https://www.hudson.org/research/13855-bryan-mc-grath-on-recent-incidents-with-u-s-navy-ships

Bryan McGrath on Recent Incidents With U.S. Navy Ships

28 min.

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Congress wants to spend $6 billion more on healthcare, but here’s a good suggestion for them

November 30, 2016 by Mark Meckler

Congress, you need to stop. Like, really.  Just stop.

With the release of a 1,000-page health care spending bill, the Republican-heavy Congress has proved it has no interest in shrinking the size of the federal government.

Despite spending a majority of the Obama administration criticizing the Affordable Care Act for increasing Washington DC’s footprint, House leaders now appear no different than their Democratic counterparts who crammed the law through without any consideration for the consequences. (Remember, “We have to pass it to see what’s in it?”) Even more concerning is why the GOP is forcing this bill through with a new administration looming; especially one that has promised to repeal Obamacare and its wasteful habits.

And what is the name of this new bill? The 21st Century Cures Act, which is ironic because it’s not going to cure what really ails this country: the fat-cat lobbyists and politicians who will be the primary beneficiaries of such an act.

Daniel Horowitz explains what’s packed in the bill and how they plan to pay for it at Conservative Review:

Despite all the hand-wringing about partisan fighting in Washington, the “21^st Century Cures Act” is a quintessential example of the two liberal parties coming together to grow the federal government, increase rather than decrease spending, give handouts to all their respective lobbyists, and sell the bill as the next step to curing cancer. In short, it represents everything wrong with Washington.

The $6.3 billion package contains $4.8 billion in extra funding for the NIH [National Institute of Health] to further research cancer, brain cells, and precision medicine. It also gives the FDA another $500 million to move drugs and medical devices to patients more quickly, and a billion dollars in grants to states to combat the “opioid crisis.”

As is always the case, the bill’s authors have concocted a hodgepodge of notional accounting gimmicks to “pay for” the cost of the bill. Not a single government program is eliminated to offset the cost of this new spending; rather the bill relies on receipts from selling off our Strategic Oil Reserves over ten years to pay for this bill. Using the Strategic Oil Reserves as a private piggybank to pay off lobbyists in order to grow government has become the new go-to source for “spending offsets.”

A similar version of this bill passed in the House just last year, but the new version has grown three times the size of the original. If the new version passes, the Department of Health and Human Resources will have billions of dollars coursing through its veins much like the very opioid addicts the bill vows to cure. It will be a non-stop taxpayer-funded binge, and Washington will never want to come off of that high.

Though the bill contains some reforms to the FDA and Bill Clinton’s 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, it’s canceled out by the billions in new spending. Much like the outgoing liberal administration, Republican leaders are selling the bill with keywords like “health” and “cure” in an effort to make the medicine go down easier. But the American people have spoken, and they elected a new administration which promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. When the “conservatives” in Washington won’t act like conservatives, how can they claim to be the party of small government ever again?

I’ll let Horowitz have the last word:

Rather than canceling the lame duck session and saving this endeavor for a new GOP mandate next year, House Republicans plan to drop this complex, multifaceted bill on the floor on Wednesday.

Inexcusable.

#JustGoHome

LINK

FEE: The Tax Army Is Three Times Larger than the US Army

The Tax Army Is Three Times Larger than the US Army

The Office of Management and Budget has released new data on the amount of time Americans spend complying with the federal tax code. Tax Foundation summarizes the data here.

Individuals and businesses spend 8.9 billion hours a year on federal tax paperwork, which is equivalent to 4.3 million people working full-time and year-round on this unproductive activity. That “tax army” is three times larger than our uniformed military of 1.4 million active duty service members.

The burden of tax paperwork can be expressed in dollars. Based on the average earnings of U.S. workers, Tax Foundation finds that federal tax paperwork imposes a $409 billion annual cost on the economy.

The main reason to overhaul the tax code is to increase incentives for working, investing, and other productive activities. But you can appreciate how wasteful the tax code is by considering the paperwork burden of particular provisions. For example, the federal estate tax imposes $20 billion a year in paperwork costs, but the tax only raises $21 billion a year for the government. It clearly makes no sense to impose a tax if it costs as much to collect as the money raised.

