Tea Party Manifesto as defined by the Tea Party Patriots

Tea Party Manifesto as defined by the Tea Party Patriots 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%) 2. Reject Cap & Trade Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation's global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%) 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%) 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%) 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 US Constitution's meaning. (63.37%) 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%) 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%) 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%) 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%) 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%)

The Democratic spin has already started regarding the lowered AA+ rating, S &  P said “political brinkmanship” in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government’s ability to manage its finances “less stable, less effective and less predictable.” It said the bipartisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings “fell short” of what was necessary to tame the nation’s debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings in the future".
Spending in Washington is out of control. The Democrats are trying to blame every Republican in or out of office, but at the obvious truth is that out of control.
CBO Baseline budgeting is the problem as every department gets a 4 to 12 percent increase regardless how much they need If they only get a 2% to 6% raise then they say they have cut their budget by 50%. The budget's not being cut; the deficit really isn't being cut. It's only being refinanced with lower interest rates for a short time.
"Here is how the hocus pocus works," explains Mr. Ferrara, who's currently director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute. "The CBO assumes a 'baseline' for federal spending over the next 10 years that includes federal spending increases of $9.5 trillion over that time. Any increase in those 10 years of less than $9.5 trillion will be reported by CBO as a cut in federal spending.

Big Government has failed now more then ever we need to be TEA Conservatives.

It looks like many are coming to the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) conclusion that government is to big and must be reduced. The US gross debt is presently at 83 percent of GDP as of 2009. With a debt per citizen of $39,283 or more importantly a debt per taxpayer of $111,224 as realistically it is only taxpayers who will be able to pay down this debt. Even the most Pollyanna Progressive looking at the facts thru their rose colored glasses will have to admit this is unsustainable.

The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of the income tax burden while the bottom 49 percent pay no income taxes at all. What is fair about that? Raising taxes has been proven repeatedly over time to not proportionally raise revenue. The only obvious choices are as follows.

1. Raise the number of taxpayers by getting government regulations out of the way of the private sector and letting them do what they do best and that is they create jobs and wealth that can be taxed.
2. Reduce the size and scope of our parasitic overgrown large Government cutting their budgets across the board.
3. The most difficult choice for all of us is to address entitlements but this must be done by adding means testing and raising retirement age for future retires reflecting our increased lifespans.

If we continue to stick our heads in the sand as we have done to get thru the next election these choices will be forced upon us in the most uncomfortable ways as is currently happening in Greece.

S&P Downgrade shows the need to deal with our Long-Term Fiscal Problems

This was the predictable result from to much debt in relation to our income. Now that our credit rating downgrade has become reality it is time to actually reduce the debt not just slow down the growth as was recently done by our government. There is only one viable option and that means real cuts to spending including entitlements. We can not raise taxes significantly as that will not result in increased revenue.

The TEA activists get it and now have to be taken seriously as they have the guts to push for the uncomfortable necessities to get us all out of this unsustainable Progressive Liberal mess that all big government politicians have created.