Now Is Time To Tell Your House Member What You Want
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 10/04/23
Regardless of whether you felt House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was making enough progress at spending reduction, the border crisis, regular order vs. omnibus bills, etc. etc. -- the die is cast now.
McCarthy has said he will not run again and others are throwing their hat into the ring.
Interestingly, former candidate and radio host Dan Bongino thinks the Democrats miscalculated. He thinks that they figured McCarthy would come back to them and offer more concessions for some Democrat votes to remain Speaker. He had said he would continue the fight. Somewhere, he made the determination he did not have the votes to come back.
While ousting McCarthy in the middle of a government shutdown-budget debate is a strategy with risks, it is just that situation that brought this to a head. The Republican Party has too often in recent years failed to use power enough when it had it and failed to use leverage when necessary. Many felt McCarthy failed to use the leverage the party had during the debt ceiling negotiations. Those aggressive spending-cutters still fuming about that lost opportunity and not wanting the budget debate to end the same way, powered this ouster of McCarthy. His using Democrat votes already this time to get a Continuing Resolution was the final straw.
There are some personal issues between the main players here but that must be put aside now. No matter the animosity between the players, the key facts put forth by the opposition to McCarthy remain: the nation has hugely threatening debt problems and current and projected budget deficits that no nation has ever faced. Congress is not facing up to that fact.
Omnibus budget bills, dropped just before the Christmas holidays, thousands of pages to be “read” in a few hours have exacerbated the country’s spending problems. Incredibly, Congress last passed their 12 appropriations bills in regular order in 1996!
Regular order, considering, debating and examining bills in committee is critical because there are members there familiar with the issues. Some will have direct experience.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told Bongino that those opportunities to properly craft bills are lost in the thousands of pages of omnibus spending bills. Because things do not get the needed scrutiny, lobbyists have much more opportunity to get things they want.
“Omnibus bills are where corruption lives,” Lee said.
We have a border crisis that is creating the population equivalent of several American states, a population comprised of uncertain education and health backgrounds, minimal or no financial resources, likely debts to cartels, some with criminal backgrounds or terrorist intent against our country.
There is the fact that the Republican Party only controls the House and the Democrats have the Senate and the White House.
That doesn’t mean some concessions, some progress can’t be made if leverage is used. For example, does a debt ceiling with no spending limit extended until January 2025 sound like anything but a big government leftist idea?
Voters realize Republicans have limited power yet they expect Republicans to forward the right bills to the Senate, to demand that the Senate lay out publicly their excuses for inaction. Just as the Bidens are not likely to face prosecution or accountability for their actions, laying out the facts so that voters can see and make political decisions is critical. It is not direct action, but it has indirect effect on the voting public.
A theory we hadn’t heard before regarding the Democrat’s fanatic position on an open border comes from Bongino. Many have posited that the Democrats are just trying to import relatively near-term Democrat voters. We’ve noted that might be short-sighted, as many of the illegals are fleeing socialist/communist/Marxist regimes and some will recognize those policies in today’s Democrat party.
As a former Congressional candidate with familiarity with Congressional districting and voting trends, Bongino has a different theory. The far-left Democrats are always playing what he characterizes as the “long game.” We’ve all seen that strategy evident in the leftist turns in our school systems, in Hollywood, in the general media, in social media, in ESG policies in business, in government and in politics.
With the border, the long game is this: during Census Reform during the Trump Administration, Trump wanted illegals not to be counted in the census numbers that determine Congressional districts. We’re not sure how, but that didn’t happen.
The upshot is, the illegals flooding into the country will boost census population numbers in certain regions, making that state eligible for more Congressional seats. Every 750,000 or so adds up to another seat. More illegals in more districts and it doesn’t matter their political tendencies at the outset. It creates another seat for Democrats to go after, more promises to make to get more votes to get more power. The linchpin is this: each state gets as many electors to the Electoral College as it has members of the House and Senate. The Electoral College elects the president.
A long game to be sure but the far left has proven itself good at that. That explanation makes sense, given that the leadership of the Democrat party has stuck to this strategy, even over the objections of whining Democrat-ruled sanctuary cities and Democrat voters.
The bottom line is this: we suggest voters who are not happy with the direction of the country, contact their House members immediately and ask for a true conservative House Speaker this time.
Again, as a guy with experience, Bongino suggests not mentioning the names McCarthy or Gaetz in the communication with the member. Keep personality conflicts out of the note. The message is to be clear: we must have a conservative leader who will act on our debt problems and border issues. We must have a leader who will use any leverage we can get to wrest concessions from the Democrats, to demonstrate to voters that we knows what needs to be done and will continually fight for policies that will get the country back on track.
Will the House members pay attention? Numbers do speak to politicians who must get votes to stay in power. While Bongino emphasized not to mention the past personalities involved, that doesn’t mean one can’t express a preference among the declared candidates for the future. Both Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise have declared. More candidates are possible, so you may want to not be specific just yet. But the main thing is to make clear a true conservative leads the House.
Contact info for House members:
Edi. Note: Picture below courtesy beef Check off).
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