The largest paperwork costs stem from the income tax. Tax Foundation has found that replacing the federal income tax with a simple flat tax would reduce the paperwork burden by about 90 percent. With that reform, Americans would be at peace with the tax code, and we could demobilize the tax army.

Cross-posted from DownsizingGovernment.org.

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Chris Edwards

Chris Edwards is the director of tax policy studies at Cato and editor of DownsizingGovernment.org.

This article was originally published on FEE.org.

Read the original article.

Rep. Brat: House leaders don’t get it on slashing the federal budget

Rep. Brat: House leaders don’t get it on slashing the federal budget
By Rep. David Brat | May 12 | The Washington Post

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va. says House Republican
leaders are going down the wrong path on the budget.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Conservatives are supposed to stand for fiscal discipline, balanced budgets and reducing government waste.

Yet House leadership is currently whipping votes for a bad budget deal that was negotiated behind closed doors by party leaders that blows through the budget caps.

Despite Republican control of both the Senate and the House, the deficit is set to go up over $100 billion to the $530 billion range. Last year marked the highest level of federal government spending ever.

All this spending is on the backs of our kids. They have no effective lobby on Capitol Hill, so they lose to a D.C. bureaucracy that is incapable of listening to the American people.

Leadership has already begun work on a number of spending bills that appropriate taxpayer dollars at unprecedented levels — even though Congress has yet to pass a budget!

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) initially announced a budget resolution deadline of March 15 — but no vote was held even by the April 15 statutory deadline.

All of this action, all of these decisions, are in the hands of a few.

Congress’s discretionary spending level for fiscal year 2017 was capped at $1.040 trillion for fiscal year 2017 due to previous spending agreements dating back to 2011. But last year, outgoing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) negotiated a deal with President Obama that broke the sequester caps and increased government spending by $30 billion to a historic $1.070 trillion for fiscal year 2017. Although this bill was opposed by the majority of House Republicans, it passed thanks to 79 Republicans who voted for it along with all 187 Democrats.

The country faces an imminent fiscal crisis, and the Republican Party has an obligation to change the direction we are headed. The federal government does not have to keep spending at unprecedented and unsustainable levels. The founders placed the power of the purse in the hands of Congress.

We don’t know what will happen with the presidential election, but we – the Republicans who have a majority in the People’s House – have an historic opportunity to change the direction of our country now. Given that our children’s futures are at stake, it is our responsibility to make sure we get this right and do not pass the buck with a continuing resolution (that spends more of taxpayers’ hard-earned money) in the fall.

Congress should not allow a passive outcome, where we back into spending $1.070 trillion as the default because Republicans in the House failed to lead when we had the opportunity to do so.

Republican leadership has been on a “listening tour;” and we in the House Freedom Caucus have provide countless solutions on how to trim $30 billion from the Obama-Boehner deal budget number.

While a balanced budget would require $530 billion in savings, the House Freedom Caucus compromised and requested $30 billion in savings be trimmed from the budget. Whether the savings comes from reforming autopilot or annual spending, or through a “sidecar” attached to a must-pass bill, we have simply been looking for a way to enact real savings now.

We are not getting enough feedback from leadership as to which solutions are acceptable, and which are not. If none of the ideas we have offered are favorable, we need to know why so we can think through the problem and find new solutions. The information feedback loop is broken, and as an economist that’s very frustrating.

The fact that the House budget is at a standstill over $30 billion reveals how unserious some within the Republican Party are about fiscal discipline and actually addressing our national debt crisis.

The federal budget deficit will swell in relation to GDP this year for the first time since 2009, ballooning to an estimated $534 billion in 2016, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. If Congress continues on its current path of spending, the deficit will surpass $1 trillion by 2022 and every year thereafter. Thirty trillion in debt in a decade. Feel the Bern and you will be at $40 trillion. Yes with a T.

We have only to look to Puerto Rico to see where Washington’s addiction to spending can lead. Many have argued that Trump may not be conservative on fiscal issues. That argument is hot air if Congress itself cannot walk the walk. There is nothing conservative about the Obama-Boehner budget deal, which leadership is urging us to support.

If we are serious about fiscal discipline and a brighter future for our country, as conservatives say they are, we must pass a budget that actually reins in federal spending.

