RedState's Open Letter Senators Kelly Ayotte, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Rob Portman, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio

Erick Erickson of RedState posted the following letter to Senators Kelly Ayotte, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and our Senator from Ohio, Senator Rob Portman.

We could not agree more!

From RedState --

Welcome to the Senate.

It ain’t easy, is it?

Here’s the thing you need to know. Right now, you are probably telling yourself you need to be reasonable. You are probably telling yourself you need to cut a deal.

I’m willing to bet you are telling yourself you should do something short term and in six more months or whenever, after everything has calmed back down, revisit the issue.

Senators, you are fooling yourselves. And I bet you know it.

We have had, in the past 30 years, 17 deficit commissions. After almost each one, taxes have gone up, but the spending cuts have never happened.

Republicans before you have been quite reasonable. So reasonable in fact that the country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

And each time, they’ve gotten to the breaking point and decided, “let’s just do something to get us some breathing room and revisit it again in a few months.”

If you don’t fight, if you decide to take deal, make a compromise, or “let cooler heads prevail” at some point in the future, you’ll be no better than those who got us to this point. You will become them.

You went to Washington because Washington is broken. Pay very careful attention to the choices you are about to make. Because I suspect many of you are about to make the same choices the people before you who broke the system made. Don’t let fear, uncertainty, and market upset govern your decision making processes.

The only way out of this mess is to think different — to actually care enough to fight.

TPP Co-Founders tell John Boehner: "Get a Backbone"

We know actions speak louder than words. So far, causing many to question his integrity, leadership skills and intestinal fortitude, Speaker John Boehner has been long on words and short on action . 

In the below op-ed, Tea Party Patriots co-founders, Jenny Beth Martin & Mark Meckler, challenge Speaker Boehner to grow a backbone and do the job he was elected to do...

From The Hill --

America’s debt ceiling was quietly raised 10 times over the past 10 years. Only now has it become a national debate. The elephant in this room is not the GOP. It is the millions of Tea Party activists who have shifted the national debate to government overspending — a debate that was long overdue.

But a debate is just a debate. Words are just words. We saw how worthless words can be earlier this year.

The GOP said all the right words leading up to the 2010 midterm elections, but once the new leadership was sworn in this year, their promised spending cuts dropped from $100 billion to $31 billion and eventually to nothing.

Now it is time to back up those words with backbone.

We believe in Ronald Reagan’s adage, “Trust but verify” — but with a new twist: “You go first.”

If the president wants the debt ceiling raised and the GOP wants spending cuts, you must say: “You go first. Spending cuts first, then we’ll talk.”

The same goes for the GOP leadership. Show the millions of Tea Party Patriots you are serious about putting an end to overspending, then We the People will consider trusting you.

It has been more than six months since this Congress was sworn in. That’s half a year that could have been used to stop this government overspending. Half a year that could have been spent living within our means. Politicians from both sides have found the time to debate this issue around the clock, across all media and even on the golf course. But they have still not found a single moment to find a wasteful government program to cut?

What did our leaders find time to do these past six months?

The American people know there’s waste in the government. They see it every day from their local post office to the observance of Nancy Pelosi’s taxpayer funded jet. Just recently, we found out the National Institutes of Health is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on studies of toenails.

The Washington Post reported in February that Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) , the one in charge of the funds, has a community college student commons center, a fire training center, a water park, a boulevard, a drive and a parkway named after him in his district in gratitude for $40 million he had brought to the area.  Were those all legitimate government spending or a way to keep his 30-year career in Congress secured?

The president and his administration can’t look through their departments and find anywhere to cut. Congress can’t put a moratorium on nonessential programs until a review of the entire budget is completed? Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) seems to be the only one capable of coming up with real cuts.

Again, what have these “leaders” been doing?

Our president found time to characterize his opponents as wanting to put “a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners.” This is a strange thing to hear in this new era of civility. Then Obama threatened to push Grandma off a cliff unless he got a deal to raise the debt ceiling so he can overspend even more, saying, “I cannot guarantee that those [Social Security] checks go out on Aug. 3.”

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) found time to commend the president for making the case to raise the debt ceiling, saying on July 11: “I would agree with the president that the national debt limit must be raised. I’m glad he made the case for it today.”

It is clear they are not serious about cutting wasteful spending or they would have found a way to do it. When a family is on the brink of bankruptcy and can’t make ends meet, what do they do? They cut back on their spending. It’s very simple.

