The latest Associated Press-GfK poll found nearly three-quarters of survey respondents disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, with 68 percent disapproving of Republicans compared with 60 percent disapproving of Democrats. 

On September 23, 2010, Republicans issued their new manifesto, although they are careful to avoid referring to it as such (negative connotation).   Republicans are calling it their “Pledge to America,” a 21-page document (plus photos) composed to show the American voters that they are listening to an angry public fed up with Congress and both parties.    

Since May, Republican leaders have been asking for input from American voters who logged in to a taxpayer funded Republican web site called America Speaking Out. 

According to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings, the AmericaSpeakingOut.com audience and visitors to the site view an average of 2.5 unique pages per day. Its audience tends to be aged under 25 and over 45; they are also disproportionately childless, moderately educated men earning over $30,000. Almost all its audience is located in the U.S.  

As I looked at the Pledge and the history leading up to it, I realized that covering the subject would be too long for a single blog entry, so it will be divided up into several consecutive parts. 

The America Speaking Out Survey

The number of responders was quite small in relation to the number of voters, but they should be commended for taking the time to respond. 

For the 2008 election, there were 146 million registered voters.  That was 71 percent of voting-age citizens.  131 million people voted (64 percent).  Normally, about 50 percent vote.   

There is no guarantee that the responders to the survey were all voters, or that they were U.S. citizens, or lived in the U.S. or that they were not part of the Republican team loading the survey.  For that we must rely on their honor. 

There was one suggestion under Fiscal Responsibility / Waste that stated the Republican platform almost word for word. 

The counts of people submitting ideas and voting in the subcategories far exceeded the total counts given in the overall categories. 

One responder was identified as the most active, with nearly 100,000 activity points given for submitting ideas, responding to ideas, and voting on ideas.  There were no other profiles mentioned, but a handful of super active participants could have loaded the response balance.  I could elect whomever I wanted if I was allowed to vote an unlimited number of times.

There were a fair amount of opinions from people with incorrect information, such as thinking that public officials get full salary and benefits for life after serving one term, or thinking that candidates don’t want to offend illegal aliens, because they will vote them out of office. 

As a note, most states require a picture ID to register to vote, and in a few years, federal law is expected to require citizenship for licenses.   This may handicap the elderly, the challenged and other citizens who may want to vote, but most have a Social Security card that requires proof of citizenship, and Medicaid recipients must now prove citizenship.  If there are illegal aliens voting, it’s a small percentage that would risk being discovered and deported. 

There were complaints that some ideas that were submitted several times were rejected with an “inappropriate message.”

Survey Summary

Ed.Note: I reviewed the website, and extracted those ideas that had the most votes, as well as the essence of the comments I felt were the responders’ hot buttons.  Some items were relocated from their website category and condensed for reading clarifty.

Job creation and Fiscal responsibility were the top two hands-down winners. 

Job Creation

Responders suggested stopping both the outsourcing and insourcing of jobs.  Tax breaks should be eliminated and taxes increased for companies who outsource to compensate for lost American worker revenue.  Heavily fine companies employing illegal immigrants (estimate 12 million living in the U.S.) and deport the immigrants. 

Responders suggested making unemployment eligibility mean “I can’t find a job I am qualified for” and not “I can’t find the job I want”. If a person is deemed physically fit to work, they should not simply be able to reject a job and get unemployment because it’s not what they want to do.  Too many people have reached a comfort level on unemployment. 

Fiscal Responsibility

Responders targeted members of congress, suggesting they reduce staff, eliminate postal privileges, close office gyms, eliminate travel budgets, sell their limos, and revoke their military aircraft privileges.  Require all Congressional travel expenses to be public within 30 days of travel. 

In other words, these angry citizens want the members of congress to have citizen job benefits like “normal” people. 

Prohibit legislators and their employees and families from receiving money and other gifts from businesses and lobbyists. Our representatives should be accountable to one and only one interest, their constituents.