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Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) is a member of the Budget Committee and the House Freedom Caucus. Before serving in Congress,  he worked for the World Bank assisting developing world economies and was an economics professor and chairman of the economics department at Randolph Macon College.

TheBlaze.com: Ted Cruz Forced the Senate to Vote on Obama’s Immigration Plan — Here’s How it Turned Out

Dec. 13, 2014 9:51pm Pete Kasperowicz 

On Saturday night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won a battle, but not the war, against President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Cruz led the fight to force a Senate vote on Obama’s immigration plans, as a condition of approving a massive, $1.1 trillion spending bill for 2015. He was able to make that vote happen by arguing that the spending bill violated the Constitution because it would fund Obama’s plan — a plan Cruz and other Republicans say is illegal because it rewrites immigration law without any input from Congress.

Read the details on TheBlaze.com…

The 113th Congress - off and running #tcot #tlot

Most Expensive Bill of the Week

The Bill: H.R. 152, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013

Annualized Cost: $10.0 billion ($50.1 billion over five years)

On the first day of the 113th Congress, Congressman Hal Rogers (R-KY) sponsored the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act. The bill would authorize new spending to assist families and individuals affected by Hurricane Sandy, which hit the east coast in late October of last year. Some federal entities would be required to spend funds to provide direct benefits to displaced Americans. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development would be authorized to spend up to $3.9 billion for long-term recovery and restoration of infrastructure and housing. Other agencies would be given tax dollars to recover or refurbish their own facilities in light of the hurricane. Some $14.6 million would be allocated for the Federal Aviation Administration for repair and other "consequences."

H.R. 152 would direct seven departments to spend money through 18 individual agencies or entities to fund recovery efforts along the east coast. According to the text, the bill would appropriate "out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated" $60.4 billion over the next ten years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates this would result in outlays totaling $50.1 billion over the next five years. The remaining amounts would be spent over the succeeding five years.

The legislation includes no offsets for the new spending.

To learn more or discuss this bill visit WashingtonWatch.com.

 

The Least Expensive Bill of the Week

The Bill: H.R. 45, a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

Annualized Savings: $63.9 billion ($319.5 billion over five years)

One of the largest savings proposals sponsored in the last Congress was to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), or "Obamacare." This proposal has now been re-introduced in the new Congress in the form of H.R. 45. The health care overhaul bill was introduced in 2009 and signed into law in 2010 after much debate. Most recently, the ACA's individual mandate -- a requirement for all Americans to purchase insurance or face a fine -- was upheld by the Supreme Court.

To learn more or discuss this bill visit WashingtonWatch.com.

Most Friended

The Bill: H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act of 2013

Annualized Savings: $17.5 billion ($87.6 billion over five years)*

Number of Cosponsors: 53 House Members

Legislators on both sides of the aisle and taxpayers across the political spectrum see tax reform as a key issue in 2013. Politicians from Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to President Obama have pledged to address the complexity and fairness concerns regarding the current tax system.

How big a problem is America's progressive income tax regime? The Tax Code is now over 73,000 pages long, filled with special rules and exemptions for most industries and special interests. Americans are also now spending 6.38 billion hours to remain compliant under the complex tax system, according to a study by the National Taxpayers Union. The amount of time and resources spent on tax compliance is roughly equivalent to that spent running the top four Fortune 500 companies (Wall-Mart, McDonald's, Target, and Kroger grocery stores) combined each year.

As one possible solution to the ails of the current Tax Code, Congressman Rob Woodall (R-GA) sponsored the Fair Tax Act. Designed to be revenue neutral, the Act would entirely replace the income-based system with a consumption-based system. H.R. 25 would repeal all income-based federal taxes, including income, withholding, dividend, capital gains, and estate taxes, in favor of a 23 percent sales tax on all new goods and services. The revenues would be taken at the point of sale and businesses would send money onto a new collection agency, also established in the bill. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would be abolished.

The new tax would be included in items categorized as necessities by the Department of Treasury, such as bread and milk; however, the bill would authorize payments, known as a "prebate," to households to compensate them for the taxes they pay on these items.

Based on budget information, NTUF found that enacting the Fair Tax Act would result in a net $87.6 billion savings on the federal budget in the first five years. Approximately $77.2 billion would be saved by eliminating refundable tax credits, which are special tax credits that result in budgetary outlays because they are designed to target individuals with little or no income tax liability. An additional $12.1 billion would be saved by completely deauthorizing the IRS in 2016.

H.R. 25 would also result in some new government spending. A new federal agency would be established to administer the prebates. NTUF assumes the cost would be similar to the current Department of the Treasury Tax and Trade Bureau, which was recently funded at $102 million.

Since it is unclear how taxpayers would receive their "prebate," NTUF calculated the cost of mailing each household a check each month, totaling $241 million per year. This represents the maximum cost for distributing the prebates. Debit cards or a direct deposit system could be implemented as potential lower-cost alternatives, but estimates are currently unavailable.

All 53 cosponsors of H.R. 25 are members of the Republican Party.

* This estimate will be updated with more current figures after the FY 2014 Budget becomes available in the spring.

To learn more or discuss this bill visit WashingtonWatch.com.

 

The Fiscal Cliff Bill - Special Interests Profit While the Rest of Us Pay #tcot #tlot

The Fiscal Cliff Bill - Special Interests Profit While the Rest of Us Pay

By Joshua Withrow on January 04, 2013 LINK
 
It's like deja vu all over again.  The fiscal cliff bill, H.R. 8, was drafted behind closed doors, and lawmakers were given six minutes to read the 154-page bill before voting on it.  Once again, we apparently had to pass the bill to find out what's in it. (To see how your lawmakers voted, check HERE or check out your lawmakers' scores on FreedomWorks' Congressional Scorecard.)
 
The bill is a total mixed bag, with tax hikes and tax credits and tax extenders and a bunch of random, miscellaneous provisions.  Oh, and the farm bill too, a totally unrelated bill that should have been voted on as a stand-alone measure.
 
But more than anything, the so-called "American Taxpayer Relief Act" was full of corporate welfare - targeted tax credits and subsidies for companies and industries whose lobbyists have succeeded in acquiring loopholes for their clients.    According to the CBO, the bill actually spends $330 billion more than it takes in with the tax hikes. Much of this spending is for these special-interest tax loopholes that were scheduled to expire at the end of the year, but which will now be law for at least another year.
 
The Joint Committee on Taxation has broken down the costs of each provision in the bill HERE, but below are some highlights:

Business Tax Extenders: (all numbers are ten-year figures)

• $14.3 billion to subsidize research and development
• $119 million for companies to hire Native Americans
• $1.79 billion to promote business investment in low-income communities
• $331 million for railroads to perform track maintenance
• $5 million for mining companies to use for rescue training
• $3.71 billion for "leasehold, restaurant, and retail improvements"
• $248 million for film production expenses (yep, we're subsidizing Hollywood)
• $358 million for "domestic production activities in Puerto Rico"
• $222 million for rum production in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands
• $62 million for economic development in American Samoa

Energy Tax Extenders: (all numbers are ten-year figures)
 

• $7 million for plug-in motorcycles
• $59 million for "cellulosic biofuel" research, including fule from algea
• $2.18 billion for biodiesel producers
• $12.1 billion for the wind production tax credit (more on the Wind PTC HERE)
• $154 million for energy efficient home upgrades
• $650 million for energy-efficient appliance credits
• $360 million for alternative fuels

Farm Bill (Direct Spending, 2013 only):

• $5 billion in direct payments to farmers, most of which goes to subsidize large farm corporations
• $1 billion in direct price supports for selected crops (wheat, sugar, etc.)
• $10 million to encourage private land owners to grant public recreational access to their land
• $25 million for 'organic' agriculture research
• $100 million to research 'specialty crops'
• $30 million to help new farmers and ranchers start up
• $10 million to promote farmers' markets
• $22 million for organic certification cost-sharing

While corporations and special interests receive billions of dollars of tax relief, this bill allows taxes to increase for 77% of Americans, thanks to the expiring payroll tax holiday.  Because Congress failed to extend the payroll tax cut, an individual who earns $26,000 per year will have over $500 per year in new taxes - that's $20 taken straight from each paycheck.
 