No, we’re not sophisticated Washington power players. We’re just Tea Party Patriots. But it seems to us that, in a debate over raising the debt ceiling, perhaps the best opening position is not to commend the person across the table for wanting to raise it.

Try our “you go first” method. If the president wants the debt ceiling raised, tell him “you go first” on cuts. If the GOP wants the Tea Party Patriots to believe they have backbone, show it to us first. 

If you can’t find your backbone, you can borrow some of ours. We the People have plenty.

Meckler and Martin are the co-founders and national coordinators of America’s largest Tea Party group, the Tea Party Patriots.

Reason #5,749: Why Ohio MUST Pass the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment

The love of freedom, liberty and respect of the U.S. Constitution should be good enough reasons to stand strong against Obamacare and support the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment at the polls this November.

While Obamacare and the forced health insurance mandate was "Billed" as the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, it appears this Act will leave familes uanable to afford the bill...

From The Hill --  (Emphasis Added)

A major provision of the healthcare reform law designed to prevent businesses from dropping coverage for their workers could inadvertently leave families without access to subsidized health insurance.

The problem is a huge headache for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, because it could leave families unable to buy affordable health insurance when the healthcare law requires that everyone be insured starting in 2014.

At issue is a so-called “firewall” in the law that denies subsidies to workers whose employers offer quality, affordable coverage.


The firewall applies to plans with premiums that cost less than 9.5 percent of a worker’s income. If a worker has to dole out more than that amount to buy coverage, the employer coverage is considered unaffordable and the worker is eligible for subsidies to buy coverage on the new exchanges.

Initially, advocates thought the threshold also applied to family coverage. If premium costs paid to cover a worker’s family cost 20 percent of a worker’s income, for example, the worker and his or her family should be eligible for subsidies.

This means the costs to an employee for covering his or her family could be too high to afford for many working families.

“If you’ve got employer-based coverage that’s affordable for the employee only,” Guyer said, “the family is expected to take the employer coverage even if it“s totally unaffordable and no one in the family is eligible for the exchange subsidies.”

The glitch is causing heartburn for advocates who worry that it could leave thousands of children and spouses uninsured and subject to penalties for not having insurance.

To learn more about the Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment and how you can help stop the forced health insurance mandate in Obamacare from hurting your family, please click here.

Liar, Liar, Pant's on Fire! (Part II) Chief Actuary disputes Obama's Fear-Mongering Fibs on Social Security & the Debt Ceiling

Confirming President Obama's fear-mongering and fibs that he may have to hold back Social Security checks from going out next month if the debt ceiling is not raised is Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration, Stephen Goss....

Reposted from Gateway Pundit --

Yesterday Barack Obama told CBS that there simply may not be enough money in the coffers next month to pay Social Security payments.



But Obama was just playing games with seniors.

Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) pointed out that the decision to withhold checks “would be a political one” made by the President.

During this morning’s Budget Committee meeting, Congressman Huelskamp asked Stephen Goss, Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration, to explain how the Obama administration could withhold Social Security checks to American seniors. The question was prompted by a statement by President Obama that he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would be mailed August 3, 2011, if Congress fails to increase the debt limit.

Yesterday, Congressman Huelskamp issued a statement noting that it is irresponsible for the President to use seniors on Social Security as pawns to leverage his point in the debt limit negotiations.

Mr. Goss told Congressman Huelskamp: “The responsibility of the Social Security Administration per se, my boss, Commissioner Astrue, is to in fact determine how much in the way of benefit payments people are supposed to receive. We send that information actually over to the Department of the Treasury. They are the ones who actually send out the payments, whether it’s electronic funds, transfers, or check.”

Here’s the video:

Operation Stop the Bleeding; Contact Congress NOW!

Operation Stop the Bleeding

Contact Congress NOW!

Make no mistake - this fight to cut spending is just as important as our fight against Obamacare! Budgets, spending, and debt may not feel as personal as health care, but it is! We've seen how personal it's gotten in Greece, and we know what happens when a nation crumbles under the weight of its bureaucracy.

Because we simply can't afford to be making trips to DC to rally around the Capitol, Tea Party Patriots (www.teapartypatriots.org) have been hosting a weeklong Virtual Rally. Up until the day of the Debt Ceiling vote will will continue pressuring members of Congress to vote NO on raising the debt ceiling.

