Contract with America 2?

[corplinx]

Once upon a time, the GOP gave people something vote for. Common sense reforms and government streamlining made fun of by their opponents led to a GOP sweep of the congress.

The contract was simple, elect us and we will bring all of these items up for a vote. President Clinton found himself signing pieces into law.

Is the Newt era completely dead? President Bush is bogged down domestically with issues like gay marriage. The republicans say that the democrats have no real plans and no specifics, but at they don't either!

Now, we can understand why there will never be another Newt. You can't try to really reduce the growth of government without your mom and lesbian sister being exploited, something crappy you did to your ex-wife coming up, being accused of wanting to starve children and having the major news outlets repeat it as serious news.

If the GOP (or the democrats for that matter) want to make an impact, they should go back the Newt recipe. 10 simple promises with specifics. Not big vagueries like (will create millions of jobs or will provide health benefits for the poor).

The nice thing about the Contract with America was that it was highly secular. It strikes me that the only way the GOP can get a large enough edge in the Senate to break the obstructionist gridlock is to nationalize every senate race with another Contract with America.

[RCNelson]

For a new Contract with America to be credible, it would need to include the term limits (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/cwa/term_limits.html) and balanced budget amendment (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/cwa/balanced_budget.html) from the first Contract with America (http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html).

[TillEulenspiegel]

Balanced budget?? BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

[corplinx]

Originally posted by RCNelson
For a new Contract with America to be credible, it would need to include the term limits (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/cwa/term_limits.html) and balanced budget amendment (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/cwa/balanced_budget.html) from the first Contract with America (http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html).


The brought both items up for a vote. Why would it have to promise more votes to be credible?

Personally, i think the "balanced budget veto" is a better idea than the "balanced budget amendment" and they should make that part of any new contract.

[corplinx]

I've been thinking about this, and perhaps its John Kerry who needs a "gameplan" more than the GOP. Think about this:

democrats by and large voted for kerry in primaries because they thought he stood the best chance of beating bush

ergo, kerry himself will lack enthusiastic support from the base since people voting for him will be casting essentially a no-confidence vote in bush

I think if Kerry wants to turnout swing voters on election day, it will have to be by being more than the guy who isn't George Bush.

[Samus]

So many great ideas could go in to a new contract.

For instance, better accountability of government programs by tuning (and using) performance evaluations, requiring sunset dates on all spending measures, and automatic cessation of funding for poor-performing programs.

Cutting member item spending (a.k.a. "pork") by a specified percentage, or keeping the spending under a certain percent of the total budget.

Scaling back on the number of U.S. troops abroad, to include leaving Haiti, and eventually Iraq and Afghanistan. Set an actual timeline for these extractions.

Require cuts in spending when the OMB forecasts a drop in revenue due to tax cuts. In other words, don't cut taxes unless spending is also curbed.

Cut the number of paid staff members for each Congressman and Senator.

Cut the salaries of Congressman and Senators, or tie their salary to performance; if projected budget deficits exceed a specified amount ($1.00?), legislator's salaries are halved.

These will never happen, of course. But one can dream.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Commander Cool
So many great ideas could go in to a new contract.

For instance, better accountability of government programs by tuning (and using) performance evaluations, requiring sunset dates on all spending measures, and automatic cessation of funding for poor-performing programs.

Cutting member item spending (a.k.a. "pork") by a specified percentage, or keeping the spending under a certain percent of the total budget.

Scaling back on the number of U.S. troops abroad, to include leaving Haiti, and eventually Iraq and Afghanistan. Set an actual timeline for these extractions.

Require cuts in spending when the OMB forecasts a drop in revenue due to tax cuts. In other words, don't cut taxes unless spending is also curbed.

Cut the number of paid staff members for each Congressman and Senator.

Cut the salaries of Congressman and Senators, or tie their salary to performance; if projected budget deficits exceed a specified amount ($1.00?), legislator's salaries are halved.




How about an amendment outlawing the executive order?

These will never happen, of course. But one can dream.

America is in need of a new great reformer, someone like Teddy Roosevelt. The democrat/republican oligarchy needs to be broken.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Commander Cool

Cut the salaries of Congressman and Senators, or tie their salary to performance; if projected budget deficits exceed a specified amount ($1.00?), legislator's salaries are halved.

These will never happen, of course. But one can dream.

If they just reduced their pension benefits, I would be happy. A one-term house member who does two years of duty gets a sweet deal.

[WildCat]

Instead of a balanced budget amendment, how about a line-item veto amendment? Most state governors have this power. It would go a long way towards really making a president accountable for the budget, as well as reducing the incentive for congressmen to stop tacking on pork-barrel spending projects to the "Prevent Child Abuse Act Of 2004" for (a fictional) example. The president could then veto the $50 billion highway to nowhere provision, while signing the child abuse act.

For those foreigners who don't know what I'm talking about, right now a president can only sign the entire bill or veto the entire bill (sign it and be accused of increasing the deficit, don't sign it and you're supporting child abuse). This is how so much pork makes it's way to fruition.

[gnome]

I've seen enough of this in various state and national administrations to suppose that the executive is playing along in these "pork" cases.

Come on, really. If there was a bunch of crap riding on an important bill, the executive is not forced into that bind. They could easily make a press event out of physically bringing the bill back to the capitol building, throwing it at the assembly, and telling them to do it again without all the BS. The country would applaud them.

So WHY does the executive never do this? because they're playing ball right alongside the legislature.