And the bill effectively raised taxes on every American because it failed to account for any significant cuts in spending.  After all, every dollar of deficit spending is a future dollar that someone will have to pay in taxes down the road.

Auto-Pilot Toward the Fiscal Cliff #tcot

Auto-Pilot Toward the Fiscal Cliff 

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Dec. 21, 2012 - With the failure of “Plan B” in the House last night, it appears very likely that the “fiscal cliff” is going to arrive. Of course, the mainstream media is blaming Tea Party-minded (read: principled) Congressmen for not supporting the plan.

This is outrageous, and an insult to the American people. Yes, principled Members of Congress held the line on tax hikes. Yes, Speaker Boehner has been awful in negotiating an alternative to the “fiscal cliff." But in the end, blame lies almost exclusively on the backs of two people: President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV).

Consider that even before details of “Plan B” had been released, President Obama and Senator Reid had already declared the legislation dead. The Senate departed Washington until after Christmas, and President Obama went on vacation, leaving the nation on auto-pilot as we speed toward the fiscal cliff. Apparently, kicking the proverbial can down the road is more important than actually doing the jobs for which both men were elected. Apparently, the ideology of raising taxes is more important than actually solving the spending problem that Washington has. 

Because of their lack of leadership, America is likely to go over the fiscal cliff. Yet looking at the facts, it’s clear that raising taxes and not cutting spending really is the problem:

1. A major study has found that the combination of expiring tax cuts and the implementation of ObamaCare will cost the country 710,000 jobs.
2. Imposing a 100% tax on all households earning more than $250,000 – the “wealthy,” according to the President and Senator Reid – would keep Washington running for only 190 days according to Walter E. Williams.
3. The government currently spends about of $30.60 per hour on welfare compared to the median income of $25.03 per American worker according to a study by Congressional Research Service.
4. Cutting taxes in a time of economic stagnation would help boost the economy, boost employment, and increase revenue to the federal government to reduce the deficit.  
5. Many in the media and Washington will try to accuse the Tea Party of causing the dive over the “fiscal cliff.” Yet, we have outlined over the last 12 days, 12 solutions that would be a positive step in the right direction. It is time for Washington to stop avoiding their responsibilities, as they seem to have done here by leaving the country speeding on auto-pilot toward the fiscal cliff.

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Tea Party Patriots, Inc. operates as a social welfare organization organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to Tea Party Patriots, Inc. are not deductible as charitable contributions for income tax purposes.

 

WND: The GOP's not-so-secret weapon on fiscal cliff

'We are facing 4 years of unpleasantness for Obama'

by JEROME R. CORSI

WASHINGTON – The only way to prevent the Obama administration from blaming Republicans in the fiscal cliff debate is to demand transparency by bringing in television cameras, says noted tax activist Grover Norquist.

What advice would Norquist give House Speaker John Boehner?

“Bring in C-SPAN and televise the negotiations,” Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform told WND in an exclusive interview. “It’s the best way to expose the White House plan to build public pressure on Republicans to force House Speaker John Boehner to cave into at the eleventh hour to raise income-tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.

Read more at WND... 

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Jerome R. Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D., is a WND senior staff reporter. He has authored many books, including No. 1 N.Y. Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command." Corsi's latest book is "Where's the REAL Birth Certificate?"

Rick Scott Keeps Options Open On Obamacare Exchanges

by Javier Manjarres

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has been one loudest critics of President Obama’s ‘Obamacare’ healthcare law, and has vowed to do everything in his power to prevent the ominous job-killing law from being implemented in the state of Florida.

But while his pushback on Obamacare has garnered significant Republican and Independent voter support, Democrats have labeled him and others opposed to the law as “extremists” who are out of touch with mainstream America.

Now that President Obama has won re-election, Governor Scott has opened up dialogue with the Obama Administration on a possible compromise on the healthcare law, leaving conservative groups and activists extremely disappointed in Scott’s possible change in position on Obamacare.  Scott sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking her for a meeting to discuss what, if anything can be done collaboratively to reduce healthcare costs for Floridians.

Read the whole article on the Shark Tank…

Caught in a Budget Trap #tcot

by Jagadeesh Gokhale

This article appeared in The Hill on November 29, 2012.

