Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they’re out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.

Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic congressional leadership have engaged in an all-out strategy to ram through Congress legislation designed to remake America without time for public debate or even for members of Congress to read the legislation they are voting on.

From the failed “economic stimulus” bill to the cap-and-trade energy tax to bailouts of the auto and financial industries to government-run healthcare legislation, Speaker Pelosi is refusing to give members of Congress and the public time to read the final versions of legislation – let alone debate it.

This “trust me, vote now and read it later” approach effectively turns Congress into a rubber stamp for President Obama’s policies and gives Speaker Pelosi and her fellow liberal lawmakers almost unlimited power.

That is why CCAGW has joined 182 members of Congress in fighting for vote on H. Res. 554, which would change the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives to require Speaker Pelosi to post, without exception, all final versions of legislation on the Internet at least 72 hours before holding a vote.

Here is just one example of why this 72-hour review period is so important.

At approximately 2:45 a.m. on the day the House passed the wildly expensive cap-and-trade energy tax, the liberal leadership of the House mysteriously added a whopping 300-page amendment to the legislation. Congress had spent weeks crafting the bill, and this massive amendment contained new and radical provisions.

One of the worst of the wee-hours-of-the-morning provisions requires you to receive permission from the Environmental Protection Agency in order to sell your home.

Unbelievable, but true! The EPA will review the energy efficiency of your appliances, windows, roof, furnace, air conditioning, and walls to determine if you meet their standards for private homes. If they do not approve of your home, you will be required to make changes, regardless of the cost, before you can sell.

CCAGW is fighting tooth-and-nail to keep this outrageous, authoritarian provision out of the Senate version of cap-and-trade legislation, which is not expected to come up for a vote until next year.

However, we can prevent more radical policies like this EPA home-sale approval requirement RIGHT NOW by stopping Speaker Pelosi and her left-wing minions from being able to call for votes on legislation without time for members of Congress, the public, and policy experts like CCAGW to review the details of a bill.

Not surprisingly, Speaker Pelosi and the ultra-liberal House leadership are blocking vote on H. Res. 554 by bottling it up in the Rules Committee and refusing to let it come to the House floor.

The only way to force a vote on H. Res. 554 is for 218 members of Congress to sign what is known as a Discharge Petition requiring that the 72-hour rule change come to the House floor.

Concerned Taxpayer, as someone who has counted votes in Washington for decades, I can tell you that if this rule change is put to a vote on the House floor an overwhelming number of members of Congress will vote for it – because more than 80 percent of the American people support having all legislation posted on the Internet for 72 hours before a final vote.

Speaker Pelosi’s only chance to block the public and members of Congress from reading and discussing legislation before it becomes law is if she can stop the Discharge Petition from gaining 218 signatures.

As I send you this e-mail, 182 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have stepped forward to sign the Discharge Petition.

We need just 36 more.

And we have more than enough top targets whom we are heavily lobbying. For example, 24 Representatives co-sponsored vote on H. Res. 554 but have yet to sign the Discharge Petition due to pressure from Speaker Pelosi.

Concerned Taxpayer, we can win these 24 signatures and reach the 218 required, but we urgently need your help.

We must demonstrate in the most concrete manner possible that not only are Americans solidly behind the posting of all legislation on the Internet for at least 72 hours, but that taxpayers are willing to fight for this new rule.

That is why I need you to sign on to the very same Discharge Petition that we are urging members of Congress to sign. We will tabulate your signature, along with the tens of thousands of others, and publicize the results to the members of Congress whose support we are lobbying to secure.

Please, before you do anything else today, take a moment to sign on to the Discharge Petition for H. Res. 554.

The House and Senate are scheduled to vote on their respective budget resolutions this week. The Budget Committees of both chambers largely adopted President Obama’s record-shattering $3.6 trillion budget proposal in tact. That’s why I urgently need you to tell your elected officials to save this country and each and every one of us from financial ruin by voting NO on the budget.

As reported by the Washington Post, President Obama is right now marshalling his grassroots network of campaign supporters to ram through Congress with little debate the far-reaching changes to our nation’s healthcare, energy, and education systems contained in his budget.

We must counter their efforts before they bankrupt this country and set America on a path to becoming a social welfare state. That’s why your Senators and Representative urgently need to hear from you today!

President Obama’s budget would raise income taxes on individuals and small businesses by $636 billion over 10 years. It creates a $634 billion “reserve fund” for nationalizing healthcare that would be paid for with a combination of tax increases and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. His budget would also impose a “light bulb tax” on all Americans by implementing a cap-and-trade energy policy, where companies would have to pay the federal government to use oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels. That tax alone could cost American families as much as $3,100 per year in higher prices for electricity, gasoline, and other products and services.

Not only would these tax increases further drain American families and businesses of income during the recession, they will stifle economic growth, just when our elected leaders should be enacting policies to promote it!

This massive $3.6 trillion budget proposal comes on top of the $787 billion “economic stimulus” package; $410 billion fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that was loaded with more than 8,000 earmarks; and the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, Detroit automakers, and homeowners who took out mortgages they can’t afford.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has predicted that the Obama budget will push the federal deficit to a mind-numbing $1.85 trillion this year and pile up $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, on top of the existing $11 trillion national debt! CBO called these deficits, which would never fall below 4 percent of our economy’s gross domestic product, “unsustainable.”

Friend, please tell your U.S. Senators and Representative today to reject the Senate and House budget resolutions.

view the Pork (xls).

This is version one, it is accurate, but we will add more detail, house member totals and track down the states of many of the earmarks (we have to do a little digging in some cases where they are not described). So check back frequently. And remember, this is just the Omnibus and does not include the three FY09 spending bills that passed back in the fall (Defense, Homeland Security, and Military Construction/Veterans Affairs) that had more than 2,000 earmarks worth $6.6 billion. source.

| |

While many Americans are tightening their belts this spring, Congress has gone on a mad spending spree! In addition to the so-called “stimulus” passed just over two weeks ago, the Senate is now considering the pork-laden 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. This bill will cost taxpayers $410 billion and represents an eight percent increase from 2008 levels. Combined with the “stimulus” package, total expenditures for some agencies represent an 80 percent increase in spending for fiscal 2009.

Even worse, the mammoth bill is fattened with pork, including such outrageous items as $1.9 million for the Pleasure Beach water taxi in Connecticut, the “water taxi to nowhere”; $1.8 million to conduct research in Iowa on “swine odor and manure management”; and $380,000 for the construction of a recreation and fairground area in Kotzebue, Alaska.

Instead of recognizing the fiscal reality of a projected $1.75 trillion deficit, Congress is intent on saddling you, your children, and grandchildren with enormous debt – all in a self-serving attempt to cater to the special interests and “buy” votes back home!

Your help is needed today to call on Congress to reject this overstuffed spending package! The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Omnibus Appropriations Act later this week.

Time is short, please tell your Senators to oppose the H.R. 1105, the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act!