Paul Ryan, a young Republican Congressman from Wisconsin, is a ranking member of the House Budget Committee. He first introduced an alternative fiscal policy in 2008 called a Road Map for America’s Future, and has since fine-tuned it as the current administration and congressional leadership continues to pursue the reckless expansion of government and a progressive fiscal policy that is leading us towards a European style welfare state, where excessive unemployment, and higher taxes, and reduced productivity become the normal state of the economy.
Ryan’s Road Map provides us with hope that our current course can still be turned around and we can restore our economy to the elements rooted in individual initiative, entrepreneurship, and innovation, which made us the envy of the world. It explicitly describes a completely different vision about Health Care, Medicare, Social Security, and Tax Reform that refutes the charge that the GOP is the party of “No” and has offered no alternative to the progressive agenda now being forced upon us by the current Democrat leadership.
Health Care: Ryan’s plan shifts the control and ownership of health insurance from away from the government and employers to the individual, by providing refundable tax credits of $5,700 for families and $2,300 for individuals to purchase coverage in any state and keep it if they move, or change jobs, and with high risk pools being created that make affordable care available to those with pre-existing conditions.
Medicare: This program is secured for Americans currently 55 or older and for those under 55, it creates a Medicare payment, averaging $11,000 to be used to purchase a Medicare certified plan. The cost is adjusted to reflect inflation, and pegged to income. It also funds tax free Medical Savings Accounts (MSA’s), which will keep Medicare solvent for generations.
Social Security: The Road Map preserves the existing Social Security program for those 55 or older. For those under 55, the plan offers the option of investing over 1/3 of their current SS taxes in personal retirement accounts, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan that is available to Federal employees. It allows individuals to pass these assets to their heirs and guarantees they will not loss anything they contribute. It also makes SS permanently solvent by modestly adjusting the growth of higher income accounts and providing a modest increase in the retirement age.
Tax Reform: The tax code is simplified with a form that is the size of a post card; just two rates, 10% on income up to $100k (joint filers), and $50k (single filers), and 25% for higher incomes. It eliminates the alternative minimum tax, taxes on interest income, capital gains, dividends, and the death tax. It replaces corporate taxes with a business consumption tax of 8.5% which is roughly half the average of the industrialized world and will make American companies compete more favorably in the global economy.
I think you will see that this plan is bold and innovative and sets us on the path to a smaller government and lower taxes. Something you may not expect from the party of “NO”.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Party Affiliation is Now Meaningless
I got a call last night around 9:30 PM from the Republican National Committee trying to solicit more money to continue my long term membership into 2010. I get letters and calls every week from Jeff Sessions, Michael Steele, Jim DeMint, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and their aides, all asking for money. I usually tell them to get lost and I tear up and throw out the mail.
I sometimes go into a long tirade with the callers telling them I won’t give a dime to a political party with no leaders, and uncertain message, and no horse to ride in 2012. I guess it took the “Massachusetts Miracle” to wake the Republicans up, but they still don’t know what to do.
Most of you who read my posts know that I tend to support the policies that are espoused by the Republican Party and I have been a registered Republican for many years. Surprise! However, I am quite disappointed in Republican politicians who only spend their time criticizing the President’s agenda, rather than clearly articulating their policies and vision for America.
A good example recently occurred when a vulnerable President went before a conference of House Republicans a few days ago after the Scott Brown election in Massachusetts. Obviously, we must treat our President with respect, but most of these Congressmen completely let him off the hook and failed to ask penetrating questions and to hold him accountable for the multitude of mistakes and bad decisions we have seen from this Administration ranging from the economy, to national security, to foreign policy. Instead, they worked from prepared notes rather than engage him in real debate about the outlandish remarks, mistruths, and manipulation of the facts that we hear in most of his public appearances.
The Republican Party has a cadre of very young and talented Congressmen and Senators such as Jim Spence, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, John Thune, Tim Pawlenty, and now Scott Brown, not to mention former governors and senators such as Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, etc. Until I see the Party get behind a few of these fellows and initiate an effort to bring them forward to the public and the opposition and not only showcase them on Fox News, I am unaffiliated.
I guess right now I’m a member of the Tea Party. One of those who are angry and frustrated with what’s going on in Washington and in the financial community and neither Party gets a dime from me until I hear a coherent and consistent message, see the vision, and observe the choices available for 2012. After seeing what’s happening to this nation under the current progressive Pelosi, Reid, Obama agenda, I am in a panic mode and a man without a Party. Perhaps that means I’m an Independent and judging from the polls there’s a lot more of us these days.
I sometimes go into a long tirade with the callers telling them I won’t give a dime to a political party with no leaders, and uncertain message, and no horse to ride in 2012. I guess it took the “Massachusetts Miracle” to wake the Republicans up, but they still don’t know what to do.
Most of you who read my posts know that I tend to support the policies that are espoused by the Republican Party and I have been a registered Republican for many years. Surprise! However, I am quite disappointed in Republican politicians who only spend their time criticizing the President’s agenda, rather than clearly articulating their policies and vision for America.
