A Plague of GOP Lobbyists

Dark clouds are forming over the House GOP agenda… 

May be storm clouds, or maybe a cloud of former GOP staffers-turned-lobbyists swarming like locusts and offering bribes, er… campaign cash in return for leaving certain programs alone.

It's already worked for farm subsidies.  The GOP treats them like a hot stove.

A number of associations hoping to retain federal funding have recently added GOP lobbyists with connections to the new majority. The hiring binge indicates Republican lobbyists are earning dividends from their party’s re-taking of the House in November and points to the headaches in store for a Republican House that wants to take a hatchet to public spending.  (The Hill)

Slashing NPR's tires will be child's play.  Cutting benefits for children will separate the men from the boys...

The National Association of Children’s Hospitals (NACH) has hired former Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) of Clark Lytle & Geduldig to lobby for the reauthorization of the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education program, which uses $317.5 million in federal funding a year.

“As a parent of a child who battled cancer, [Pryce] is intimately familiar with the importance of timely access to specialty care,” said Jim Kaufman, NACH’s vice president for public policy.  (The Hill)

It's time for everyone to take a deep breath and realize that there are other funding sources besides the federal government.

Americans give over $300 billion to charity every year.  We donate 8 billion volunteer hours worth another $169 billion.  Swing some of that money and manpower from more frivolous enterprises like lesbian dance troups, battered husbands and Hotels for Hounds, and if we all dig a little deeper for the rest, we can fill the vacuum.  And it's all voluntary, from the heart, which is the true mark of genuine charity

GOP lobbying has already worked in one area

James Pethokoukis asks, "Did Wall Street nix GOP push to let states go bankrupt?"

In 2010 election cycle,  Wall Street campaign contributions shifted to Republicans from Democrats.

If I were a betting man I'd put my money on Hell Yes They Did!

Goldman Sachs and the other big Wall Street banksters who own the US government make money off the bond market, and state bankruptcies would send that market tanking.

Strap it on, my friends.  We're in for a bumpy ride.  It's even money that the GOP will collapse like a soggy cardboard box.  The alternative will not be pretty either.

If the GOP gets anything close to the cuts they want we will be subjected to a 24/7 litany of sob stories, old people freezing in their homes, poor children starving, hospitals closing, governments cutting back essential services.  The liberals will play the media like Satan's Bagpipes, and the crescendo of caterwauling and ululations from the left will become almost too much to bear.

We are living in interesting times.

My Simple Solution

Everybody's talking about what the GOP should do.  They only control one half of one branch, so we're fixin' to see just how much scrap they have in 'em.

If I had a magic wand, here's what I would do. 

1) Much smaller military footprint overseas.  Beef up foreign intelligence, specifically HUMINT.  Our spies need to get in bed with all kinds of stinking third world bad guys and pay those dirty rats and a moles to ferret out terrorist plots.  That's how the  recent plot was foiled.  And they need to do it without fear of some America-hating congressman blowing the whistle on them because they talked to a drug dealer.  If you wanna know what the bad guys are up to you've gotta rub elbows with 'em.

2) Stop domestic spying on innocent citizens, including the nude porn scanners and genital groping at our nation's airports.  No X-Ray vans, no drones (except on the border).  Profiling works:  do it.  That includes deciding who to let in to our great nation and what activities they can engage in while visiting.

3) Freedom of Religion.  Convince the religious right (with whom I generally agree) that they don't need the force of the federal government to push their agenda.  It's not even constitutional in many cases.  The federal government's only duty to Christians (or Muslims or atheists) is to protect their equal rights in the public square.  If God is so great (and I firmly believe He is) He can survive in the marketplace of free ideas without official sanction from Uncle Sam.

4) Bring back the 10th Amendment.  Dial back federal government involvement to the pre-Wilson days.  Let the states and local communities take care of education, the poor and society in general.  We are not a one-size-fits-all nation, but that is what the federal politburo continues to peddle. 
Janet Daley, conservative columnist at Britain's Daily Telegraph adds some key points...

If ordinary citizens are to be expected to take back more control and moral responsibility, then some pretty basic things will have to be on the table.

First, they must be allowed to keep significantly more of what they earn. The lowering of taxes cannot be a vague intention or a pious hope. It is a sine qua non of a more self-reliant, independent, morally resourceful private life.

Second, indigenous populations must not be forced to compete with unlimited low-wage imported labour. If working people are to fend for themselves and support their own families without help, they cannot be under-bid for employment by migrants who, as often as not, have no dependants and no permanent obligations in the host country. The uncontrolled movement of peoples around the globe is problematic for welfare states... (Telegraph - Janet Daley)

I would add to that...

A strong, stable dollar that isn't manipulated by politicians for political gain.  This would provide citizens a reliable store of value, reducing our dependency upon the state

A government that favors no industry over another and that makes simple laws that apply to all, and a government that punishes those who break the laws.

Remove the taxpayer-funded Wall Street safety net.  The dangerous gambling will stop immediately.

What would you do?

We are a Tea Party Nation

Most Americans agree with the tea party agenda, they just don't realize it. 

Frank Luntz wrote an informative article in WaPo last Sunday.  The GOP leadership would do well to study it.  Democrats who stubbornly cling to the idea that we the great unwashed are too stupid and ungrateful to appreciate all they've done for us to us should read it as well, but they probably wouldn't get anything out of it...

Americans' agenda is simple. In broad terms, they want the government to spur job growth, but not by subsidizing more government jobs with taxpayer dollars. They want Washington to balance the budget and reverse the growing influence of government on daily life. They want the government to encourage success, allow failure, punish those who break the law - and then get out of the way.  (WaPo - Frank Luntz)

Based upon his extensive polling, he has identified five issues that each enjoy a minimum of 60% public support.  He also points out that these are tea party issues, so it looks like its not such a fringe movement after all...

(1) Balance the budget as quickly as possible through meaningful spending reductions, a hard spending cap and a constitutional amendment so that it never gets unbalanced again.

(2) Eliminate all earmarks until the budget is balanced, then require a two-thirds vote by Congress for future earmark legislation. 

(3) Keep taxes down by requiring supermajorities for increases, and eventually enact tax reform with a simple, low, fair rate that drastically reduces the length of the IRS code.  

(4) Create a blue-ribbon task force that engages in a complete, line-by-line forensic audit of federal agencies and programs to end waste and reduce red tape and bureaucracy.

(5) And require Congress to provide specific constitutional authorization for every bill it passes so that the government stays within the boundaries imagined by the founders.

Progressives will never go along with this.  Take away government, you take away their power to control us, their reason for being, their ability to get elected by handing out taxpayer-funded goodies.  This is why they obstinately refuse to see the facts:  To do so would destroy their world.


Let's Roll, America!