An example of the anger people have with Congress  is “I think we should quit giving the resigned politicians a pension, Most times they have done nothing to deserve it. Think of the money the government would save. They are not entitled to it.”

Responders suggested reducing the size of our military spending drastically.  It’s currently over 50% of our national budget and doesn’t need to be so gargantuan. Our carrier fleet alone is several times larger than the entire world’s fleets put together. If you cut that by itself you’d save the American taxpayer quite a bit of money and even have some left over for infrastructure improvements, better schools and social programs that will make this nation stronger over all.

Welfare in the United States has been transformed to the point where it’s no longer designed to help people get by during bad times. Instead, welfare is used as a permanent crutch for the recipient and as a political advantage to one political party or another.

Government Reform:

Responders suggested a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, or better left for states or local authorities.  Streamline Government; there are 100 Agencies doing substantially similar things. Government should be managed more like a company.

No unrelated spending amendments should be allowed.  Americans HATE the ‘earmarks’ that Washington pushes through.  Too often spending amendments are attached to unrelated bills. If the spending can’t pass on its own, don’t pass it.  Make a rule that each bill put forth in the house and senate only deal with the bill, no add-ons for pork or other pet projects that don’t deal with the crux of the bill. 

Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.  All legislation must be read in full on the floor of Congress. Everyone voting on a bill must certify having heard the entire reading or that they have read it personally in it’s entirity.

Transparency / Open Government:

Transparency – American taxpayers deserve to see where their tax dollars are going, on the way into the legislative process and on the way out. This means ending the practice of rushing bills through Congress at the speed of light by requiring legislation be posted online for five days before it can be scheduled for a floor vote. This gives taxpayers the opportunity to read bills and offer feedback and potentially devastating legislation.

We also must demand that ALL government expenditures, down to the line-item expense, be put online in a searchable, easily accessible format so taxpayers can track, dollar-for-dollar, where their hard-earned money is going. The only way to stop the spending is to keep representatives accountable – American taxpayers deserve the tools that will empower them to become good fiscal watchdogs of the state.

Require an on-line, instant update website listing what lobbyist’s are courting what politicians and for what reason.  

Tax Reform:

Replace all taxes with a simple flat income tax on all individuals and corporations.  This way every one is taxed at the same rate, no more of the “progressive” tax scale.

ENACT THE FAIR TAX. collect taxes from EVERYONE here (including tourists and illegal aliens), at the point of consumption where it is clear, straight forward and visible, they are obvious every time you purchase something at the retail level.  

American Values / Life:

Abortion is not healthcare. Abortion is a complex, difficult moral issue. It is not the proper role of the government to make our moral decisions for us. Let people make up their own minds and take responsibility for their decisions. If we are to be the party of small government, less government intrusion, and personal liberty, we must stop trying to legislate abortion away. It’s not the government’s place to be a nanny that chooses our morality for us.  The sanctity of life should support whatever a woman wishes to do with her body. Without this right freedom is meaningless

Illegals are giving birth in the USA just to have an American child and stay here illegally (known as ‘anchor babies).  If an illegal gives birth in the USA, the mother and child should be deported back home and the child not recognized as an American citizen. They need to go back to their home country and follow the legal process of becoming an US citizen. Modify the 14th Amendment allowing anyone born in the United States citizenship.

Health Care:

Repeal Obamacare and allow companies and individuals to purchase insurance across State lines.  We need to return to one deductible, maximum deductible per family, and then 80/20 coverage with the exception of 80/20 from the start for prescription drugs.  Make health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. 

The federal government shouldn’t be in the business of forcing you to buy health insurance and taxing you if you don’t.  Make health a right, not a privilege. Treat protection from injury or disease just like protection from crime or fire. Imagine if the police and fire departments were a for profit industries. Wealthy neighborhoods that could afford top quality protection would prosper, middle class neighborhoods would become slums, and poorer neighborhoods would simply deteriorate from crime and burn to the ground. Take the profit out of healthcare. 

InfraStructure:

Building a modern, safe and efficient infrastructure is critical to creating U.S. jobs.

