A Little Political Balance Would Be Nice

[Walt]

The Republican Tea Party: Contract With America

For the better part of the past year, Republicans have tried to come up with a new agenda for the American people with mixed results. However, with the Tea Party now the most potent force in Republican politics, and with the recent launch of the Tea Party Caucus on Capitol Hill garnering the support of Republican leaders like National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Pete Sessions and Republican Caucus Chair Mike Pence, the Republican Party agenda has become clear. Republican leaders and Tea Party-supported Republican candidates can now rally around the "Republican Tea Party Contract on America" as the blueprint for how they would govern.
1. Repeal the Affordable Care Act (Health Insurance Reform)
Put insurance companies back in charge, repeal tax credits for small businesses, allow insurance companies to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions and to drop coverage when a person gets too sick and make prescription drugs for seniors less affordable.
2. Privatize Social Security or phase it out altogether
Turn the guaranteed retirement benefits of America's seniors over to Wall Street CEOs by putting Social Security at risk in the stock market or, as some Republicans have called for, phase out Social Security altogether and end a program millions of American seniors rely on for their survival.
3. End Medicare as it presently exists
Phase out and end Medicare as it presently exists for future generations of seniors -- ending Medicare's guaranteed healthcare benefits for more than 40 million American seniors -- and replace it with a voucher system which will result in higher premiums and fewer services for seniors.
4. Extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil
At a cost of nearly $700 billion, extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and big oil, which are set to expire and which have and will continue to explode the federal budget deficit.
5. Repeal Wall Street Reform
Roll back the toughest consumer protections ever enacted, allow banks to continue to grow too big to fail, and ensure that predatory lenders continue to utilize their most abusive practices.
6. Protect those responsible for the oil spill and future environmental catastrophes
Cap liabilities for those responsible for environmental disasters like the Gulf oil spill and let companies like BP decide which victims deserve compensation for the disaster and what the timeline for relief should be.
7. Abolish the Department of Education
Put the big banks back in charge of student loans and put an end to federal assistance for public schools.
8. Abolish the Department of Energy
End America's investments in a clean-energy future and disband the organization responsible for oversight of nuclear materials.
9. Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency
Gut the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act -- which together protect our kids from air pollution and keep drinking water safe -- and disband the watchdog that holds polluters accountable.
10. Repeal the 17th Amendment
Take away your right to pick your U.S. Senator.

[Darwin]

I'd be fine with 1, 4, 7, and 8, even though this list is especially slanted to put these matters in the worst possible light.

[dreed2]

I totally disagree with the Tea Party's agenda. They are a bunch of fat cats trying to protect themselves and screw everyone else, IMHO. You can judge a society by how it treats its least-privileged members. Turning over Social Security to Wall Street, after paying into it my whole life, scares the bejeebers out of me after being burned on my 401K. Phasing it out after people have paid into it their whole lives is just wrong. Check out this link and share it with your friends.

[bakerbarber]

lol

I can't wait!

Maybe we can also restrict voting to people who have jobs or own property and then put in a limit to only citizens too.

Add forced labor of at least 20 hours a week to receive public assistance for all able bodied recipients. Cleaning litter, painting bridges, whatever.

Toss in some restrictions to any government literature and or documents being printed in any language other than English and I'm in.

[bakerbarber]

Almost forgot....

We need to remove the big ramp leading up to and the forceps holding Uncle Sam's butt cheeks open. It's a little too easy for everyone taking their turn. At least toss in a reach around once in a while.

Ooooh and let's cut off the flow to the big fat teet of entitlements and redistribution. Most parasites stop short of killing their host.

Would be cool if taxes only hit us from one end at a time too. I'm all for a nice porking now and then, but my stamina is waning from all the surprise sodomy.

If only we could figure out a way to dump more money into space while imprisoning more drug addicts. Then I could sleep in peace.

Some day..... I'm holding out for the Whiskey Party.

And last but not least;

WELCOME TO SNUSON Walt!

[RobsanX]

All so they can have a few more bucks in their pocket. But at what cost to our great country?

[Roo]

Damnit baker I thought we went over your property-owner thing last time you made that comment. Where I live it costs half a mil to get anything approaching decent with a yard. I could get a paper-thin townhouse for 250 but I don't want one. I rent you bastard. Lol I forgot what you said last time. I do have a job, and I consider myself relatively smart, so I wouldn't mind your support in making sure I can continue to vote.

[sgreger1]

The inaccuracy and cherry picking of biased misinformation in this article is blaring so brightly it hurts my eyes

1. It says repealing the healthcare bill will repeal tax cuts for small busness. Yah, try a major set of tax increases ammounting to hundreds of billions a year. It mentions making prescription drugs less afordable to seniors, try instead noting how the healthcare bill dump several million more people on medicare and cuts several hundred billion in funding to medicare at the same time, plus rationing committees whicn will likely end up denying care to seniors.

2. Social security is a ponzi scheme so large that it makes Bernie Maddoff look like mother theresa. It is an unfunded liability totalling in the trillions and has been pilfered to pay for everything BUT social security payments since the clinton years. There is no mandate that the money collected go towards SS payments and an entire generation or more of people will pay into it their entire lives without ever getting social security checks when they retire because there is no money left due to the inherent flaws in its design.

