 House Speaker John Boehner |
WASHINGTON – Former GOP presidential candidate and Reagan administration official Alan Keyes has joined the ranks of those calling on House Republicans to reject another hike in the debt limit that will permit the federal government to keep borrowing money to propel its spending programs.
He joins Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Ron Paul, R-Texas, and Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., in rejecting House Speaker John Boehner’s concession to raise the debt limit, which is expected to be reached toward the end of next month.
“We should demand of our representatives in Congress that they refuse to raise the debt ceiling,” said Keyes. “But we must also demand of ourselves that we refuse any longer to choose our political leaders from candidates produced by political parties intrinsically dependent on political vehicles fueled by unbridled government spending. Where politics is concerned, restoring the ceiling must be just the first expression of our determination to rebuild, as a home for responsible freedom, the house of constitutional liberty our forsworn elites are determined to destroy.”
Keyes, whose coming book, “And Crown Thy Good: Restoring America’s Covenant in 2012,” will address the issue, said Boehner tipped his hand late last year when he spoke to House Republicans sent to Washington by Americans fed up with business as usual in Washington: “We’re going to have to deal with it as adults,” Boehner instructed his colleagues. “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.”
“U.S. government finance has evidently become a Ponzi scheme predicated upon access to fresh streams of borrowed capital,” said Keyes. “If done in ignorance, we might excuse the scheme as childish. Otherwise, we call it crooked, and treat adults who knowingly perpetrate it as criminals. Many of those who voted Republican in 2008 are demanding an end to precisely this kind of institutionalized chicanery. Sadly they may have cast their votes in vain. Of course, in order to mask the fact that the Republicans mean to go on with ‘business as usual’ GOP leaders are claiming instead that it’s ‘business as necessary.’ Naturally, the Obama faction Democrats heartily agree.”
Keyes continues: “They agree because what’s happening isn’t child’s play, it is power play. The GOP leaders blather about ‘meaningful cuts in government spending,’ but as I’ve pointed out before neither wing of the sham two-party system can have any intention of fundamentally curbing the U.S. government’s appetite for the nation’s resources. The political power of both parties depends on it. They won’t give up that power until the force of circumstances compels them to do so.”
Keyes made his comments in support of a plan led by Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, to persuade House Republicans to defy their own leadership and refuse to raise the debt limit – an act that will force government to live within its means.
This week, the campaign will ship the first 125,000 “red ink” letters to House Republicans urging them to oppose raising the debt limit when it comes to a vote in the coming weeks.
“Unfortunately, if the House Republicans do not hear from the American people in strength, they will vote for business-as-usual deficit spending for the next two years and surrender the power they have to force fiscal responsibility on Barack Obama and the Democrats in the Senate,” says Farah. “House Speaker John Boehner says he wants to use the debt limit to wrangle concessions out of the Democrats, but when he signals, as he did last weekend, that Congress must raise the debt limit to keep the government solvent, he has already waved the white flag of surrender on the most important vote to be cast in Congress over the next two years.”
The only hope, Farah says, is a major outpouring of protest from tea party activists and true conservatives who recognize that government is way too big and is in desperate need of major cuts just to bring it in line with the Constitution.
For his part, Farah has made it easy for the public to make their voices heard in Washington in a powerful way.
The “No More Red Ink” campaign has two facets:
- Sign a petition directed exclusively to all 242 House Republicans calling on them not to bargain away their “nuclear option” that can stop any further deficit spending for the next two years.
- Flood their offices with “red ink” letters that remind them they are holding all the cards in getting government spending under control and that all they have to do is vote “no” on raising the debt limit.
“This is a plan to separate the real economic conservatives from the pretenders,” said Farah. “If you want to reduce the debt that is destroying this country’s economy we have a chance right now to slam on the brakes. Once the debt limit is raised, it’s back to business as usual.”
Republicans in the House hold all the cards, Farah points out. They don’t need a single Democratic vote to side with them. If 218 out of 242 Republicans in the House vote no on raising the debt limit, the debate is over – “and so is the growing U.S. debt.”
