Posted on 11/09/2010 5:56:08 AM PST by Stoutcat
Dear Speaker Boehner/Cantor/Bachmann/Whomever,
Speaking as a citizen, a conservative, and a Tea Partier, I’d like to give you some advice as you prepare to take up the reins for the 112th Congressional session. These suggestions come from my desire to get our country back on track, to mitigate the disasters wrought by the 111th Congress, and to start Congress delving into the bigger picture about what will happen to America if we allow ourselves to continue on our current path.
They are very simple suggestions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit in which they are offered.
1. Get a normal-sized gavel. Hubris the size of Queen Nancy’s gavel is unbecoming in the People’s House.
2. Fly commercial. We’ll spring for business class. I know you’re third in line for the presidency, but given our fabulously successful national security policy of depending on good luck to protect us from attacks on airplanes, you should be fine...
(Excerpt) Read more at grandrants.wordpress.com ...
Boehner would do well to curb his use of the plane, and not use it to ferry around his family. But avoiding it altogether is not a good idea.
Reasonable requests, and the first two are easily accomplished.
After you push through the VAT, some lunatic is going to come and kill you.
commercial Air flight is safe. Just ask the TSA. I have a hard time paying for a private jet for the speaker of the house. With the exception of the President they should all fly commercial. And they should have to go through the TSA lines.
He certainly doesn’t need the Flying Throneroom that Pelosi demanded and got.
I forget all the details, but Speaker Hastert indeed flew private due to 9/11 changes. Nancy upgraded to a large jet because she had to fly ‘all the way’ to the west coast and needed enough fuel to avoid stopping. Her cost for travel went up many multiples for this reason and this caused a stink.
I think downsizing to a small jet would be a bigger thumb in Pelosi's eye than just flying commercial. It shows the importance of security, flexibility and a concern for the taxpayer.
Take over Nancy Pelosi’s lavish office — it is your due, after all — but DON’T redecorate. Simplify. If she has fussy chairs, just retrieve manly chairs from all the Capitol Hill furniture that is already in storage. Don’t buy new ones. Be an example of frugal governing. Then advertise how much money you’ve saved the taxpayer by recycling already owned furniture.
Move in your books and your files. That’s it. I’m sick of paying for constent redecorating of Congressional offices at inflated budgets.
Does the minorty leader still get a jet? I want to see Nancy kicked off of her private jet, and all her family too.
A smaller jet is a smaller target, and another gorilla is the federal student loan program with mega-defaults.
Records indicate that a 757 was only used a few times, and that's because a smaller plane wasn't available. The Speaker of the House (Pelosi or anyone else) doesn't have their "own" plane. The Air Force provides a plane, based on what is available at the time.
Pelosi abused the privilege by ferrying around family, and expensing exorbitant amounts of money on consumables (food and liquor).
She was also notorious for reserving a plane every weekend, even though she didn't use it most weekends. The Air Force was forced to put a plane on standby, only to have her cancel the flight at the last minute.
The new Speaker should approach his/her office with a sense of humility, and of being about the people's business, rather than with the massive amount of hubris that Pelosi showed while she's been in office. And that stupid big gavel is entirely symbolic of her whole self-centered, corrupt outlook.
Yes, the Air Force jet for the Speaker is in fact a post-9/11 police for the person who is third in line for the Presidency. And for a while, it was a sound idea.
As someone pointed out previously, Pelosi “required” a larger jet so that she could get home to her constituency in SF without refueling. In fact, she abused the privilege so badly that I for one am ready to say that if air travel is safe for the rest of us, it’s safe for the Speaker, whichever party s/he belongs to.
I'm pretty sure this is an incorrect "meme". Records indicate that Pelosi only used a larger jet (a 757) a small number of times, and it was because the Air Force didn't have anything smaller available.
I live on my Social Security Retirement and use my Medicare. Without it, I would be living on the streets. [ObamaCare will put me in a coffin sooner than later.]
All Federal Employees should be transferred to the Social Security Program. THEN they’d care that millions of us didn’t receive a COLA, while they got pay raises, for the past two years.
I agree that Medicaid needs an overhaul. The USofA unintelligently and unconstitutionally pays Medicaid to “anchor babies” [they’re not guaranteed anything in the 14th Amendment] and to the hospitals who deliver them. The USofA can remedy much of this with a few words and can remedy the rest with a BORDER FENCE. [We should take a clue from Mexico’s Immigration laws.]
Congress should take a pay cut. In the beginning, serving in Congress was an honor and Congressmen paid their own way. Serving the People is SERVING. No one is supposed to get rich serving the people. Not even some poor lawyer like Harry Reid. And Congress member SHOULD fly ‘business class’ unless they own their own airplane.
There are too many Federal Government Employees and they earn too much. Reduce the size by removing 2.5% of upper level management, 0.5% middle management and 2% lower level employees a year for the next ten years. Just as much work will get done and the savings will be phenomenal.
STATES should be responsible for their own WELFARE payments AND Unemployment payments. Why do Donor States have to be taxed for Taker States? Is it Constitutional? I think not.
There are several Cabinet positions which are nothing but Federal Government intrusion into State Government affairs. They should be abolished and their employees NOT found other Federal jobs. [They don’t pay Unemployment, do they? SOL]
The 17th Amendment needs to be repealed. The Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing and Woodrow Wilson’s Congress did not. Senators should be accountable to their State Legislatures and not to their big-money donors.
The 16th Amendment needs to be repealed and a smaller government budget implemented with an across the board Fair-Tax of 10% on EVERYONE. Corporations, Unions, CEOs and Presidents . . . no deductions . . . not even for charity. And “Tax Free” organizations should be reviewed and limited to Churches/Synagogues/Temples and Charity organizations which spend at least 90% of their donations on charity and take 10% or less for Administrative costs. Working for a Charity should be an honor.
EARMARKING should be made UNLAWFUL. STATES are responsible for their own projects. Repealing the 17th Amendment would solve some of this problem. Repealing the 16th Amendment and collecting less taxes for a smaller Federal Government so that States would be able to collect money for their own projects would solve most of the EarMarking problem.
The Practices of Shari’a Law and Islam are already Unlawful based on the Internal Security Act of 1950 Section 4 [a]. Islamists can believe what they will, but like a believer in cannibalism, they cannot practice what they believe when it is unlawful. And “performing any act which would substantially contribute to the establishment within the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship” is unlawful. So is beheading, kidnap & rape, stoning, pedophilia, and so-called “honor” killing. Round up the perps and put them in jail if they practice any of these unlawful acts ‘just because it’s a part of their culture.’ If they want to practice that, they can return to their ‘country of culture.’
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