Contract From America: A Tea Party-Fueled Attempt to Be Heard
Last month, a new effort to reconnect the populace with its public servants was launched: Contract From America.
This consultation exercise aims to gather ideas from the public on laws they would like to see passed or eliminated. The ideas will be boiled down to three in each policy area by a panel of tea party activists from all over the nation and then submitted to political leaders.
Considering the arrogance displayed by many members of Congress towards their constituents and their wishes, this project intends to make them aware of just how driven people are to see a change in governmental behavior.
An interview with Ryan Hecker, the head of Contract From America:
AD: What prompted you to create this project?
RH: In the past, public policy has been entirely a top-down affair. Politicians work with consultants and others to create public policy initiatives, for which the electorate either show support by re-electing the politician or reject by choosing his opponent. However, we have seen over the past decade that politicians have largely been bereft of economically conservative ideas. I created this website because I strongly believe that the citizenry has a lot of ideas to offer to politicians if given the chance to speak and make an impact. We no longer have to sit passively as politicians present their ideas to us. We can all help in creating a Contract From America that we can use to direct public policy in 2010 and beyond.
AD: What is your background and how did you come to this sort of activism?
RH: I am an attorney in Houston, Texas, and a graduate of New York University and Harvard Law School. While I have long been a fan of free markets and limited government, I had limited political involvement until 2007, when I left my job at a New York law firm to join the Giuliani for President campaign. I strongly supported him because of his success in turning around New York City by adhering to economically conservative principles. However, in the months leading up to the 2008 election, I felt the Republican Party as a whole had abandoned such core principles of fiscal responsibility, and thus had abandoned me. I knew I had to do something, and like many fellow free market supporters, I joined the tea party movement. It is so wonderful being part of something greater than myself, and I think this movement is going to spearhead real reform.
YEA! YEA! YEA! Keep on keepin’ on! What a great idea.
I want any law passed by Congress to apply to Congress. E.g., they can’t be exempted from any health care “reform” they pass by that cool taxpayer-supported federal employee health insurance.
Keep up the good work guys! we are looking forward to the next round of parties so we can let our voices be heard.
Sign up at http://www.handsoffamerica.net to have your voice heard.
As long as they keep the Lunatic Fringe from dominating and come up with something other than “Lets go demonstrate on the way to Mickie D’s” then they will have something to keep the crowds happy, and may even get some “real” news coverage. Who knows, as this administration grows and matures and the bad old days of conservative economic meltdown fade they could have something to contribute to the debate. Will that happen? only time will tell. Good Luck to them.
how about plain language bills instead of the current monstrosities that no one reads and understands.
Ah, the cottage industry of conservative rage. How noble!
This looks more like a contract ON america. More wild-eyed libertarians pretending that the people want to go back to the 19th century. We don’t.
Peace.
DS
We already have one — The Constitution. That’s been ignored for decades. This will quickly change however.
The next line of defense is nullifying federal laws at the state level. We will put these feds back in their constitutional box.
When the ballot box no longer works, and “they” are about the business of ensuring that it won’t anymore, there’s always the cartridge box…
Freedom lost is never regained by begging to those who stole it.
Yes, those evil people who want the government to stick to founding documents of the nation. How very dare they?
Many of us understand the brilliance of our founding fathers and want to protect their vision and values. Our children deserve nothing less. Home of the free does not mean free healthcare, free housing, free cell phones, etc. America offers all equal opportunity, but that is at risk.
I invite you to visit: http://www.americanstatesmenparty,org, click “news” then click “A Healthy Alternative” You can download the article providing an alternative view on healthcare. We would welcome your comments. If you feel it has merit share it with others.
Let’s keep working toward returning America to her greatness.
Thank you,
Ben
Mr. Hecker started his effort because of his feeling that the Republican Party had gone away last year from being fiscally conservative. Actually, that drift started in the Party long before last year.
Example: in February of this year, one month after Obama became president, the GAO released a study of weapons procurement programs. 66 of 94 programs were running a collective $268 billion over original estimates. I can understand a few billion, but 268!?! That’s our hard earned taxpayer dollars lining the pockets of defense contractors. Wonder what Mr. Hecker would think about that?
I visited his web site, and clicked on “energy & environment,” a strong interest of mine. What I found was mostly the “drill here, drill now” mantra and many calls to get the federal government out of energy production. That’s funny; as of June, 2008, energy companies were sitting on almost 70 million acres of undeveloped oil & gas leases, on shore, mostly in the West, and off-shore. Yet no one seems to want to focus on industry as preventing energy independence. The bulk of those leases were granted during Bush/Cheney.
I don’t have time to visit all the categories on his site. I will give Mr. Hecker credit for being more articulate than many other tea party citizens. But he still falls short in doing his homework and background research on the issues of our day.
