CONGRESS - LISTEN UP - "WE WANT SPENDING REDUCTION IN THE $100s OF BILLIONS"

By all means, SHUT IT DOWN!

Fiscal, Constitutional showdown long overdue

When Congress returns to Washington at the end of the month, they will be facing in the Budget Continuing Resolution (CR) battle with Obama and the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate what the mainstream media calls a "high-stakes confrontation" over fiscal 2011 spending. They say this NOT because of the impending financial and moral ruin of our republic if drastic measures are not taken to get our fiscal house in order, but to hype the fraudulent blame and hyperbolic angst they will illicitly assign to the GOP, should a federal government shutdown ensue.

TELL CONGRESS: Cut AT LEAST the $61 Billion in the
House CR Bill or SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN

House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, FINALLY confirmed the reality of possible government shutdown in publicly stating that he would not support even a temporary extension of federal funding unless it included serious spending cuts that began to address America's looming debt crisis, as demanded by a vast majority of the American electorate. This is a position at odds with Obama and Senate Democrats' budget  spending demands.

And although inadequate to our crisis, it is a start! We must ensure your voice CONTINUES TO BE HEARD by the GOP Establishment, to arouse and sustain much-needed courage in a Republican leadership that for far too long has been far too willing to compromise with the feckless and reckless spending of the tax-and-spend Democrats.

Boehner's statement set off an immediate clash with Obama and the Democrat-led Senate, and came as the House finalized votes on hundreds of amendments to (HR 1) making some $61 billion in reductions of government spending for the rest of this fiscal year. For most of us, these cuts are only a first pass at what is required — not even half of the $125 billion in first year cuts recommended by the Republican Study Committee.

Outrage from the conservative base that elected a new Republican majority to Congress with a mandate for sweeping fiscal reform at episodes of Congressional timidity and vacillation seems to be making some impression on the GOP "leadership." In announcing his position, Boehner discarded the weak language of compromise that many thought had become inevitable, and left the profligate accommodationists in both chambers stunned and scrambling. The current stopgap spending law, PL 111-322, expires March 4 and the timeline for sellouts before a CR shutdown is very tight. Of course, further stopgap bills are in the works as a fall-back to real political courage.

Obviously, House Republicans and Senate Democrats have widely divergent notions of how to fund the government through Sept. 30, when the current fiscal year ends. The House bill as finalized cuts funding by $61 billion compared with fiscal 2010, while Senate appropriators are writing legislation with delusional discretionary spending still at fiscal 2010 levels.
If Congress does not clear a new spending measure or reach accord on another temporary spending bill by March 4, we will see the first federal government shutdown since the much decried Gingrich-Clinton impasse of the mid-1990s. Reacting quickly to Boehner's comments, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seized his partisan microphone and began mouthing distortions:

"We're terribly disappointed Speaker Boehner can't control the votes in his conference," Reid said to press with other Senate Democrat leaders in tow. "They're going to shut down the government. And now he's resorting to threats to do just that without any negotiations. That is not permissible. We will not stand for that."

Here is what in fact is not permissible, and what we will not stand for: the federal budget proposed by Obama will double the national debt over the next 10 years to $26.3 Trillion!

The current national debt is already, by end of Fiscal Year 2010 projected at $13.56 Trillion. Barack Obama and Harry Reid are ruining America and it must stop, TODAY.

After weeks in which House Republicans seemed fearfully to downplay any possibility of a shutdown, and blamed Senate Democrats for even raising the subject, Boehner has now responded to Reid with a new message that such a scenario could occur. WE MUST KEEP BOEHNER FROM BACKING DOWN — WE NEED TO KEEP UP THE HEAT FOR GOP LEADERS TO SEE THE LIGHT!

Being demonized by Democrats for holding the line against bankrupting America is not a political disaster for Republicans!