“At that point, Barack Obama can’t implement Obamacare,” he said. “From that moment onward, there will be no more spending initiatives by Obama for the next two years. There will be no more bailouts, no more ‘stimulus’ spending. It’s all over. In fact, the most significant budget cuts in modern American history will have to be made – and the Republican House will still have to approve them.”
Farah says he can’t understand why so few conservatives and Republicans are pushing the idea.
“I have to believe that most Americans are simply unaware of what is about to transpire,” he said. “Everyone is talking about the debt crisis – even Obama. But no one is talking about the opportunity we have to start reversing it right now. It’s always tomorrow, next year, next decade. That is a recipe for an even bigger disaster. Borrowing more is never a solution to a debt problem.”
The “No More Red Ink” campaign allows Americans to send a “red ink” letter to every member of the House majority urging them to vote “no” on raising the debt limit. The letters are individually addressed to each member, with guaranteed delivery by Fed Ex for a cost of just $29.99. It would cost an individual more than $100 in postage alone to send the 242 letters with no guaranty of delivery and certainly nowhere near the impact.
“I’m here to tell you that the Republicans in the House will be held accountable for this surrender to the Washington establishment and the Democrats in the Senate and White House if they capitulate on more debt spending,” says Farah. “Republicans in the House hold all the cards they need to stop this fiscal insanity this year. If they give in, they will be no better than the Democrats who have wrecked this economy.”
A similar campaign organized by WND last year delivered more than 9 million “pink slips” to members of the House and Senate. Farah is hoping a similar response by Americans in the next few weeks will persuade House Republicans to oppose raising the debt limit.
Farah says some in House leadership are already suggesting they will support raising the debt limit in March in exchange for the promise of budget cuts by Democrats.
“Why Republicans would bargain for budget cuts that Democrats themselves will be forced to implement if the debt limit is not raised makes no sense,” he says. “By definition, a vote to raise the debt limit permits the Democrats to spend more money than Washington collects. Republicans will, in effect, give Democrats license to keep overspending and increasing debt by approving a debt limit increase.”
On the other hand, Farah says, all Republicans in the House have to do to force Democrats to cut spending radically for the first time in decades is to stick together in opposing a hike in the debt limit.
“There is a lot of pressure on House Republicans to simply negotiate a deal with the Democrats on budget cuts or a balanced budget in exchange for a vote to raise the debt limit,” said Farah. “To me it makes no sense. Republicans, by merely voting as a bloc in the House alone, can force bigger cuts in the budget than they will ever get in any deal with Democrats. Why would they trade that nuclear option. Republicans in the House hold all the cards. This is what they were elected to do last November – for a time such as this.”
Farah urges Americans to sign the petition to the House Republicans in droves as well as to participate in a program to inundate House Republicans with “red ink” letters that explain they hold all the cards in balancing the budget this year – without any help from the Democrat-controlled Senate or House Democrats or Barack Obama.
“We’ve got to get their attention right now,” he said. “We have only weeks to ensure they get the message. Voting to raise the debt limit will be business as usual. It will give Democrats and Obama license to keep spending, to enact Obamacare, to keep bailing out the wealthy and to ensure the economic train wreck is bigger and worse than we can imagine. Opposing the raising of the debt limit represents the first major step back from the economic brink for America.”
It’s a two-step process that can rein in Washington’s spending this year, explains Farah:
- Sign the petition
- Send the “red ink” letters by guaranteed Fed Ex delivery to all 242 House Republicans to encourage them not to fritter away the leverage they have to bring spending under control this year/
Previous reports:
Republicans about to betray November shellacking?
Secret weapon unveiled to slay dragon of Obama’s scheming
Remember ‘pink slips’? Now it’s red ink slips
How Republican House can dry up red ink with 1 vote
‘House Republicans alone can downsize Washington’
Don’t raise the debt limit!
The Republicans’ nuclear option
Oxymoron: ‘Fiscal conservative’
