Politics

Conservative group calls on GOP for “emergency intervention” to block Obama legislation

Jon Ward Contributor
Font Size:

In 2006, Democrats went public with a platform of a half dozen proposals, detailing what they planned to do if they gained the majority in Congress. They labeled it “Six for 06.”

On Tuesday, a Republican advocacy group will release their own similarly named program, calling it “7 in ’11.” But instead of things they think the GOP should do, the agenda being outlined by Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies is made up mostly of things they think Republicans should oppose or eliminate.

Crossroads GPS — the advocacy arm of American Crossroads — said on its website that the “7 in ’11” program “isn’t an exhaustive list of every important issue facing the country.”

Instead, they’ve dubbed it “an emergency intervention” to “reverse America’s slide toward economic and financial disaster.”

The program calls on the GOP to “stop” the Bush tax hikes from expiring at the end of the year, to “end” stimulus projects deemed to be “wasteful,” to “call a ‘timeout'” on Obama’s health care bill, to enact a “moratorium” on “government handouts to banks, automakers, labor unions and other politically-connected interests,” to “block” any bill putting a price on carbon emissions, and to “stop stalling” on securing the border.

On the nation’s looming entitlement crisis, Crossroads’ GPS proposes a commission to study the problem and suggest solutions, even though President Obama has already created a commission that has been meeting for most of the year.

American Crossroads was launched earlier this year, in part by former Bush White House advisers Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, though neither man has a formal affiliation with the group. The president of the group is Steven Law, former general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while the political director is Carl Forti, a long-time Republican political operative with experience on Capitol Hill and as a top adviser on Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Steven Duffield, a former senior aide to Sen. Jon* Kyl, Arizona Republican, and director of the GOP platform committee at the 2008 convention, was hired in June as policy director for Crossroads GPS.

Here is the full list of the “7 in ’11” proposal:

1. Guarantee Low Tax Rates that Encourage American Economic Growth
* Stop the Obama tax hike time bomb scheduled to detonate on January 1, 2011
* Reform and simplify the tax system to strengthen America’s global competitiveness

2. Stop Congress’ Reckless Waste of Taxpayer Money
* End wasteful “stimulus” spending and pork-barrel earmarks
* Develop fiduciary-quality controls on Congress’ budgeting and spending processes
* Cut Congress’ ballooning travel budget

3. Aggressively Attack the National Debt
* Clean up the nation’s books and set a clear course to pay off the national debt
* Create a “BRAC” commission process to tackle entitlement reform

4. Reform Health Care Responsibly, not Ideologically
* Call a “time-out” on implementing Obamacare to protect seniors’ and families’ health
* Refocus on patient-centered policies that will lower costs and improve quality through technological innovations

5. End the Bailout Culture
* Impose a moratorium on government handouts to banks, automakers, labor unions and other politically-connected interests
* Require full public accounting of disposition of returned TARP and auto bailout funds, as well as how much “stimulus” and “jobs bill” spending is directly or indirectly funding government salaries and pensions

6. Protect our Borders, Enforce our Laws
* Stop stalling on implementing a complete American border security system
* Fix existing laws to ensure legal immigration that benefits America and those who play by the rules

7. Prioritize American Energy Development
* Block the energy taxes on American families that costly regulatory regimes will impose
* Speed up development of American nuclear, fossil fuel, and other energy sources

*This article originally misspelled Sen. Kyl’s first name as John.

Email Jon Ward and follow him on Twitter