The recent drumbeat from the political left on the disastrous effects of "austere" budget-cutting in European economies is intended to sandbag against similar policies in the United States. The key contention is that spending cuts have made budget balancing more difficult in European countries: supposedly, lower public spending in those countries reduced employment and income, reduced government revenues and increased the ratio of government debt to Gross Domestic Product. The left concludes that, to avoid a similar experience, the U.S. should increase spending in the short term, instead of cutting it, and attempt a "grand bargain" to balance long-term spending and taxes.

The problem is there may never be a "right" time to transition to the promised long-term structural budget resolution.

Read the article at The Cato Institute…

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Gokhale, Jagadeesh (2012, November 29). Caught in a Budget Trap. Retrieved November 29, 2012, from The Cato Institute Web site: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/caught-budget-trap

Big Business Privilege is Poisoning American Free Enterprise #tcot

By CHQ Staff | 7/11/12

The Tea Party rebellion is about many things – Obamacare, the failure of the establishment Republican Party to deliver the conservative government it promised during the Bush years... But perhaps most importantly, it is a rebellion against the culture of privilege which now poisons American politics and business.

Nowhere was the pernicious effect of this culture of privilege more poisonous – and obvious – than in the Wall Street/Washington Axis that led the lobbying effort behind the bailouts of 2008 and 2009.

In the name of preventing a meltdown of the economy, politicians began picking winners and losers in the market and trillions of taxpayer dollars were spent to bailout banks, brokerage houses and automobile companies -- and to subsidize others to create “green” jobs or pursue other non-economic political goals.

As a result, the favored companies prospered, while those with less influence foundered and were acquired by those with better balance sheets, and better lobbyists.

SOURCE…   Copyright © 2012 ConservativeHQ.com, Inc.

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ConservativeHQ.com is the online news source for conservatives and Tea Partiers committed to bringing small-government constitutional conservatives to power.

BuzzNet Tags: business,government,influence,lobbying

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The Hill: Compromise 2012 farm bill plows rift into House Dem lawmakers #tcot

By Erik Wasson and Mike Lillis - 07/08/12

Liberal Democrats are fuming over $16 billion in cuts to food stamp programs included in the House farm bill set for a markup on Wednesday.

Rep. Collin Peterson (Minn.), the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, agreed to the cuts as a pragmatic way of moving forward with legislation important to rural lawmakers.

In an interview with The Hill, he said much of the cuts would be restored in a conference with the Senate.

Yet the move has led to anger on the left, while raising questions over whether the farm bill can pass the House given opposition among Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) issued a scathing statement after the bill’s release that called it immoral and inhumane.

“This bill increases subsidies to millionaires. This is a bill that robs the poor to pay the rich,” she told the Hill Friday. “This bill is an outrage.”

DeLauro said she is urging Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders to oppose the bill.

Read from The Hill…

BuzzNet Tags: farm bill,spending

Allen West---9 Step Action Plan

Audit the FED

 

Cosponsors S 202 cosponsors (8):	Cosponsors HR 459 cosponsors (167):

Technorati Tags: budget,federal_reserve,economy,debt_ceiling

GOVERNMENT GONE WILD

This must stop.

SOURCE

Technorati Tags: debt_ceiling,deficit,economy

Restoring Fiscal Sanity in the United States: A Way Forward

Volume 7 - Issue 18
May 2, 2011

Download PDF

By: Hon. David M. Walker, Founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative and Former Comptroller General of the United States (1998-2008)

Two hundred and twenty two years ago, the American Republic was founded. The United States had defeated the world’s most powerful military force to win independence, and over a several year period, went about creating a federal government based on certain key principles, including limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal responsibility. That government was established by what is arguably the world's greatest political document - the United States Constitution.

Our nation's founders understood the difference between opportunity and entitlement. They believed in certain key values including the prudence of thrift, savings and limited debt. They took seriously their stewardship obligation to the country and future generations of Americans.

The truth is, we have strayed from these key, time-tested principles and values in recent decades. We must return to them if we want to keep America great and help to ensure that our future is better than our past.

Martin County Tax Day Protest 2011

Martin 9/12 TeaParty and friends on April 15, 2011.

LINK to the TCPalm news item.

 

Technorati Tags: Martin County,Tax_Day_Protest