The 2010 Version of The Contract With America

In late September of 1994 Newt Gingrich gathered House Republican congressmen and candidates on the steps of the Capitol Building and released the Contract With America.  That document, which contained a series of promises from those Republicans who hoped to make up the next Congress, effectively nationalized the House races that year.  By the time the dust had settled after election day the GOP had picked up 54 House seats and majority control of both Houses of Congress.  Not a single GOP incumbent for House, Senate or Governor lost that year.

This year another document is being prepared and should soon be released.  Rep. Kevin McCarthy spoke with National Review and offered some insight as to what that might contain:

Think about it as a governing document: “Right now, what could you do?” So it’s almost like first priorities. Well, first priorities, if you look at the business climate, you’ve got to take away the uncertainty of it. So what’s the uncertainty? Cap-and-trade, health care, what’s happening with taxes going up in January. So you want to deal with that.

Then you want to look at, “How do you get the economy moving again?” The best thing to do is focus on small business, where 70% of all jobs are created, what can we do to enhance it? Then, what are some other issues in the business climate from the 1099 and other forms?

Then the other top priority would probably be spending. What about just taking it back to 2008? Domestic discretionary spending has come up 84%. What about dealing with Fannie and Freddie?

Then you also have to change the culture of Washington. This is the first time since the budget act of ’74 was passed that the majority doesn’t have a budget. You know what happened in the budget act of 1974? It wiped away the sunshine committee. Every committee in Washington today is appropriating, spending money. Nothing is focusing on accountability and looking at things to be sunset. What about bringing that back?

Then, I would think of an overall theme, this country understands competition. It’s one of the founding things that makes us better. States understand competition where they compete with each other to get the jobs. But we don’t, as a nation, think of how we compete with other countries. So what about an overall theme to start looking at, “What makes us uncompetitive?”

A Democrat friend of mine who also runs a tax preparation business is also worried about the Alternate Minimum Tax bomb which will go off in 2011 if it's not reindexed. It was a tax designed to hit the highest levels of income, but because it hasn't been indexed since it was implemented it could hit people with much lower incomes and dramatically increase their tax burden - incomes as low as $40,000. That has to be fixed.