TEA Party Debt Proposal Blocked By Harry Reid

TEA Party Debt Proposal Blocked By Harry Reid


Senate Rules Committee staff on Thursday removed microphones and locked the doors of a hearing room in the Russell Senate Office Building where an informal hearing was scheduled to review the findings of the Tea Party Debt Commission



By Dell Hill

Via FreedomWorks & Michelle Malkin

The very last thing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants anywhere near Washington, D.C., is a debt elimination proposal that would actually eliminate debt.  And he proved it again today by ordering the microphones removed and the doors locked at a hearing room scheduled to review the TEA Party proposal.

FreedomWorks explains:

Senate Rules Committee staff on Thursday removed microphones and locked the doors of a hearing room in the Russell Senate Office Building where an informal hearing was scheduled to review the findings of the Tea Party Debt Commission, a months-long crowd-sourced effort to develop a budget proposal that balances the budget, reduces the debt and gets America’s fiscal house back in order.

“The Senate hasn’t been able to pass a budget resolution three years running. They have been unable to do their job, and now the Rules Committee is trying to prevent the American people from doing it for them,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks .

“The Senate has refused to let the American people know what the highly secretive budget ‘Super Committee’ is doing behind closed doors,” Kibbe added. “We’ve come to Washington with the real solutions developed by the American people, and the Rules Committee won’t let their voices be heard in an open forum. It’s outrageous. They’re kicking us out of our own building because they’re afraid we are going to do something crazy like balance the budget.”

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. in Hearing Room 325 of the Russell Senate Office Building, one of three senate office buildings across Constitution Avenue from the U.S. Capitol. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sponsored the hearing so lawmakers and the public would have an opportunity to hear the findings of the Tea Party Debt Commission (TPDC). The commission of 12 volunteer tea party activists developed its report based on the results of a crowd-sourced online poll completed by nearly 50,000 Americans and field hearings held around the country in recent months.

Sen. Lee is leading the tea party members to the Hillsdale College Kirby Center (227 Massachusetts Ave., NE Washington, D.C. 20002), where the meeting will continue.

You can download the PDF of the volunteer panel’s report here.

Intro:

[W]e offer a bold — but, we believe, feasible — plan that:
“Cuts, caps, and balances” federal spending.

Balances the budget in four years, and keeps it balanced, without tax hikes.

Closes an historically large budget gap, equal to almost one-tenth of our economy.

Reduces federal spending by $9.7 trillion over the next 10 years, as opposed to the President’splan to increase spending by $2.3 trillion.

Shrinks the federal government from 24 percent of GDP — a level exceed only in World War II —to about 17.5 percent, in line with the postwar norm.

Stops the growth of the debt, and begins paying it down, with a goal of eliminating it within this generation. To achieve these goals, our plan, among other things:

Repeals ObamaCare in toto.

Eliminates four Cabinet agencies — Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD — and reduces orprivatizes many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

Ends farm subsidies, student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don’t support us — luxuries we can no longer afford.

Saves Social Security and greatly improves future benefits by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART Accounts.

Gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the Congressional health care plan.

Suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.  In short, the Tea Party Budget enables us to end chronic deficits and pay down debt, while moving us back toward the kind of limited, constitutional government intended by our Founding Fathers.  And it does all this without raising taxes.  In fact, we make the so-called Bush tax cuts, and other expiring tax relief provisions, permanent.  With these reforms, we can unburden the productive sector and get back to robust economic growth and rising living standards for all.

With this plan, everyone benefits.”

Such a proposal is exactly what many millions of Americans - Democrats, Republicans, Independents - all want.

But it won’t even be heard, much less considered by congress?

Every elected official who turns his or her back on such a proposal should be kicked to the curb at the earliest possible convenience.