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October 12th, 2009Dear Liberty Activist, Today, the insurance industry rolled out a stark warning to the American people. Under the Baucus-led plan in the Senate Finance Committee, the average American household can expect to pay approximately $20,700 more in insurance premiums over the next decade than they would have without it. Yikes! Tomorrow is the big vote in the Senate Finance Committee on the ObamaCare bill. And you know what to do. We have to get back on CapWiz and tell Congress that you don't want to pay $20,700 more in premiums over the next ten years. We know we can't add 29-45 million, or more, people to the government-run rolls of health care without it costing anything. It's just not possible. And now we know what the cost will be to Americans who depend on their private health options as a matter of life and death. And,
here's the
Target 92 list on the House side to all vulnerable and Blue Dog
Democrats. (You can really use this on any issue, whether
ObamaCare, defunding ACORN, removing Rangel, etc.) Blue Dogs are in
blue. Here's the .xls
and .pdf
versions. Of note, the first 40 on the list are the Blue Dogs
that signed the "deficit-neutral" letter mentioned above.
Everything you need to email their staff, write letters, make phone
calls and send faxes, both to their district and Capitol Hill offices. And we can keep calling out to the House and to the Senate in general. Of course, you can also reach them via the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Give em' Hell! In today's Liberty Action Report, Arnold finally loses it over term limits, Capitol South is speechless over the peace prize, and Michael Steele does not represent the party he pretends to lead. Plus, Congressional Quarterly cites ALG as an emerging leader in the conservative movement. Please send your letters to the editor at Robert@getliberty.org. We publish all points of view! Today, Duane Stiel of Derald Hamilton writes, "The only term limits we need is the ballot." Tell that to the people of Venezuela, where even the ballot can be abused to crown a king. For Liberty, Robert Romano P.S. Want to help us keep fighting? Help us out with a small donation today! Or mail it to: Americans for Limited Government, 9900 Main Street, Suite 303, Fairfax, VA 22031.
Open Source & Copyright Free Editorial:
California Governor "Crazed" Over Term Limits Capitol
South ALG
Video: RNC vs. GOP over ACORN ALG
in the News: Conservative Groups Flourish in Opposition Editorial: California Governor "Crazed" Over Term Limits
In a San Francisco salute to former State Senator Jack Scott, Schwarzenegger said, "I actually miss him now that he's not there but I know he was termed out because we have these crazy term limits here in California and people that are that experienced like him then have to leave and move on." Term limits was originally enacted in 1990
when the public voted for a constitutional amendment that placed three
two-year terms on the State House and two four-year terms on the State
Senate. The public has reaffirmed their allegiance to term limits in
two different referenda since. And, yet now, the popular law again
under fire. This time, the bill is SCA 24. It is currently being considered in the State Senate, and it would lengthen the terms of office to 12 years in both the State House and Senate. This would effectively double the amount of time that can be served in the House and boost by one-third the time that can be served in the Senate. This is not the first time the Governor has struck out against term limits. After being dealt serious political defeats at the ballot in 2004, a chastened Schwarzenegger has wandered off the reservation ever since. For example, in 2008, he endorsed Proposition 93. Writing for the LA Times, Schwarzenegger suggested that politicians had a necessary learning curve, "It takes time to learn how to govern effectively. Under the current system, our elected officials are not given the time they need to reach their full potential as public servants." Or, spend the state into total bankruptcy, he might well have added. All of which was a far cry from the Schwarzenegger that Californians elected in 2003. In fact, he once was a supporter of term limits. In 2003 as a candidate he said with some eloquence: "My campaign for Governor is based on the concept that California's state government belongs to the people, not the career politicians. As we are now seeing with the state's budget crisis and anti-business policies, it is too easy for the politicians to become disconnected from the people they are supposed to represent. That is why I believe in citizen-legislators and yes, even citizen-governors. It is also why I am such a strong believer in term limits." Now, having sipped the heady elixir of political power, he thinks they're "crazy." U.S. Term Limits President Philip Blumel put it best on Friday when he said in a statement, "The only thing that's crazy is thinking that out of 36.7 million people, only a confined, elite class of individuals are qualified or 'experienced' to hold public office. Does Schwarzenegger think he's the only one 'experienced' to be governor, too?" California's problems, and they are legion, were spawned by the very career politicians who now want to gut term limits. Term limits took effect 1996 for the House and 1998 for the Senate. By then, career politicians had already sown the disastrous seeds of fiscal ruin. And by 2004, just six years later, when Gray Davis had been thrown out on his ear, the budget had ballooned to some $76.33 million—despite all the efforts of citizen legislators to roll back the incoming tide of government largesse. Instead of blaming term limits for California's problems, the Governor needs to leave a legacy of having taken the fight to the entrenched political establishment, embodied in the public employees unions that have drained the state dry. Anything less would be crazy. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1646 Capitol South
ALG Editor's Note: William Warren's award-winning cartoons published at GetLiberty.org are a free service of ALG News Bureau. They may be reused and redistributed free of charge. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1645 ALG Video: RNC vs. GOP over ACORNALG Editor's Note: In the following featured video release from ALG News, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele finds himself pitted against Republican elected officials, whose policies he is supposed to represent. Recently, he said ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has done "a phenomenal job" much to the chagrin of Republican lawmakers and Americans across the nation who believe ACORN is a corrupt organization that has no business receiving tax dollars:
http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1644
ALG Editor's Note: In the following featured commentary from Shawn Zeller at Congressional Quarterly, Americans for Limited Government is listed as one of the leaders in the fight of opposition against the Obama Administration.
Conservative Groups Flourish in OppositionBy Shawn Zeller, CQ Staff It wouldn't seem that conservatives have much to be happy about these days, with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress. But in one sense, these are the best of times for conservative activists, who have found that the specter of government-managed health insurance, restrictions on carbon emissions and higher taxes are riling the faithful. "If you can't double the size of your organization this year, you are doing something wrong," says Richard Viguerie, a pioneer of the conservative movement and direct mail fundraising in the 1980s. The Democratic agenda — or the agenda as interpreted by Viguerie and other conservative activists and talk-radio hosts — has provided a rallying cry for such formerly obscure groups as Americans for Limited Government, which has ties to the Libertarian Party and the term limits movement, and Americans for Prosperity, which grew out of the now-defunct think tank backed by industry called Citizens for a Sound Economy. Continue reading here. http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=1643 Americans for Limited Government |
Last week, a supine Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger (R-CA) fully succumbed to political
establishmentarianism. He called legislative term limits in California
"crazy." And in so doing, he signed on with those he once stanchly
opposed—the career politicians whose misguided policies long ago
consigned the state to financial ruin
