Contract from America

The Tea Party Patriots organization released their "Contract from America" at the Tea Party in Washington DC yesterday. There's a good amount of solidly libertarian/fiscally conservative planks in there, and a total absence of any that refer to foreign policy (it's too bad the Audit the Fed plank didn't make it in though). Certainly some of the Tea Partiers don't completely understand the link between big government and the empire abroad, but maybe they are starting to come around.

Here are the ten planks, along with the percentage of votes they received (there was a list of about 20 planks online, and participants voted for their top ten).

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%)

Deficit & Debt: Goodbye American Power

The United States has an interesting role in global markets. Since World War II, the US has entangled itself in superfluous alliances and Keynesian markets, engaging in the same illusory markets as its European counterparts. As Jihan discussed, we have recently learned that President Barack Obama’s proposed federal budget may put the United States' economic legitimacy in even greater risk than it has been before for several reasons. Primary, our deficit is running off “nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output.” But as the NY Times has stated, most deficits are usually brought down during peacetime. However, with the way the United States has been handling foreign policy as of recent, any form of “peacetime” seems like an ocean away from any “hope.”

Health Care "Reform" = Higher Deficit, Inefficiency, and Control

According the the Congressional Budget Office, the health care "reform" bill will cost $848 billion and would cut the deficit by $130 billion over the next decade. This is ludicrous. Watch the video below to see just how irrational this mode of thinking is: