State of the Union

We'll be blogging the State of the Union speech tonight starting at 9pm. There will be a diary posted with our impressions of the speech and the GOP response.

A New Contract With America

It has been a good month to be a Republican but there is more work to do. After the November 2009 victories in Virginia and New Jersey, independents have continued fleeing from the Democrat party with the recent election of Scott Brown as the junior Senator from Massachusetts. The Democrat Party version of Health Care Reform is now dead and the Supreme Court has repealed a portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform (guaranteed incumbent re-election) law. Freedom is on the march.

These independents, however, will demand that the Republicans give them something other than opposition to the Democrats in power. If the Republicans fail to provide their own solutions to the economy and health care, then the pendulum will swing just as quickly back to the Democrats. Many have likened the recent GOP electoral victories to the 1994 midterm elections. There is a fundamental difference, however—in 1994 the GOP had more than opposition to the Democrats, they had the Contract with America.

The GOP today needs an equally ambitious legislative agenda to keep the independents in their camp. I'd propose the following:

1) A return to "pay-go" and a balanced budget amendment. End deficit spending.

2) Make the Bush tax cuts permanent

3) Market-based health care reform that puts the brakes on out-of-control health care costs, reforms the medical malpractice system, and allows the purchase of policies across state lines. The GOP must offer its own version of health care reform that addresses the cost issue because pretty soon, health care policies are going to get unaffordable for middle class families.

4) Term limits on members of congress and senators.

This is a simple but ambitious agenda that independents can get behind. The GOP cannot squander this opportunity.

We Can Defeat the Health Care Bill

Congress is on recess; its members are heading home. Now is the time to hit them hard on H.R. 3200 - "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009". Find your local congressional representative here. Then call them. Then tell your friends, family, and like minded fellow citizens to call them. And urge them to oppose H.R. 3200 because:

1) You value your privacy. Government involvement in your private health care matters is unacceptable. Government bureaucrats having access to your private health information is as objectionable as the government listening in to your private telephone conversations;

2) The "public option" is no option at all - it is a stop on the road to government-run single payer health care. No private health insurer can compete with the public option. The statement that "you can keep your health insurance if you are happy with it" is a lie because you insurer will eventually be unable to compete with the public plan and the public plan will be the only plan left;

3) As revealed by the Congressional Budget Office, H.R. 3200 will cost way more than we can afford now or ever. A severe recession is not the time to blow our budget and further increase the skyrocketing federal budget deficit;

4) A bill with this kind of enormous cost can only lead to enormous tax increases down the road;

5) And, finally, this bill will destroy small business in America by increasing their tax burden to such a degree that they must cut costs by laying off or refusing to hire workers which would only prolong and perhaps make permanent our current recessionary problems.

Get on the phone!

Memorial Day Interrupted

By North Korean saber-rattling.

Despite this, let's take a moment today to remember those who gave their lives in the defense of our nation.

Congratulations to the Crew of Shuttle Atlantis

Following 7 days of repairing the Hubble Space Telescope, 197 orbits of the Earth, and 5 spacewalks, the crew of STS-125 has safely returned to Earth. The shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California this morning.

Update on Closing Gitmo

Okay, maybe bringing those terrorists from Gitmo to U.S. prisons isn't such a good idea. A blogger on Redstate noted today that the terrorists who were arrested for planning to bomb synagogue(s) and shoot down military aircraft in New York were converted to Islam in prison.

Closing Gitmo: Style over Substance

The GOP scored a rare victory this week by derailing the President's plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The "Keep Terrorists out of America Act" proposed by Congressional Republicans this month was a marvelous piece of political maneuvering; it allowed the GOP to control the debate on the President's agenda.

The Act would have provided that before the Federal government transferred a Gitmo prisoner to a prison facility, the Feds would have to get the approval of that State's legislature and governor. It also required the administration to to notify Congress of the name of the detainee, and to stipulate to Congress that the release would not hamper continued prosecution of the detainee and wouldn’t negatively impact the state’s population.

The bill could also be called the "No Terrorists In My Backyard Act".

Congressional Democrats, true to form, rather than defend the President's agenda, went all spineless on there left-wing base and voted to deny the President the funding needed to close Gitmo.

It's a rare political victory for the GOP in these wandering-in-the-desert days, and its one that we would should enjoy because I don't think we will be seeing many more such political points scored on our side.

But, while this is a political victory, I think that we have to admit that the GOP's position here doesn't make much sense. The President planned to close Gitmo and transfer the prisoners to Federal Supermax prisons and other facilities throughout the country. When is the last time you heard of someone escaping from a Federal prison facility? It's not like these terrorists are being transferred to a halfway house down the street from one of us. Also, some of these Federal prisons already have some pretty scary inmates in them - from mass murders to terrorists to ruthless mobsters. If the Feds can keep those inmates from escaping into the local population, I think that they would be able to handle a few bad guys from the sandbox.

The President's position on this doesn't make much sense either. He wants to spend $80,000,000.00 to close Gitmo and transfer the terrorists to prisons in the U.S. I understand the $80 million is a drop in the bucket these days, but why transfer these prisoners to another prison? I assume that the President and his left-wing allies are embarrased by Gitmo how other nations view Gitmo. But, if the President is just going to close Gitmo because the terrorists are sitting there without a right to trial or hearing to transfer them to another prison that happens to be on U.S. soil where they can rot without benefit of hearing or trial . . . well, you get the point.

I think this is another example of this administration exhalting style over substance. Remember when the President, shortly after assuming office, announced with glee that waterboarding was torture and that the United States was not going to engage in torture? At the same time, he quietly maintained the U.S. policy of rendition, which allows the U.S. to transfer detainees to our allies that do practice torture. Hmm.

Credit Crunch? What Credit Crunch?

This week, the Senate voted to increase the cost of credit in the middle of what pundits have called the worse credit crisis in the history of America. Despite the recent recession, some believe that the consumer credit industry is doing well—one of the few industries to do so in the current economic climate. This move was to be expected and was another matter on the Democrat's to-do list upon taking the reigns of power this year.

What does this mean for us?

1) Good bye 0% APR;

2) Hello crappy cash back offers;

3) Good bye sweet credit card reward programs.

Like many responsible Blue State Republicans, I'm a big fan of the responsible use of credit cards. So long as you pay off your balance each month, credit cards are willing to reward you with cash back, airline miles, hotel stays, and other goodies.

For example, nearly all of my personal purchases go on my American Express Blue Cash card. This gets me about $500.00 back at the end of the year for buying stuff and paying bills that I would have anyway. Recently, AmEx sent me a letter advising that they were reducing the cash back interest rate on most of my purchases effective 6/1/09. Once again the Dems are costing me money.