| Can we return to a sound belief
system and conquer the illegal
invasion, in the process?
if republicans are to retain
control of congress this year, they
need to return to the winning
formula ronald reagan used to win
his 1980 campaign and republicans
used in the successful 1994
contract with america campaign to
take control of the u.s. house for
the first time in 40 years. this
formula would require the
republicans to re-identify
themselves with the values of the
american people.
house republicans can create a
winning agenda for november with
eleven issues. (the senate’s
constitutional design, its
institutional rules, and the
center-left coalition currently
dominating its agenda make it too
slow to take action on the eleven
but could benefit from a successful
house effort). i call them the
“american eleven” because each
issue defines the right solution,
which not coincidentally enjoys
overwhelming support from the
american people.
the american eleven begins with our
nation’s security.
as president bush emphasized this
week in his september 11 address to
the nation, america’s war against
islamic fascists is a struggle for
civilization. republicans in
congress must effectively
demonstrate that they are the party
doing what it takes to defeat our
enemies. republicans must force
those who would retreat and
withdrawal to bear the burden of
defending their proposals. the full
responsibility of undermining our
alliances and strengthening our
enemies must be placed on those who
would seek peace at the cost of
defeat and who would advocate
weakness in the face of hatred and
tyranny.
first, it is impossible for the
american people to believe that we
are waging a serious campaign to
defeat our enemies while our
borders remain unprotected.
therefore, the house should pass a
bill to secure our borders. once
passed, conservatives in the senate
should move everyday to bring it up
for a vote, requiring its opponents
to publicly explain why they are
blocking efforts to keep terrorists
from entering our country.
second, republicans in congress
should pass legislation to equip
the president with increased powers
for tracking terrorists and
conducting military tribunals.
third, republicans must lift the
nation’s national-security
dialogue beyond iraq and explain
the reality that america is engaged
in an emerging third world war
which we are not yet winning. in
this conflict, we face not only
terrorist enemies like al qaeda but
terrorist states like iran and
north korea. iran actively supports
terrorists and is seeking nuclear
weapons. north korea likely already
has nuclear weapons. both countries
are developing their missile
capabilities. with their words and
deeds, the dictators of these two
countries have been unambiguous in
their enmity toward the united
states. americans should take very
seriously the fact that north korea
deliberately ignored international
warnings when on our independence
day, it launched a ballistic
missile that was developed to be
capable of hitting the united
states.
congress should hold hearings on
the scale of the threat posed by
both iran and north korea and
commit america to replace these
regimes — the only strategy that
will ensure that they will be
unable to threaten the united
states. our efforts should be
directed to bringing about this
change about through peaceful
means, in the model ronald reagan
so brilliantly used in eastern
europe in the 1980s. in this
context, republicans must force
those who seek to cut and run in
iraq to explain why a dramatically
weakened america would not further
embolden a defiant iran, as it most
assuredly would.
fourth, house republicans should
demonstrate that they have a
“do-what-it-takes” attitude
about energy independence. they
should pass rep. jim nussle’s
(r., iowa) bill on renewable fuels
as well as a tax-incentives system
toward the development of new
automobile technologies that will
help change the underlying nature
of our energy economy.
fifth, republicans must remind
americans that they are the party
that protects america’s unique
civilization against those who
would radically redefine america. a
good first step in this effort
would be to pass legislation to
protect the right to say “one
nation under god” in the pledge
of allegiance. our founding
political document — the
declaration of independence —
asserts that we are “endowed by
our creator with certain
unalienable rights.” it is an
attribute fundamental to the
cultural dna of america. but since
the 1963 supreme court decision
outlawing school prayer, the courts
have steadily waged a 43-year
assault on the core values of
american liberty. it is time to
return to a balanced constitutional
system in which there is no
constitutional case for five
appointed lawyers on the court to
act as if in a permanent
constitutional convention.
sixth, while americans have always
respected and honored a diversity
of languages throughout the
country, we should embrace english
as the language necessary for
success in america. congress should
pass a bill making english the
official language of government,
abolishing multilingual ballots,
and reaffirming that new citizens
should be required to pass a test
on american history in english.
despite what the elite media may
report, there are no anti-english
congressional districts.
seventh, congress should move a
bill requiring voters to present a
photo id card in order to vote. we
must make certain that only legal
u.s. citizens are voting. the bill
should provide a mechanism for
those without a valid photo id to
obtain one from their state for
free. a photo id for voting would
be a huge step toward ensuring
honest elections, strengthening our
democratic system, and upholding
the value of american citizenship.
the final set of initiatives in the
american eleven reasserts that
republicans are the party of
taxpayers instead of the party of
tax spenders.
eighth, the house should force the
senate to vote on repealing the
death tax, for good. it should pass
the bill every week attaching it to
various senate bills until the
senate adopts it. it is simply
un-american to ask a grieving
family to visit the tax collector
and the undertaker in the same
week. the death tax destroys family
businesses that, in the long run,
collectively produce far more tax
dollars to the government than the
death tax ever collects. the death
tax is like killing the goose that
is laying america’s economic
golden eggs and we should abolish
it.
ninth, the congress should take
steps to restore the property
rights that were undermined by the
supreme court’s kelo decision
that weakened citizen protections
against the federal government’s
eminent-domain power. expanding the
power of local governments to seize
private property simply invites
corruption. this decision will
almost certainly lead to abuse at
the expense of the citizenry’s
property rights, especially those
of the poor. congress should pass
legislation that restores the
constitutional law to pre-kelo
rules and blocks the supreme court
from reviewing this new law in the
future.
tenth, congress should pass
legislation to control spending
with a step-by-step plan for
returning to a balanced budget in
seven years (the length of time we
gave ourselves after winning the
majority in 1994). in the
mid-1990s, we balanced the budget
for the first time in a generation
and we did it four years in a row.
we were able to achieve a balanced
budget while cutting taxes and
increasing defense and intelligence
spending. balancing the budget is
not just a political issue; it is a
moral issue because it forces
politicians to set priorities. if
politicians continue to spend as if
they had open-ended credit with no
consequences, then “yes” is the
answer to every special-interest
request — which is how we ended
up with the current absurdly
bloated, undisciplined federal
budget.
finally, congress should tie
education funding to school
accountability. the no child left
behind law is making it blaringly
obvious just how many schools are
crippling and destroying children.
we should save the children.
congress should require school
systems to institute metrics-based
performance standards in order to
receive federal funding to ensure
that every child is getting the
education that they deserve.
house republicans have two months
to change history. with the
american eleven, they have a chance
not only to save their majority in
congress, but also to return the
republican party to the
center-right populist values of
ronald reagan and the contract with
america. they can bring back the
reagan-contract formula of
listening to the american people
and identifying with their values.
the choice is theirs — and ours.
author = newt gingrich
I went to Newt's site. He wants more illegals and amnesty.
Got it right off his site, send him a note no thank you, and moved on. |
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