A good example recently occurred when a vulnerable President went before a conference of House Republicans a few days ago after the Scott Brown election in Massachusetts. Obviously, we must treat our President with respect, but most of these Congressmen completely let him off the hook and failed to ask penetrating questions and to hold him accountable for the multitude of mistakes and bad decisions we have seen from this Administration ranging from the economy, to national security, to foreign policy. Instead, they worked from prepared notes rather than engage him in real debate about the outlandish remarks, mistruths, and manipulation of the facts that we hear in most of his public appearances.
The Republican Party has a cadre of very young and talented Congressmen and Senators such as Jim Spence, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, John Thune, Tim Pawlenty, and now Scott Brown, not to mention former governors and senators such as Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, etc. Until I see the Party get behind a few of these fellows and initiate an effort to bring them forward to the public and the opposition and not only showcase them on Fox News, I am unaffiliated.
I guess right now I’m a member of the Tea Party. One of those who are angry and frustrated with what’s going on in Washington and in the financial community and neither Party gets a dime from me until I hear a coherent and consistent message, see the vision, and observe the choices available for 2012. After seeing what’s happening to this nation under the current progressive Pelosi, Reid, Obama agenda, I am in a panic mode and a man without a Party. Perhaps that means I’m an Independent and judging from the polls there’s a lot more of us these days.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Does Progressivism Mean Progress?
Progressive is a term you will hear more often in the coming months and as long as Obama is President. It is a positive–sounding word because it sounds like “progress” or “change” which are words that most of us like, whereas, conservative sounds like “stuck in the past”, traditional, and those boring images. This is where semantics can be deceiving. Remember when “liberal” was very positive, now it’s somewhat of a liability if you are a politician, thus the word progressive. We should learn to understand words in the context they are used, before we make judgments as to what they really mean.
Progressivism in our domestic politics started at the turn of the century; and Woodrow Wilson was our first progressive President. Wilson believed that our Constitution was anachronistic, mired in the past, and irrelevant to modern times. In fact, he felt we should not bother with the Declaration of Independence because it was just a list of grievances against King George III. Wilson put the State before the people and was an elitist as well as a dedicated racist. He even re-segregated our military, and as a believer in the redistribution of wealth, gave us the progressive income tax that we have today. He was a co-founder of the League of Nations which was a precursor to the United Nations, and we all know how those ideas worked out.
Like Wilson, modern progressives do not believe in natural rights but believe that people can be made more perfect by a strong central government, but when left to their own designs will go astray. The founding fathers believed that man is flawed, but they also believed that power corrupts and therefore they set up a system of checks and balances to insure that control is not delegated to a select few.
Progressives also have a strong interest in eugenics as a means to improve the masses. This is the science dealing with the improvement of hereditary qualities by forced selection. One can see this in some of the progressive language in Obamacare, where the elderly are given less preference in health care than the “more productive” segment of the population.
Progressives are found in both parties, with Wilson, Roosevelt, and now Obama being the most extreme Democrats and Teddy Roosevelt a Republican example. In fact, I would include John McCain as one of our contemporary Republican progressives. Progressivism is different from Communism, in that, it does not promote violence or revolution but believes that evolution is the preferred route to transformation. I think you should look at progressives as conservative Socialists, but clearly at the opposite end of the spectrum from our constitutional values of small federal government, rewarding individual initiative, and God-given natural rights.
We need to ponder what the influence of progressivism will be to a centrist nation like us, should progressives continue their dominance of the Democratic Party during Obama’s tenure. Will it affect our social values, our economic growth, our rule of law, and our global status?
More on this later.
Progressivism in our domestic politics started at the turn of the century; and Woodrow Wilson was our first progressive President. Wilson believed that our Constitution was anachronistic, mired in the past, and irrelevant to modern times. In fact, he felt we should not bother with the Declaration of Independence because it was just a list of grievances against King George III. Wilson put the State before the people and was an elitist as well as a dedicated racist. He even re-segregated our military, and as a believer in the redistribution of wealth, gave us the progressive income tax that we have today. He was a co-founder of the League of Nations which was a precursor to the United Nations, and we all know how those ideas worked out.
Like Wilson, modern progressives do not believe in natural rights but believe that people can be made more perfect by a strong central government, but when left to their own designs will go astray. The founding fathers believed that man is flawed, but they also believed that power corrupts and therefore they set up a system of checks and balances to insure that control is not delegated to a select few.
Progressives also have a strong interest in eugenics as a means to improve the masses. This is the science dealing with the improvement of hereditary qualities by forced selection. One can see this in some of the progressive language in Obamacare, where the elderly are given less preference in health care than the “more productive” segment of the population.
Progressives are found in both parties, with Wilson, Roosevelt, and now Obama being the most extreme Democrats and Teddy Roosevelt a Republican example. In fact, I would include John McCain as one of our contemporary Republican progressives. Progressivism is different from Communism, in that, it does not promote violence or revolution but believes that evolution is the preferred route to transformation. I think you should look at progressives as conservative Socialists, but clearly at the opposite end of the spectrum from our constitutional values of small federal government, rewarding individual initiative, and God-given natural rights.
We need to ponder what the influence of progressivism will be to a centrist nation like us, should progressives continue their dominance of the Democratic Party during Obama’s tenure. Will it affect our social values, our economic growth, our rule of law, and our global status?
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