"If Sen. Reid is unwilling to listen to the American people and cut spending in a temporary CR, he will be responsible for the government shutdown he and Sen. [Charles E.] Schumer are rooting for," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner.

We say "BRING IT ON"! LET'S SHOW OBAMA AND HARRY REID what We the People are made of!

Americans are not Socialists! We demand spending cuts and fiscal sanity from the federal government — not paternalism and dependency at the price of liberty! Washington has forfeit our independence to creditor powers such as Communist China, and indebted our children and grandchildren with staggering financial obligations that have crippled the brightness of their future. NO MORE. ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH!
CUT THE SPENDING NOW! IF HARRY REID AND OBAMA WON'T AGREE TO SEVERE, SANITY-RESTORING SPENDING CUTS, THEN BY ALL MEANS, LET THE BUDGET-BUSTING, OVERBEARING FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN!

Providing for the national security and defense are the only vital, essential  CONSTITUTIONAL functions that cannot be picked up by the states or by local mediating institutions like the churches and charities. There is no doubt that all kinds of additional "entitlements" and services will be declared "essential" by Congress and provided in reaction to the scaremongering. Boehner, the Democrats and the Obama administration all have stopgap plans in place to prevent a shutdown, but this may well prevent real cuts — the budget confrontation is an exercise in political drama and brinksmanship that needs to rise to true statesmanship by the GOP. We are a resilient people famous for our volunteerism who do not need the nanny federal government every day of our lives in order to survive. We need to unburden ourselves from this delusion that ruination portends without our craven dependency upon masters in Washington. Ruination indeed portends in our surrender to their extortion. We should be free and bold enough to welcome the opportunity to demonstrate our independence. Let us show our mastery over those who are SUPPOSED to work for US. SHUT IT DOWN!
If the federal government is shut down, millions of wasted dollars will be saved every day it is closed! Short and long term, billions of budgetary dollars are at stake! Because of shoddy accountability, it is not even clear what we spend every day for the federal government, but some estimates run as high as $7.2 BILLION!!

With a shutdown, there will be some significant savings and personnel furloughs with the shuttering, just as are being exercised in state and local government around the country to cut costs and start balancing budgets. The lives of working people in the country everywhere can only improve, because they will see that most of the intrusive nanny state erected over decades by Democrats and RINOs is completely irrelevant to their daily lives, and in fact interferes more and more with their basic freedom. It provides an opportunity for every one of us to step forward in our citizen vocation and be true Constitutionalist Americans. We should welcome this opportunity and embrace it! Abandon the stupid and phony premises: all genuinely essential services will be preserved and rendered, because key military and security services will be rightly exempted and so far the federal government is NOT in charge of our fire, police and first response emergency services! The Feds DO NOT yet totally run our schools or our hospitals!

You are paying for essential services with your property, sales and state taxes — aren't you taxed enough where you live to have some confidence in the basic community and emergency services that you see every day at the local level?

Churches and charities can provide the corporal works of mercy and intervention they ALWAYS and historically used to provide to those in need in the community — before this mission was usurped by intrusions of the federal welfare and regulatory state.

Let's back up the GOP defenders of the Constitution, and reject the Democrat "scare tactics" over a possible government shutdown.

TELL CONGRESS: Cut AT LEAST the $61 Billion in the
House CR Bill or SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN

A shutdown will either further expose Barack Obama and Harry Reid as malicious, partisan hacks and ideologues who care nothing for the long term survival of the American republic, or force them to work with Republican Constitutionalists, AS LONG AS WE THE PEOPLE STAND STRONG.

Keep Faith,

Ambassador Alan Keyes
www.declarationalliance.org
Please Send Checks To:
Declaration Alliance
National Processing Center
PO Box 131728
Houston, TX 77219-1728

TELL CONGRESS: Cut AT LEAST the $61 Billion in the
House CR Bill or SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN

TELL CONGRESS: Cut AT LEAST the $61 Billion in the
House CR Bill or SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN