Thursday, April 15, 2010

Contract From America


The Teabaggers have unveiled their Contract from America. First off, because I am a legal secretary, while you can have a contract "with" someone, you can't have a contract "from" someone. Contracts are voluntary on both sides, otherwise they aren't enforceable. Anyway . . .

The Contract From America, which was produced through an online voting process . . .

Yeah, that's the best way to create policy. I'm a part of the crazy that is online opinion and I know that's a bad idea. Let's see what 10 things online teabaggers think would be the best policies to reduce joblessness, repair the economy and make government work for the people of this great nation.*

(1) Protect the Constitution: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does (82.03 percent).

Not that I really care, that would be work of a moment (you do that sort of thing all the time in legal filings), but why? What's that going to accomplish? This is their most popular option?

"(2) Reject Cap & Trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumers prices, and weaken the nation's global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures (72.20 percent).

Look, to be honest, I know very little about cap & trade. I do, however, know that most teabaggers don't believe in climate change, so I'm a little suspicious about this. Perhaps someone that does know something about cap & trade can educate me.

(3) Demand a Balanced Budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69 percent)

Oh, they want to kill the economy and induce an even greater Great Depression. Okay, then. Look, this isn't the first time someone has considered balancing the budget in a recession. Hoover tried it, too. It didn't work. Can we please try learning from the past instead of mindlessly repeating it? I swear to you it works better that way.

(4) Enact Fundamental Tax Reform: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words -- the length of the original Constitution. (64.90 percent).

So, a good tax code is measured by how many words it uses? What? That's utterly nonsensical. I think what they want is a flat tax, which is exceedingly regressive. Flat taxes end up affecting the poor far more than the rich. I'm unsurprised that teabaggers either don't know this or don't care about this.

(5) Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the U.S. Constitution's meaning. (63.37 percent)

Wait, you want to create a task force (lots of money) to figure out where we are losing lots of money? Ummm . . . hey, I can help you out with that one.

(6) End Runaway Government Spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57 percent).

Or, we could just end our pointless wars. You know, either way.

(7) Defund, Repeal & Replace Government-run Health Care: Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn't restricted by state boundaries. (56.39 percent).
I have so dealt with this before. I'm not saying it again.

(8) Pass an 'All-of-the-Above' Energy Policy: Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51 percent).

Fuck it, we'll put a Chernobyl in your back yard, cause who needs regulation?

(9) Stop the Pork: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47 percent).

You have Porkulus Palin as your de facto leader and you want to give me this bullshit? Really? Ms. "I was for the Bridge to Nowhere and then I was against it after it wasn't even being built?" Yeah, okay.

(10) Stop the Tax Hikes: Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38 percent)."

Your taxes are lower now than they have been in quite some time, and you're complaining about tax hikes? And cry me a fucking river about capital gains and death taxes. First of all, "death taxes" are actually called estate taxes. Here's a website totally opposed to estate taxation. Even they have to admit that 2011 isn't going to much different than 2002-2009. In 2011, the max unified rate will be 50%, as it was in 2002, and a mere 5% higher than it was in 2009.

So, that's what most important to the teabaggers: estate taxes, repealing healthcare reform and proper cites in legislation. Unreal.


*You think that might not be their ultimate goal? You cynic, you!

6 comments:

  1. He're an interesting line of approach:


    "Do you support a socialist state?"
    "OH HELL NO."
    "Do you support Israel?"
    "OF COURSE!"
    "Do you realize that they have universal health care and a 53% tax burden? Sounds pretty socialist to me."

    And then the sound of their brain melting out of their nose.

    ReplyDelete
  2. First they want to "protect the constitution" then they fail to point out the "specific provision of the Constitution" that would allow their other points to become law. Oh yeah, and they also want to amend the constitution straightaway. This is all very confuse-making to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I support this contract and disagree with your points.
    1. If the constitution had been protected, the healthcare bill couldn't have passed.
    2. Cap & Trade will cost America jobs according to the CBO.
    3. Hoover wanted to balance the budget by increasing taxes also. Spending can be and should be cut in certain areas. We don't have trillionaires. Even an 80% tax can't cover our spending. So if taxes can't cover it, something's gotta give. We are also getting into a fairly dangerous situation regarding the Chinese and our debt. They are manipulating currency exchange and limiting our imports into their country for starters, which is further hurting our economy.
    4. They are not calling for a flat tax because of how it will hurt the middle class. You've misunderstood.
    5. I support limiting the government. Even Hamilton, a federalist, would be rolling in his grave right now to see the power the government is now amassing.
    6. Spending is out of control and needs to be reigned in. For example, the bail outs with tax payer money that simply delayed inevitable failure were reckless and impulsive. After billions of dollars, bankruptcy was filed anyway.
    7. More government healthcare will end up broke just like Medicare and Social Security. There will be massive doctor shortages and serious compromises in the quality of care. At the nuclear summit, the first thing China asked Obama was how much healthcare reform was going to cost them. Not a good sign.
    8. Nuclear technology has come a long way since Chernobyl. We shouldn't close the door on it yet.
    9. This one doesn't even need defending. Dems and Repubs are both guilty and it needs to stop for obvious reasons.
    10. Tax hikes enacted under Obama have totaled $670.341 Billion so I don't know what you're talking about. You've probably not taken into account the legislation he's passed that hasn't gone into effect for the 2009 returns. Also, we are still under the Bush tax cuts, which unfortunately are set to expire soon. When the taxes go back up, we can kiss more jobs goodbye.

    ReplyDelete
  4. All I'll say is that you are my goddess, PF. And the links are awesome!

    And, strictly a process question:

    Why do people disagree anonymously? Do you have to assign them a number in the rebuttal process? Hmmm.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Republicans already lay claim to a Contract With America. So the tea baggers had to come up with something other than Contract On America, even though some of the rhetoric from that side of the political fence would have made this appropriate...

    ReplyDelete
  6. PersFail, I beg to differ. You can contract a disease from someone, right? As in, Europe contracted McDonald's from America.

    What the Teabaggers have contracted from America is anyone's guess, but for sure they've swallowed the Myth of Conservative Fiscal Responsibility hook, line, and sinker.

    ReplyDelete

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