I agree with the concept of this movement, and I, FOR ONE, have a plan of TERM LIMITS. I will NOT vote for ANY incumbent, no matter what the party, no matter how well they say they have done. IF EVERYONE did the same, the “newly elected” people might just get the message and REPRESENT the public.
I also agree with having a MANDATORY balanced budget each and every fiscal year (the Gov. can only spend what they take in, like ALL OF US DO, and like almost every other form of Gov does). And, I don’t think ANY elected official should be entitled to ANY retirement, or other benefit, for their service, unless they serve more than 20 years.
If they want to FIX S.S., make THEM live under it, and let THEM plan their future based on it, and TAKE AWAY their exorbitant retirements.
Join March on the Media…..Sat. Oct. 17, 2009 throughout America.
I would like to see the elimination of campaign donations by those without an actual legal right to vote. Particularly Corporations and foreign entities. It isn’t free speech when something that is only a legal entity has neither an actual voice nor voting rights. Equating a dollar with a vote, why should they be allowed to vote millions of times with millions of dollars? They also shouldn’t be allowed to donate because hey, it’s only led this country to fascism. cough *GE*
Let there be accountability for ALL politicans in DC, and for that matter, everywhere else. I see the 3 mouseketeers are here,their same old talking points repeated ad nauseum.When are you guys/girls going to get off the soros dole and become useful members of society (as in get a real job, and pay taxes like the rest of us).You guys need to move out of your mommy’s basement- it is not healthy breathing in the mouldy air.
It is great to see people so fired up in the nation and discussing where we are and where we are going. There is much that we all agree on! Don’t believe me? Just let another nation attack our homeland again and war on us. There is a LOT we will find we agree on.
We must reign in Washington D.C. politicians. I think we all agree that we are not very satisfied with how little we are listened to, or even cared about – except at election time. My rep won’t see me, take my call, and when I went to D.C., calling before hand to set up an appointment, her office did not even return my call until a week after I returned home to say sorry! When we travel all the way to DC from California and we can’t even get in the door we have a real problem America.
Let’s all think about what we want, find the 80% we agree on, and make our country stronger. Let’s not let it slip into the failed model of Socialism that Europe is now turning away from. That dog don’t bark.
AWESOME!!! Keep up the GREAT work Tea Party!!!! Protect the Constitution and our Childrens Future from these Socialist Communist Liberals!!!
-aTb
The first thing on that Contract should be TERM LIMITS!!!! That’s the only thing that will change the culture in Washington DC. Then we do bottom up policy making.
Term limits have got to be first, then a cut in pay… say to half, then put them on medicare, give them only social insecurity, make the house meet two or three days a month… these people need to keep ‘real jobs’ and maybe they will learn something about the ‘America’ they threw under the bus for the sake of saving the UAW and ‘Goldman Sucks…
This is an outstanding idea. Return government back to the citizens. Of course the left wing wussies will not want this to happen as they may actually have to do something for themselves for a change.
How about when an elected official is convicted of a felony while in office and he is imprisoned, he automatically loses his tax payer funded pension? I think this has been tried before and turned down. Also any elected official must serve an appropriate number of years, comparable to the private sector, in order to receive the huge pensions they receive. I agree with Wildman- maybe social security should be their only income. Many Americans must survive on this alone. Only when the politicians are put in our positions will they vote in our interest.
TO: Steve B/Colorado
We spend that much because we are the police force for the world, in trade we get folks to buy our debt…..which right now no one wants to buy. There will be a lesson learned soon when no amount of printed money with no value will be reason for anyother country to buy our debt. We always kept the oil coming out of the gulf attack free, just because of our ships. As far as drilling for our own, well really the only reason we are not is because the Mideast would collapse, that is all they have in trade. They do not have private enterprize trading with the rest of the world. If we stop buying their oil can you imagine the explosion that would occur. So many young folks there so little jobs. The governments pay the folks to stay quite and non threating out of oil receipts. You know very little about Geo-politics. Wasn’t long ago we were there under Bush just for the oil…..really….we only get about 14% of our oil from the Middle East, we protect all the rest going to india, Japan etc in trade they buy our debt. If they did not we would be looking at an extreme inflation it soon will happen anyway because of the stupidly growning the size of our debt, because of the politicians who are now in power and their greedy slush fund in Fannie and Freddie….keep being dumb, it’s easier that way.
Every elected official should a pay of the minimum salary, with no backing from their own finances. I’m sure our forefathers who wrote the constitution would agree with me.
Term limits(To include federal judges, to include U.S. Supreme Court)mandated by constitunal ammendments as needed. There are laws already on the books, that require balancing the budgets, enforce them. Too many agencies are issuing regulations,(that are in effect laws). Only congress has the authority to make laws. Americans need to get off of their collective backsides, and do something-Anything to correct this slide to socialism.GOD BLESS AMERICA
Basic simple language limited leagleeze in bills being presentd. We don’t need or want several thousand pages of B.S. to present a proposed bill. PASS the FAIR TAX and all of the graft will be eliminated.