News from Saginaw County Republicans

OK, so we have a Republican House of Representatives and a few more Republicans in the Senate than last year. So what's next?

First on the GOP to-do list needs to be defining the debate going forward. Republicans are now able to say what the most pressing concerns are through their votes on legislation. There is a big agenda to choose from: repealing ObamaCare, making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent to help create jobs, rescinding the EPA's endangerment finding, cancelling TARP and the "stimulus", killing the Dodd-Frank unlimited bailout fund before it gets started, and auditing the Federal Reserve. There is no need to compromise on these items: they can and should be dealt with in short order, whether support can be generated in the Senate or not.

The unifying policy for all these items is simple: SPEND LESS! The House in particular can set this agenda. If they start off by submitting a budget proposal with baseline 2007 levels of $2.7 trillion (as opposed to the current $3.6 trillion), they could immediately reduce the deficit by about $900 billion. Then the goal should be to get that number down to zero throughout the budget process with amendments offered by eliminating unnecessary programs and spending. That's where the large programs like TARP, the "stimulus", the bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, the Dodd-Frank financial takeover, and repealing ObamaCare come in.

But it would also be necessary to go after federal subsidies, corporate welfare, eliminate whole departments and agencies, and eventually eliminate smaller but still unneeded budget items like public broadcasting. Whatever it takes, House Republicans should fight to get a balanced budget to the Senate, all the way holding individual roll call votes on individual spending cuts. That is the only way to expose members who consistently vote to keep spending at unsustainable levels.

Just imagine in July, 2011, Republicans could hand-deliver a balanced budget to Obama. Let him veto it and threaten to shut the government down. The Republicans could then go home to constituents and take the airwaves, declaring the nation's independence from foreign creditors like China.

But, we must keep reminding them that priority one is to simply spend less. Send your Representative, Senators, and even the President frequent correspondence on what to cut. You can send by mail, phone, or e-mail. You can probably even Tweet them, but let them know what should be unfunded! Use YouCut, or this new survey from the National Republican Congressional Committee. They have published a "Listening To America" survey, mailed it to millions of Americans, and placed it online at Listening To America. The survey has questions on taxes, spending, national security, health care policy and more. Of course, the committee also asks for a donation to further their activities.