Think about this: To pay for the overspending that government has already overspent, $45,000 in debt is now strapped to the back of each child born in America.  To pay for the overspending that government has committed to overspend in the future, but has yet made no provision to pay for, each American household is now on the hook for $528,000. 

Action Items

Republican Freshmen

• Call GOP freshman today. You can call just one, just the ones from Ohio or all of them. It's up to you. For a list of all the freshmen in Congress, please click here.  Ohio freshmen are listd below.  Please post on their Facebook page too.

• Fax all of the GOP freshmen at once - for free! Click here to fax them all!

• Sign our No Debt Increase petition. Click here to sign the petition.

• Forward these action items, materials, and petition to every person you know that cares about this country by sending them a link to this page.

• Post the link to this page on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. For easy instructions  on how to Tweet, click here. Bonus: Use the hashtag #stopthebleeding when you tweet about this!

Ohio Freshman

Rep. Steve Chabot, OH-1

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RepSteveChabot

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/repstevechabot

D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-2216
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-3012

Cincinnati Office Phone: (513)684-2723

Cincinnati Office Fax: (513)421-8722

Website: http://chabot.house.gov
Email: https://chabot.house.gov/contact-me/email-me

Rep. Bill Johnson, OH-6

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RepBillJohnson

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/RepBillJohnson

D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-5705
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-5907

Marietta Office Phone: (740)376-0868

Marietta Office Fax: (740)376-0886

Website: http://billjohnson.house.gov

Rep. Steve Stivers, OH-15

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rep-Steve-Stivers/116058275133542

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/RepSteveStivers

D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-2015
D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-3529

Columbus Office Phone: (614)771-4968

Columbus Office Fax: (614)771-3990

Website: http://stivers.house.gov 
E-mail: https://stivers.house.gov/contact-me/email-me Rep. Jim Renacci, OH-16

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/repjimrenacci

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/repjimrenacci

D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-3876
D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-3059

Canton Office Phone: (330)489-4414

Canton Office Fax: (330)493-9265

E-mail: https://renacci.house.gov/contact-me/email-me

Website: http://renacci.house.gov

Rep. Bob Gibbs, OH-18

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RepBobGibbs

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/repbobgibbs

D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-6265
D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-3394

Zanesville Office PH: (740)452-2279

Zanesville Office FX: (740)452-2557

Website: http://gibbs.house.gov

E-mail: https://gibbs.house.gov/contact-me/email-me

Ohio Freshman Congressman, Rep. Jim Renacci (OH-16), who supports raising the debt ceiling, has a poll on his homepage asking if the debt ceiling should be raised. Please go to Rep Renacci's page and vote against raising the debt ceiling. (Click here to vote in poll)

House Leadership

Speaker John Boehner, OH-8

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/johnboehner

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/SpeakerBoehner

D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-6205

D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-0704

West Chester Office Phone: (513)779-5400

West Chester Office Fax: (513)779-5315

Website: http://www.johnboehner.house.gov

  

Rep. Eric Cantor, VA-7 / Majority Leader

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ericcantor

D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-2815

D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-0011

Richmond Office Phone: (804)747-4073

Richmond Office Fax: (804)747-5308

Website: http://cantor.house.gov

Email:  http://cantor.house.gov/contact

Tell Congress No More Debt!

Click here to send Congress a FREE Fax now! 

 

Liar, Liar, Pant's on Fire! TPP Co-founder challenges Obama's Fear-Mongering Fibs on the Debt Ceiling

Great job Mark.... Spot on in the argument!  Why is it the left just doesn't get it?

From MSLSD --

Here's a don't-miss interview with NBC's Savannah Guthrie and Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports.

Meckler was firmly against raising the debt ceiling, and dismissed consequences of it not passing. On President Obama's contention that Social Security checks might not go out, Meckler contended: "That's just simply a lie. There is plenty of revenue to pay our Social Security obligations. There's plenty of revenue to pay our debt, our interest on the debt obligations. If the president and Secretary Geithner choose not to pay Social Security, they'll be held responsible. They'll be held responsible by recipients, and they'll be held responsible by the American public."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He provided no citations for his contention, but instead claimed that "there's enough money to pay for Social Security, to pay the basic entitlement programs, and to pay for critical services in the United States of America."

"This is fear-mongering," he said. "This is just fear mongering."

ACTION ALERT: Tell Congress No Debt Increase!

Action Alert

Tell Congress No Debt Increase!

