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WASHINGTON – Crushing national debt. Stymied economic growth. Stubborn joblessness. Massively expanded entitlement programs – commanding greater layers of government bureaucracies – with no clear means to pay for them, save sweeping steep tax hikes.
When inventorying the phalanx of problems plaguing the nation – especially those that have arisen and accelerated only in the last two years – it’s easy to feel “too overwhelmed and despondent to identify effective solutions,” says a popular congressman whose new book, “Restoring the Republic: A Clear, Concise and Colorful Blueprint for America’s Future,” is capturing the interest of the press and public.
“That’s precisely why I wrote this book,” California Rep. Devin Nunes recently told Sean Hannity on national television. “(T)he American people have to know how big the problems are and that there are ways to deal with them. So one of the things that politicians quickly say, ‘It’s a very complex problem.’ You hear that all the time.
“The problems,” Nunes continued, “aren’t that complex. They just have to be dealt with rationally. And so what I try to do is I try to break them down rationally, use some examples of how these things got to the place that they are today. But put forth actual legislation before Congress.”
Hannity rattled off the principles and philosophies plumbed throughout the “Restoring the Republic,” and guiding the legislation proposed and pursued by Nunes. “Live within your means. Balance the budget. Stop buying votes. Eliminate earmarks. Become energy independent. Strong national defense. Control the border,” Hannity said. “It really is that simple, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nunes answered.
“Restoring the Republic,” published by WND Books on Sept. 13, already is preparing for its third printing. At Amazon, the book is charting high in several categories, ranking No. 2 and No. 3 in government categories and No. 6. in Democracy. Dennis Miller is featuring the book among his top picks on his Dennis’s Oprah’s Book Club. The congressman recently was interviewed on Fox Business Channel and also set up an interview on Rusty Humphries. An appearance on the Thom Hartmann Show also is set at 2 p.m. ET Thursday.
A featured speaker at the recent WND “Taking America Back” conference in Miami, Nunes ignited the audience with several rousing remarks.
“We must start with some hard truths,” he said. “Truths politicians fear. And when politicians fear something they ignore it – offering instead rhetoric and empty promises. This has undermined public trust, demoralized voters, and made it hard to tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats.”
Read Rep. Nunes’ address to the recent WND Taking America Back conference in Miami.
Already “legislatively battle-tested,” Nunes fought against the bank bailouts, the health-care takeover and articulates a “broad, bold and inspired vision” for leading the nation “out of the morass of statism,” said Joseph Farah, founder and CEO of WorldNetDaily.com. “This is the kind of bold, sensible leadership the American people crave.”
Like many political savants, Nunes looks for Republicans to score substantial gains in November – but what they do after that will reveal the hallmarks of leadership, he warns.
“The country is at a crossroad,” he wrote in Big Government.com. “In one direction there is big, centralized government that usurps the rights of states, local communities, and individual Americans. It”s the job of the Republican leaders to outline another direction, but that direction is not yet clear to them. This must change before the next election.”
Elected to Congress at 29 and then re-elected three times, Nunes is no darling of the environmental lobby. In fact, its defenders tried in vain early on to kneecap Nunes’ book, which levels some punishing – yet fact-supported – critiques their way.
One blogger wrote: “You probably haven’t heard of Devin Nunes, a Republican congressman representing central California. But if you’re even a little bit green, he doesn’t like you. In a new book ‘Restoring the Republic,’ he describes environmental lobbyists as ‘followers of neo-Marxist, socialist, Maoist or Communist ideals.’ And that Pacific Gas & Electric, Ford, and Dow Chemical companies are ‘allied with extremist groups.’ Oh, and also, that anxiety about global warming is ‘hysteria’ spread by a ‘Doomsday cult.'”
“Doomsday” is a kind description, judging by recent reporting in Investor’s Business Daily on the impact inflicted by environmental special-interest groups on Nunes’ 21st congressional district. In covering Nunes’ support for Carly Fiorina, the Republican who’s mounting a fierce challenge to Sen. Barbara Boxer, the publication painted a bleak portrait of a once fertile valley “crippled from overbearing government.”
“But the beautiful region, whose farms supply one-quarter of America’s vegetables and fruit, has been devastated since 1992 by a series of legislative and judicially mandated water shut-offs that left it a dust bowl, all in the ironic name of preserving the environment,” the story reported. “The harshest blow of all was three years ago, when a federal judge was backed into mandating a full water shut-off in the southwest part of the valley in order to protect a three-inch bait fish known as the delta smelt.
“Since then, farmers of the world’s finest almonds, apricots, zucchini, carrots, peaches and grapes have had to wait like beggars for 5 percent, 30 percent, 60 percent allotments of critically necessary water – an impossible situation for farm planning, funding or hiring,” Investor’s Business Daily continued.
Having seen his community contend with backbreaking unemployment, Nunes outlined the bold proposals – against gripping backdrops of backroom deals and heated political bargaining tables – into “Restoring the Republic.”
Hannity characterized Nunes’ ideas as uncompromising, even controversial, and winning – yet so bold even some Republican shy from them.
“The things you’re advocating, you’re taking on things that, it seems, a lot of politicians aren’t willing to touch here,” Hannity said. “Redistricting, you want to end it. Energy dependence, you want drilling, you want all of the above. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, you’re willing to deal with it. Most politicians – they don’t want to go near it.”
Admitting the many Republicans don’t want to “walk through the fire,” Nunes emphasized that the entitlement culture – already unsustainable before proliferating to mounting levels under the Obama agenda and Democrat-controlled Congress – has paralyzed sound, honest public-policy decisions.
“(T)he question that we’re looking at today is, it’s not a matter of Social Security, Medicare, and whether or – whether the Republicans have these bad ideas and that we’re trying to end these programs,” he told Hannity. “Relative is the programs are going to end because the country is collapsing under the debt that we’re incurring.”
And the axiom, “As goes California, so goes the nation,” is a harrowing harbinger for what’s to come, Nunes said.
“(P)eople need know that the politics in California have been exported to Washington, D.C.,” he told Hannity. “..I wanted to be able to point out all the problems that we faced in California and how those relate to the same problems that are going on now and how we’re really drifting to this, you know, socialist utopia that, quite frankly, I have a little familiarity with. When you see water cut off. You see unemployment in my district that ranges close to 20 percent.”
Warning the conference attendees “big business is allied with whoever is in power,” and the “corporate America has linked arms with the left,” he said the “masterminds of American socialism,” who have treated California as a test case for decades “are experts at manipulating public opinion.”
“We are a free people nourished by the courage and sacrifices of others,” he said. “Led by many men and women who understood that political victory was not for personal power but the preservation of American liberty. At some point, things changed. Our leaders began to choose short term political victory over big ideas, hard decisions, and strong leadership.
“As a result, America stands at the precipice,” he continued. “Before us is the real possibility that we will lose our cherished freedoms – some of which have already been lost. In their place will emerge a European style social democracy – or worse, we could see a resurgence of the nightmare of Soviet style communism. To fight this change, restore our republic, and protect our freedoms, we must all understand what we are up against and who we are fighting.”