We need to vastly improve our power grid as a part of any new energy initiative. A large percentage of our energy is lost due to an outdated power grid.

Government needs to invest more in mass transit in the cities and develop realistic mass-transit between urban hubs. Stop spending our tax money to create new streets and infrastructure in outlying areas.

There was a small but consistent thread of suggestings regarding term limits for all members of Congress. 

Republicans have said that the America Speaking Out program was about the short term, not about an election, but there is no denying the project bears a strong resemblance to the Contract with America, the 1994 document that laid out what the party would do if it took control of the House. 

Next, we’ll look at the last Contract with America Republicans published in 1994.  Although they swept into control of Congress, was it the contract or were there other reasons? 

GOP Pledge—1994 Contract with America

The purpose of the CARD Act is to ensure that borrowers with a poor credit score and a history of late payments get treated as fairly as borrowers who have kept their credit record clean. 

Claims by credit card issuers that changes would lead to higher rates has been fulfilled.  Many issuers raised their interest rates and fees since the President signed the CARD Act on May 22, 2009.

In desperate attempts to take advantage of their customers before the new laws kicked in, credit issuers raised minimum payments and lowered credit limits for customers with bad credit, and closed accounts of customers who do not use their cards often and good payers who pay their entire balance each month.

The act does not limit how high interest rates can go and does not apply to business or corporate credit cards.

The Act was passed to beat several consumer-unfriendly practices, including:

• prohibiting credit issuers from arbitrarily changing the terms of their contract with a cardholder, the practice of “any-time, any-reason repricing.”
• requiring a customer option of a fixed credit limit, and preventing the credit issuer from charging over-the-limit fees.
• requiring 45 days notice before raising a customer’s interest rate.  The customer has three billing cycles to decline the new terms and pay off their balance at the old rate and payment schedule. 
• prohibiting rate increases on existing balances for fixed rate accounts or for universal default, which is a late payment on an unrelated account. 
• requiring the credit issuer to return customer to their previous interest rate after six consecutive months of timely payments.
• requiring a minimum of 21 days from the date the bill is sent out to the due date (increased from 14 days).
• requiring monthly due dates to be the same each month or next business day if a weekend or holiday. 
• requiring payments to be accepted as timely when paid before 5pm EST on the due date or mailed at least 7 days before the due date. 
• prohibiting the charging of additional fees for payment methods including online, mail, electronic transfer, or telephone.  The exception is an expedited payment to avoid a late fee. 
• requiring payments to be applied to the highest-rate debt on the account. 
• prohibiting the charging of interest for payments made during a grace period.
• requiring credit card statements to contain a schedule of time required and interest paid to pay off balance with minimum payments, and how much the payment must be to pay the balance off in three years. 
• requiring the customer agree to either a hard credit limit, or approval with an over-the-limit fee applied and limits the number of over-the-limit fees to three.
• requiring the up-front payment of all fees, before issuing of subprime cards, where fees will exceed 25 percent of the credit limit.

The CARD Act also prohibits issuance of credit cards to minors under the age of 21 without a co-signer unless they can prove they are able to repay.  This will stop the issuing of cards to minors where parents are responsible for their debts until age 21. 

Although the idea was to treat poor payers as fairly as good payers, the Act causes credit issuers to treat all borrowers the same.  Credit issuers say they have no way of knowing who will lose their job, get sick or other financial situation that will cause payment default, so they will treat everyone the same.  They believe the past does not guarantee the future.

Credit issuers are continuing their research into ways they can apply fees that are not covered in the CARD Act.  Fixed-rate cards could be switched to variable rates that give the issuer more flexibility.  Card issuers may increase transaction fees to retailers, causing them to stop accepting those cards or raise prices.

Congress is working on more transparency and oversight of the credit issuers, requiring reports on company profits, fees and rates that will be presented to Congress each year. 

Banks are now focusing on increasing profits from debit cards, since credit has now been limited.  The best course is to use cash when possible and ask for a discount equal to the Merchant fee.