The GOP’s drive towards a new congressional majority has, to this point, focused mostly on what has been wrong with the way President Barack Obama and the Democrats have attempted to govern. What has been missing, say many analysts, has been the development of what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich once called “an agenda worth voting for.”
Not that the Republicans haven’t tried. Through its America Speaking Out web site, House Republicans are trying to develop a platform to carry them successfully through the fall elections. Another effort, the Contract from America, has been developed by Tea Party activists as a “grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress.”
Now entering the mix is the “7 in 11” agenda developed by Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group that defines itself as an advocacy organization “committed to educating, equipping, and mobilizing millions of American citizens to take action on the critical economic and legislative issues that will shape our nation’s future in the years ahead.”
The program’s seven issue priorities are:
1. Guarantee Low Tax Rates that Encourage American Economic Growth
- Stop the Obama tax hike time bomb scheduled to detonate on January 1, 2011
- Reform and simplify the tax system to strengthen America’s global competitiveness
2. Stop Congress’s Reckless Waste of Taxpayer Money
- End wasteful “stimulus” spending and pork-barrel earmarks
- Develop fiduciary-quality controls on Congress’s budgeting and spending processes
- Cut Congress’s ballooning travel budget
3. Aggressively Attack the National Debt
- Clean up the nation’s books and set a clear course to pay off the national debt
- Create a “BRAC” commission process to tackle entitlement reform
4. Reform Healthcare Responsibly, Not Ideologically
- Call a “time-out” on implementing Obamacare to protect seniors’ and families’ health
- Refocus on patient-centered policies that will lower costs and improve quality through technological innovations
5. End the Bailout Culture
- Impose a moratorium on government handouts to banks, automakers, labor unions and other politically-connected interests
- Require full public accounting of disposition of returned TARP and auto bailout funds, as well as how much “stimulus” and “jobs bill” spending is directly or indirectly funding government salaries and pensions
6. Protect our Borders, Enforce our Laws
- Stop stalling on implementing a complete American border security system
- Fix existing laws to ensure legal immigration that benefits America and those who play by the rules
7. Prioritize American Energy Development
- Block the energy taxes on American families that costly regulatory regimes will impose
- Speed up development of American nuclear, fossil fuel, and other energy sources
“What’s behind the ‘7 in 11’ plan is a long-term commitment to promote legislative and policy changes that will get our country back on a sound financial and economic footing,” said Crossroads GPS President Steven Law. What they’ve put forward is an ambitious agenda but one that correlates strongly with the current concerns of the American people while, at the same time, presenting clear contrasts to the Democrats’ way of doing business in Washington.
- Check out our editorial cartoons on the 2010 campaigns.
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- Read more coverage of the political stories of the year.
Reader Comments Read all comments (2)
Bill Hedges of MO 5:19PM August 18, 2010
steve of IL 3:10PM August 18, 2010