entitlement program. I am tired of paying for entitlement programs that continue well beyond a compassionate need.”  (Bill Johnson, Press Release, 3.2.10)
• “Jim Bunning is being unfairly attacked for saying we should spend money already set aside for benefits rather than borrowing more.   He deserves our support and he is going to get it.” (Rand Paul)
• “I would proudly stand up to ensure that programs are paid for and think that this is further evidence of mismanagement of the Senate by Harry Reid.  If we had not wasted time debating and passing a pet bill for Reid, we would not have been in the situation that led to the delay.  I agree with Senators Bunning and McConnell that the government has a responsibility to pay for its programs and a good place to start would be to cut funding from the stimulus in order to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits.  If the stimulus had created jobs as promised, then we would not need more unemployment insurance.” (Trey Grayson)

Editor’s note:  Thanks to these candidates for swiftly stepping out and supporting Senator Bunning in what has been a career-long quest to support fiscal responsibility.

Among likely Republican primary voters, 67% have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement and 9% have an unfavorable opinion. When voters were asked if they agree with the movement’s core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets, 73% agreed and only 7% disagreed. Support for the core values of the Tea Party movement is slightly stronger among men than women, 76% to 70%. Regionally, the Tea Party movement is especially strong in the 3rd and 6th Congressional districts with 87% and 85% of voters agreeing with the core values of the movement respectively. Among voters that have a favorable image of the Tea Party movement, Paul leads Grayson 53% to 20%.

NIGHTFALL IN AMERICA

(This analysis offered by ex-governor of Delaware, Pete du Pont)

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page did an analysis of the federal government’s debt that will be held by the public over the coming decade: 

• When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, the debt held by the public was 36.2 percent of gross domestic product.
• It rose to 40.2 percent the next year.
• This year it will be about 63.6 percent, next year 68.6 percent, then 77 percent of GDP in 2020.
• And the Obama administration’s budget estimates 218 percent in 2050. 

The reason for these rising deficits is the huge increases in federal spending — the intended growth of the federal government — that Congress and the president are pushing, says du Pont: 

• The deficit in 2007 was $160 billion.
• In the next year the Pelosi-Reid Congress took it up to $458 billion, and when President Obama came into office in 2009 it hit $1.4 trillion.
• The current 2010 projected deficit is $1.6 trillion, which will lead to a tripling of our national debt from 2008 to 2010. 

To the White House and congressional Democrats, these large figures are not a surprise, a mistake or a worry.  They are part of a strategy to Europeanize America, to make the government larger, broader and in charge of almost everything.  And that would of course require broad and massive tax increases, says du Pont.  

Source: Pete du Pont, “Nightfall in America; The Obama deficits portend a gloomy future,” Online Journal, February 16, 2010. 

(Editor’s Note:  How can any group, whether from the Executive or Legislative Branch of government, feign shock and surprise at the cavernous deficit that they are all too well aware that they are creating?  Pete du Pont’s theory, while deeply disturbing, is entirely plausible.  “Quel surprise???”  N’est ce pas, citizens. ~~Dan Blanchard)

THE NATIONAL DEBT: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU OWE?

President Obama announced his 2011 Budget which is $3.834 trillion dollars with a projected deficit of $1.267 trillion or 8.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).   As of Feb. 7, our total national debt was $12,348,804,540,946.54 or $12.35 trillion which is larger than the economies of China, the United Kingdom and Australia combined, says Don C. Brunell, President of the Association of Washington Businesses. 

The national debt is growing with the spending spree in Washington, D.C.  According to the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget: 

• Our national debt will grow an additional $9 trillion over the next decade, to more than $20 trillion.
• During that time, the United States will accumulate $2.5 billion in new debt each and every day.
• That’s $1.72 million per minute, for the next ten years. 

According to the Department of the Treasury: 

• Foreign holders of our national debt are owed a combined total of about $3.3 trillion.
• The top 10 countries and entities holding U.S. debt are: China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Oil Exporters, Caribbean Banking Centers, Brazil, Russia, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
• Our debt to China is approximately $776.4 billion, having grown more than $240 billion in the last year; that is more than $10,000 in debt for the average American working family — just to China.
• The estimated population of the United States is 307,795,997 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $40,146.02. 

The National Debt has continued to increase and that is before Congress tacks on trillions for health care, cap and trade, new federal stimulus programs, and other yet to be identified spending programs, says Brunell. 

Part of the way President Obama plans to pay for his new round of spending is to eliminate the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts families making more than $250,000 per year which impacts a ton of family-owned, small businesses which are the backbone of our economy and nation, says Brunell. 

Source: Don C. Brunell, “The National Debt: Do You Know How Much You Now Owe?” Olympia Business Watch/Association of Washington Businesses, February 7, 2010. 

Editor’s Note: Instead of partisan debate over how we should be doing “it,”  whatever the “it” may be, the only question that really matters is “should we be doing it?”   If we can’t afford it, we shouldn’t be doing it.   We cannot pay for the unfunded obligations we’re already committed to as a country.  The centuries’ old truth is just as universal and ominous as ever: “The borrower is slave to the lender.”   ~ Dan Blanchard

Last week, during the State of the Union speech, our President squandered a golden opportunity, one that could have been a defining moment in this, the second full year of his presidency.   He could have used it as the perfectly timed occasion to say:  ”I have heard the collective voice of Americans all across the country who are saying, ‘We oppose enormous bail outs to banks and the car companies.’  I have heard the anger of those who say, ‘We oppose an $800 billion stimulus that has created very few jobs  while during the same year 3.4 million people lost their jobs.’    I have heard loud and clear the angst of a nation who believes that our approach in the past year to spend our way out of debt is absolutely unsustainable.   I have heard the will of the people expressed at the polls, in places like New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts, that says, ‘We want no part of a government takeover of our health care, under the guise of reform.’ And I have heard the pathos of a people who are groaning under the weight of excessive taxation, intrusion into their lives and steady erosion of their liberties.   And so, I stand before you on this night, prepared to plot a fresh, new, common-sense course for our Country.”