Patriots,

As we sit on the edge of financial doom of our country,  please be aware -- the GOP freshmen from Ohio that campaigned on fiscal responsibility and limited government -- are showing they are only fiscally responsible to Speaker John Boehner and are limiting their actions to supporting the D.C. status quo.

Make no mistake, the tough talking headlines from both sides regarding the debt ceiling are nothing more than political posturing. It is nothing more than which party will hold the collective power over "We the People"!  We know for fact, the GOP does not expect the Cut, Cap & Balance Amendment to pass the House.  In fact, they are so convinced of this, they are not even bothering to whip the vote.  

Besides showing a complete lack of leadership on Speaker Boehner's part, this shows they really have no intentions of trying to pass CC&B.  Furthermore, CC&B does NOT stop the debt ceiling from being raised!  It only sets conditions to AGAIN raise the debt ceiling.  Raising the debt ceiling on promises of what a future congress will or will not do is not only reckless & irresponsible -- it only kicks the can down the road -- AGAIN.  But this time -- it may be kicking the can off a cliff of financial disaster.

CC&B, if passed in the House, then the Senate, then must be signed into law by President Obama, and being a Constitutional Amendment, STILL has to be ratified by 2/3rds of the states.  (Think about how long it took to ratify the U.S. Constitution!)

With Ohio sending 5 GOP freshmen to Congress and Speaker Boehner being from here, it is the responsibility of patriots from OH to not only speak out, but to speak out the loudest on the feelings of disgust and betrayal being expressed from fellow groups across the country!

Please find below action alert items being done as a concerted effort by Tea Party, 9/12 and liberty minded groups across the country. (Please forward these action items to your email lists, family and friends) .

Tuesday (Today)

·        Sign the “No Debt Increase” petition (http://www.nodebtincrease.com/), if you have not done so.

·        Use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to make arguments for cutting spending so that job creators can actually create jobs and not cave on any "deal."

·        Inform friends about this crucial fight and invite them to take action as well. These negotiations are putting the fate of our nation on the line. We must engage as many people as possible.

• Call targeted members (see list below) of Congress and your own member. We will send you the target lists with phone numbers as well as facts to share with these members. Let's melt those phone lines! 

Wednesday

• Social media blitz day. Let the targeted members of Congress know what you think by posting on their Facebook pages and tweeting to them. We'll send you the links to their pages and their Twitter ID's.

• Use the TPP No Debt Ceiling logo on your Facebook profile pic

Ohio Target List

House Speaker John Boehner

7969 Cincinnati-Dayton Road 

Suite B

West Chester, OH 45069

(513) 779-5400 tel

(513) 779-5315 fax

12 South Plum Street

Troy, OH 45373

(937) 339-1524

(937) 339-1878 fax

1011 Longworth H.O.B.

Washington, DC 20515

(202) 225-6205

(202) 225-0704 fax

----------------------------

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)

Richmond Office

4201 Dominion Blvd. Suite 110

Glen Allen, VA 23060

p: (804) 747-4073

Toll Free: (800) 438-3793

f: (804) 747-5308

Culpeper Office

763 Madison Road #207

Culpeper, VA 22701

p: (540) 825-8960

f: (540) 825-8964

DC Office

303 Cannon House Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20515

p: 202-225-2815

f: 202-225-0011

Ohio Freshmen

Rep. Steve Chabot, OH-1
D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-2216
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-3012

Rep. Bill Johnson, OH-6
D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-5705
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-5907

Rep. Steve Stivers, OH-15
D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-2015D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-3529

Rep. Jim Renacci, OH-16

D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-3876

D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-3059
Rep. Bob Gibbs, OH-18
D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-6265D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-3394

OH Congressional Members

Rep. Jean Schmidt, OH-2
D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-3164
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-1992

Rep. Mike Turner, OH-3
D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-6465
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-6754

Rep. Bob Latta, OH-5
D.C. Office Phone: 1-800-541-6446 (OHIO)
D.C. Office Fax: 1-800-278-8203

Rep. Steve Austria, OH-7
D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-4324
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-1984

Rep. John Boehner, OH-8
D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-0600
D.C. Office Fax: (202)225-5117

Rep. Patrick Tiberi, OH-12
D.C. Office Phone: (202)225-5355
D.C. Office Fax: (202)226-4523

Rep. Steven LaTourette, OH-14
D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-5731
D.C. Office Fax: (202) 225-330

If the lines are busy or voice mails are full, please continue calling until you are able to speak to a live person or are able to leave a voicemail message.