Michigan GOP Youth

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This weekend’s Fourth of July festivities celebrated the birth of representative government in America. As the Declaration of Independence set forth 233 years ago, our government derives its power from the consent of the governed. Such consent does not exist when legislation is purposely rammed through Congress so quickly that congressmen — let alone citizens — do not have time even to read it.

Welcome to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives. The “people’s House” is now a place where bills are voted on not only before legislators or the public have read them, but also before parts of the bills even have been written. Such was the case with a 300-page amendment to the cap-and-trade bill the House passed on June 26. The House leadership could not even produce this amendment on paper, in final form, before it was voted on.

In response to that and other recent outrageous infringements of real representative democracy, a group called Let Freedom Ring is pushing all 435 members of Congress and 100 senators to sign a pledge against such shenanigans on any health care reform bill Congress considers.

All 535 of them ought to do so.

The pledge, which can be found at www.pledgetoread.com, reads in part as follows: “I pledge to my constituents and the American people that I will not vote to enact any healthcare reform package that: 1) I have not read, personally, in its entirety; and 2) Has not been available, in its entirety, to the American people on the Internet for at least 72 hours, so that they can read it too.”

No simpler requirement for good government could be imagined. When what is at stake is a revolutionary change in the entire organization of 17 percent of the economy – not to mention the delivery of services that could mean the difference between life and death for millions of Americans each year – it is basic common sense to insist that our lawmakers know and understand what they are voting on – and that includes the fine print.

As it was put by Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, “there is no rational reason for not signing the pledge.”

Unfortunately, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say they can’t be bothered with such essentials. On June 25, both declined to promise to give the public a week to review any major health care reform. Mrs. Pelosi did not even respond to a question posed at a press briefing by Cybercast News Service about whether the Congressional Budget Office would have time to “score” the bill’s final price tag.

Such an attitude represents the height — or, rather, the depth — of irresponsibility.

It is an axiom in criminal court that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” There certainly is no excuse for lawmakers to be ignorant of the laws they would force on the rest of us. That sounds almost criminal to us.

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www.collegerepublicans.org

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The Waxman-Markey so-called “Cap and Trade” bill passed the House by a narrow margins last Friday with 8 Republicans voting for the bill and 44 Democrats voting against. The 8 Republicans who voted for what critics are calling the “largest tax increase in American history” are as follows:

Mary Bono Mack (CA-45)
Mike Castle (DE)
Mark Kirk (IL-10)
Leonard Lance (NJ-7)
Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2)
John McHugh (NY)
Dave Reichert (WA)
Chris Smith (NJ-4))

The first thing you may notice that they have in common is that they are all Republicans from Democratic states (California, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Washington). What you may not have taken notice of is that each (perhaps with the exception of Washington) represent districts based around major financial hubs; New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Southern California. The “cap and trade” legislation not only attempts to limit (cap) carbon emissions, but also to create a market for trading carbon credits. Those in the financial industry are likely to profit off of the trading of carbon credits (some have called this the coming “Green Bubble”), meanwhile leaving average consumers with significantly higher energy costs and put companies in industries such as coal mining and refining out of business.

These eight Republicans who voted for Waxman-Markey are likely members who have a long standing record on standing with “environmentalists” on similar issues and have bought into the concept of man-made global warming. But, it should also be considered that their financial backers are likely thinking of a “green” future in the trading of carbon credits.

- Brian Koss
http://kosscountry.blogspot.com/

Brian Koss is conservative political strategist. He is a recent graduate of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. He tolds a B.A. in Political Science from Oakland University.

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