3. Medicaire reform is necessary. The current system needs reform, just like our healthcare system, immegration system, financial system... Hell, the entire system of everything needs reform. The status quo is not working.

4. The bush tax cuts provide hundreds of billions in tax relief for the poor, middle class, small business, and married with children demographics. As i detailed in another thread, the bush tax cuts were NOT just for the rich and will affect hardworking middle class americans of all income brackets. Raising taxes on the middle class during a recession is as stupid an idea as just about everything else the democrats have done so far.

5. The wall street reform bill exempts the most corrupt of institutions, does not adequitely tackle the out of control derivitive market that helped cause the crash, and takes away any transparency left in the financial sector. The new agencies created by this bill are even exempt from freedom of information requests. It makes it easier for the big banks to shut down the little banks and take their marketshare, as well as gives the government new patriot act style controls over the private sector.

6. Thats because the republicans are corrupt idiots shilling for big business, as is the status quo for both parties as of late. Obama on the other hand is allowing BP to write off the money they spend on compensating victims of the oil spill in their taxes, and is effectively subsidizing over 10 billion of the 20 billion he is making them pay, with our money.

7. The "big banks" have been financing childrens education for decades. Now the democrats have made it so only the feds can give student loans, limiting options for tens of millions of prospective college students who are trying to pay for college.

8. No one intends to abolish the department of energy, and we all want clean energy. What we dont want is the waste of valuable resources that are available to us. We spend twice the money importing our energy instead of producing it domestically. Alternative energy is great, but we need a baseline source or energy, and without coal, petrolium and nuclear power, we would be having rolling blackouts every few hours and our cars would stay in the driveway.

9. Getting rid of the EPA is retarded.

10. I am not familiar with the 17th ammendment, but i know no one wants to stop people from voting. What they want is to get rid of the electoral college so the votes will all count equally. When a state votes for obama, they get obama, not someone else. This way the majority get to pick who represents them.



This list you post is written for the shock factor. Its all things like "the republicans want to abolish school, beer, and puppies". Its mainly nonesense and a complete, willfull misinterpretation of what their objectives are.

/ nice try though.

[bakerbarber]

Damnit baker I thought we went over your property-owner thing last time you made that comment. Where I live it costs half a mil to get anything approaching decent with a yard. I could get a paper-thin townhouse for 250 but I don't want one. I rent you bastard. Lol I forgot what you said last time. I do have a job, and I consider myself relatively smart, so I wouldn't mind your support in making sure I can continue to vote.

My goal is not to divide. It is simply to conquer.

The insanity of housing costs sickens me.

The scariest thing is people's willingness to consume as told. My goal is for the next twelve months to not buy a stitch of clothing, any new electronics, or a pack of FSC cigarettes.

No more hookers too. At least not the ones that want dinner first.

[sgreger1]

My goal is not to divide. It is simply to conquer.

The insanity of housing costs sickens me.

The scariest thing is people's willingness to consume as told. My goal is for the next twelve months to not buy a stitch of clothing, any new electronics, or a pack of FSC cigarettes.

No more hookers too. At least not the ones that want dinner first.

Man ohio aint even that bad, try cali on for size. Having a house is a luxury.

[bakerbarber]

The silliest thing is that I see peeps on TV "house hunting" and wonder how the hell they are going to pay the mortgage.

My house would be a palace in Cali. I wish I could sell it for half what I see people ponying up on TV for dumps half as big.

The banks are the dicks for letting people borrow money into a spiral of insanity.

Owning a home is not a right, it's not the best choice even for many people. For years we've been told it's a measure of achievement towards the dream.

[MGX]

The author could really have done a better job at veiling his straw man argument.

This sounds much more like the Libertarian party than the tea party (which isn't a cohesive party anyways).

I wonder who wrote this hit and run post?

[bakerbarber]

It's a cut and paste from Slate.

Or several other forums where it's been copied to or from.

[sgreger1]

Caution. Troll alert. I've just researched this, and there is no "Republican tea party contract for america". It was invented by the dems to try and list what THEY "feel" the tea party is about. The list posted above and allegedly written by republicans was actually written by the democrats:


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...act-on-america

"The Democratic National Committee debuted today a major initiative it says will tie the Republican party to the tea party movement. The idea is to drive a wedge between the activist base of today's GOP and the more moderate and independent voters the party relies on in major elections to make up for the advantage Democrats enjoy in overall voter registration."

"Democrats quip that the GOP can stop searching for a national message because they've generously distilled that message for 2010 voters: the "Republican Tea Party Contract on America." Among the initiatives that Democrats have marshaled under this banner are the alleged Republican plan to end Medicare, the proposed GOP repeal of health care reform and the abolition of the Departments of Education and Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, and other actions. Many of these measures garner support only from more extreme figures within the tea party movement--but the political objective of the DNC is to ascribe those views to the GOP at large."



Man, that's the hardest trolling i've seen on the internet yet. Hats off to you Walt!



Anyways, the article he posted is fake and tries to claim the republicans want this list of things. In reality, the dems invented it out of thin air. While a little "balance" is always nice, flat out lies and misinformation is not cool. This is likely some chain email from the DNC trying to, as they claim, "Tie republicans to the tea party to drive a wedge between the republicans and independents."


/Fake article is fake

[bakerbarber]

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