Contract from America to be unveiled at Tax Day Tea Parties

Please join us at our 2nd Annual Tax Day Tea Party (click for details) where we will be unveiling the grass roots built Contract from America.

From Contract from America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Alexandria, VA) – The Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella organization for hundreds of local tea party groups around the country, joined today with the National Taxpayers Union, FreedomWorks, and Americans for Tax Reform, three of the nation’s most prominent free-market advocacy groups, to announce the upcoming April 15 launch of the “Contract from America,” a grassroots legislative agenda for 2010 and beyond. Originally proposed by Ryan Hecker, a Houston Tea Party activist and National Coordinator for the project’s chief organizing group Tea Party Patriots, the Contract is a different kind of agenda for our federal lawmakers: unlike the Contract with America from the 1990s, every plank of the Contract from America was proposed and voted on by everyday citizens.

After a fight that seemed to last forever, Congressional leaders were finally successful in ramming through a controversial $2.5 trillion health care plan. They did it despite poll results showing that the bill was deeply unpopular, and despite efforts from of millions of taxpayers who contacted Congress, came to townhall meetings, and attended protests to speak out against the proposal. Now those taxpayers can use their frustration to do more than just protest – they can change the direction of our
country.

Right now, concerned citizens can visit the Contract FROM America website (www.contractfromamerica.org) and choose their top ten priorities from a list of 21 planks proposed by committed Americans from all walks of life. By asking website visitors to propose and vote on the agenda, the result will be not a list handed down from on high by old-bull politicians, but one handed up from the true grassroots in this country. Once voting is complete on Monday, April 5, 2010, the Contract will be finalized into a blueprint that will serve notice to public officials about what the people want for their future.

As of April 1, over 360,000 votes had been cast on the Contract website. The three most popular planks were: (1) beginning the process of enacting a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, (2) requiring legislation to cite the Constitutional provision under which it is authorized, and (3) rejecting “cap-and-trade” national energy tax proposals.

Tea Party Patriots (www.teapartypatriots.org), National Taxpayers Union (www.ntu.org), FreedomWorks (www.freedomworks.org), and Americans for Tax Reform (www.atr.org) are nonpartisan, nonprofit citizen organizations working for lower taxes and smaller government.