Yes, our President could have and should have taken advantage of his national stage this way–but alas, he did not. Sadly, we heard no such words.  Not only does our current administration not have its hand on the pulse of where Main Street USA lives and breathes, it seems not to care.  It’s not that they do not know what Americans are going through as unemployment continues to rise–and foreclosures with it–and are just acting as though they are blind to these cold, harsh realities.  It’s that they do see and they do know and are acting against the will of the people anyway.

What we got last Wednesday night was a lecture, a scolding as it were, and no one was left out (just ask your Supreme Court justices).   The President’s words, seemingly underscoring his resilience–”I’m no quitter,” in reality only served to emphasize a level of defiance of the will of the People that is unprecedented.   Translation: “We’re going to find a way, some way, any way to get our agenda pushed through, no matter what–and no matter how many object to it.”   If you doubt that, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s commentary the very next day:  ”If the gates are closed, we’ll go over the fence.  If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in.   If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in, but we’re going to get health care reform passed.”  Make no mistake, whatever the People say and however they may protest, their government says:  ”We know better what’s better for them than they do.”

The message out of Washington isn’t anything resembling, “You know, we may have spent way too much after all.”  It’s, “We haven’t spent nearly enough.”   And so, there is more to come.  Much more.  Including the most bloated budget proposal in our nation’s history.  This fiscal insanity is a runaway train, and liberal “leadership” is its engineer.

As the American Conservative Union reported today:

“Today’s Wall Street Journal screams with the headline, ‘Deficit to Hit All-Time High,’ as they report that President Obama’s budget projects the deficit will shoot up to a record $1.6 trillion this year.”  The Associated Press says: ‘Obama unveils $3.83 trillion budget with massive deficits.’

Worse, Obama and the liberal Democrats controlling Capitol Hill now say they want even more stimulus spending, what you probably heard talked about in that State of the Union speech as a “jobs bill.”

Massive government spending does not create jobs, it merely puts America’s families, children and grandchildren in even more debt.  Massive government spending does nothing to help America’s small businesses on main street.  Massive government spending does nothing but give liberal Democrats another blank check to hand out goodies to their liberal special interest friends.

The spending must stop. The stimulus bills cloaked as jobs bills must stop.  We must speak out.”

And so, we are.  And we will.

–Dan Blanchard

I believe that one the biggest indicators of TRUE leadership is the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s OWN words, one’s own promises, one’s own decisions and actions.   No one disputes that every sitting President inherits challenges that may have occurred on a prior President’s watch (and those decisions made at that time are THAT President’s responsibility.)   But true leadership does not look to heap blame upon or deflect responsibility away from oneself and toward those who have not been sitting at your desk occupying YOUR role for over a year. At some point, in EVERYONE’s life, someone ELSE’s responsibility ends and yours begins!

The more one keeps singing the “It’s His/Her/Your/Their Fault” song, the more one necessarily implies his/her own apparent powerlessness over the very issue one keeps crooning about.  This does not inspire confidence in such leadership, but a feeling of defeatism and resignation.  When one makes bold decisions and takes action on an immense scale, especially involving hundreds of billions of dollars that you yourself authorized, one is necessarily tied to their implications, good or bad.

Americans would respect and, therefore, follow a leader who would humbly channel the spirit of Harry S. Truman and acknowledge, even reaffirm: “The buck stops here!”   A better country does begin with “me.”   Even when one is President.  Especially when one is President.

–Dan Blanchard

In this 58 second clip, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman (R-MN) urges the fellow members of her party to “embrace” the TEA Party movement in America.  I believe she is wise in saying so and is astute Representative at the Capitol.  But I would respectfully amend one statement she made: it is not the goal of the TEA Party movement to become the dominant force of the Republican party.  It is its mission to reach out to disaffected Democrats and Independents as well as all disenfranchised Americans who know that they are neither being heard nor heeded in Washington.

The TEA Party is becoming the clear voice and primary force for conservatism in America: Fiscal responsibility, limited government, national sovereignty and a return to our Constitution as the blueprint for American liberty. –Dan Blanchard

http://www.breitbart.tv/bachmann-tea-party-members-will-become-dominant-force-of-republican-party/

“CBS News: CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric spoke to Tea Party leaders Michael Johns and Kellen Guida about their movement and the frustrations of those who identify with it. The Tea Party movement, Johns said, was a “visceral reaction” to the idea that “our federal government was growing too large, that too much power was being centralized, and government bureaucracies that the American people were over-taxed, in some ways over-regulated.”

http://www.breitbart.tv/hugely-patriotic-movement-tea-party-leaders-talk-movement-mission-with-katie-couric/

(Editor’s Note:  There are moments where Couric attempts to bait Johns and Guida with false assumptions & stereotypes that only serve to reveal her own bias and naivete about the purpose and scope of the grassroots effort.  These two articulate beautifully the common concerns and basis for our hopes for a better America–Dan Blanchard).