[Delacon]

Some good ideas, and Lord knows that the repubs better start coming up with some actual ideas that we can stand up for. But it comes down to mortgaging our childrens' futures. As the wrtier says, it sure as hell comes down to the debt. And don't lie, almost no cons want an austerity program imposed on them when it comes to social security and medicare. Reagan didn't fix it, the Bushes sure as hell didnt fix it and we always left the door open for the dems to come up with a bigger and better government entitlement than the republicans could come up with. You and I didnt do enough to stop GOP excesses that led to Obama. Plain and simple. Now we have to correct our own mistakes as best we can. Think about it, would we have Obamalism if the teaparties were there in 06?

[knarf]

abortion is murder

A felony paid for with sentence fulfilled does not take away gun rights

10% tax

[cripplecreek]

4. Placing a moratorium on all earmarks until the process is fully transparent.

Earmarks could be eliminated altogether if we left the tax dollars in the states, districts, counties, townships etc where the money is earned. After all, earmarks only exist because of a lack of local money and the lack of local money exists because we're forced to throw it down the fedhole.

[Cicero]

It’s better than the Mount Vernon Statement, which is vague and essentially meaningless.

What we really need to do is cut back on the Federal government, BIG TIME. The Education Dept, for instance, should simply be abolished. Just for a start.

[Personal Responsibility]

A winning platform contains not only a committment to hem in what a few agencies do, but an overall effort reduce the size and reach of the Federal government. The right platform would be based on the idea of “Getting government out of your way”.

Everything else should flow from that line. Energy, healthcare, taxes...everything.

[Laserman]

My Top 10

Republicans should come up with proposals for the major issues people are concerned with including:

1. Reducing the size of government
2. Growing jobs
3. Reducing taxes and regulations
4. Dealing with immigration
5. Reducing the cost of healthcare
6. Reducing debt and the deficit
7. Reducing the dependence on foreign energy sources
8. Getting government out of the private economy
9. Reestablishing a commitment to fighting terrorism and keeping our military strong
10. Rebuilding our relations with our allies and holding our enemies responsible for their actions.

[Prokopton]

Does anyone think a party that is going to meet with the most hardcore liberal dems, without preconditions, to find a way to help them get Obamacare passed, really cares about any of these principles?

[Delacon]

ping

[familyop]

1. China will allow the Renmimbi yuan to float or face tariffs. Any US products blocked/taxed by China will be by tariffs on the same products in kind coming from China.

2. All legislation for social programs like the unconstitutional, anti-Second-Amendment, anti-family VAWA must be repealed.

3. Zoning laws against new business starts must be abolished.

4. All special interest lobbies must be stopped having their collective control of our election process. They control our government by being the sole determinants of candidates available for votes.

4. The big default must come before we get leadership good enough to do the above.

[pray4liberty]

TERM LIMITS

[steveab]

You do not need 10 good ideas for the GOP to focus on to get elected.
Fiscal responsibility
Less taxes
Fight Corruption
It may take electing a lot of new faces in the GOP primaries to get the massage across that the tea party movement means “business as usual” in Washington is no longer acceptable.

[NVDave]

Lists of “10” or some other two-digit number are just too lacking in focus to really capture the public’s imagination just now. We need a short list of perhaps three, no more than four, issues:

1. Jobs. Neither party has a real plan on how to actually
get the economy creating jobs again.

2. Reduce government spending. There should be a ban on earmarks, period. Further, the GOP should commit to a set of programs and departments that they’re going to eliminate. Not “slim down,” not “make more efficient.” Eliminate. Zero out.

3. Re-regulate Wall Street. Right now, Wall Street is robbing the public blind. Their antics have earned them a place in the top three priorities. The GOP should learn something about Wall Street and finance (and the GOP is woefully stupid on the subject) and then learn to put Wall Street in a position where they can never again be financial terrorists.

4. Go after illegal immigration, which will feed back into (1) and (2) above.

[no dems]

I love it, but, #4 will never pass.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

9. Prohibiting the Federal Communications Commission from using funds to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Both of these measures play into a broader free-speech agenda that the tea partiers have adopted. Their potential inclusion has drawn criticism from conservatives on the grounds that America faces bigger problems, but they are both less divisive and more achievable than most solutions to the bigger problems — that’s why those particular problems have gotten so big.

To me, freedom of the press as a right of the people rather than as a privilege of the members of the Associated Press and Term Limits are of a piece.

Their kinship is that both eternal incumbency in political office and eternal incumbency in Establishment propaganda organs constitute de facto titles of nobility within our nominally democratic republic.

AP journalism is an illegitimate Establishment in that the fatuous conceit that journalism is objective is codified in law and is taught in government schools.

If you really wanted term limits to have bite you would combine it with a minimum age of 35 for all elective office - requiring that people actually have a life outside of government before they enter public service - as well as requiring that they have a life outside of government after their public service. Maybe then, the expression "public service" wouldn't require scare quotes . . .