Congressman Eric Cantor is the House Republican Whip. When the 112th Congress is sworn in, in January, Cantor is expected to become the House Majority Leader. Cantor has released the attached letter, which lays out an agenda for the new Congress. Congressman Cantor addresses job creation, health care, earmarks, oversight, congressional reform, and other issues.
Please read over Cantor’s letter, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Click here to read Congressman Cantor’s ‘Delivering on our Commitment.’
Some comments & questions on jobs:
1. The Bush tax cuts is spent money. It did not create the jobs and prosperity that it was supposed to do.
2. You cannot create jobs, if jobs are going overseas. And if you send private sector jobs overseas, then the government steps in.
3. The government can set the conditions for creating jobs and wealth. So far, neither party knows how to do that.
4. Our biggest problem is globalization and 2 billion potential cheap laborers. It means less in jobs or pay and a diminishing middle class.
5. What widgets can be made here and not some other country?
6. How can you support small business in small communities with factories closed?
7. If you put the money in the hands of the consumer, over half the products on the shelves are foreign made. How does this help our economy and employ more people?
8. The tax cuts was for the here and now. What did it for our future?
9. The fed is printing money and the republicans want more tax cuts to create jobs. However, a lot of our jobs went overseas. So what good is printing more money or having more in tax cuts if they don’t work?
10. The only way to move our country forward is to invest in our country, in our people, and in the future. This will take 10 to 20 years.
11. Bush said “stay the course” on the economy and on two wars. They were all ran into the ground. And on the economy to get unemployment down to the 5% level will take some 10 to 20 years.
12. You cannot keep having tax cuts for the wealthy and ignore the middle class.
13. You need upward movement for the poor and the middle class. With jobs gone, there is no upward movement. New products being made by Apple, as an example, are made in China. What jobs do you intend to create in the future, without them going overseas?
14. You cannot run the country on an ideology. We saw eight years of that. Come up with some pragmatic answers.
Glenn, tax cuts have increased actual income to the government every time they’ve been tried (1920, 1946, 1961, 1981, 2001). Besdies, in any case, it’s NEVER the government’s money; government doesn’t have a dime that it has taken from someone by force or threat of jail/force.
You are totally ignoring globalization and not investing in our country. You are typical of the clueless bunch that just got elected. Just mindless failed ideology. I look at factories that are closed, even though Bush came to my state and said “free trade is good.” Well, all those tax cuts is spent money and does us little for today. I ask, since we had the Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003, where are the jobs? And without jobs, your revenue is down.
Income did not increase under Bush.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html?wprss=rss_print
Glenn, regarding free trade, suppose we put significant tariffs on manufactured products. We would see significant increase in manufacturing and job creation, but products of all kinds would become significantly more expensive. The overall US economy would shrink as the nation is forced to scale back consumption of all kinds – fewer cars, iphones, prescription drugs that are currently subsidized by cheap foreign labor. Cheap labor is one of the major reasons we have a massive economy and unparalleled consumption.
I’m all for consuming less, but this should not be done by the dictates of the state. My family enjoys full employment as my mother and siblings make much of their own food, clothing and entertainment rather than purchasing it. These products, and their lives, seem to have a higher quality than those of most Americans. The answer to globalization is a truly conservative culture of hard work, community, and living a meaningful life. Frontporchrepublic.com is a forum that explores this in more depth.
What is happening is that we are hooked on cheap products, cheap money (the fed), cheap taxes, deficits and debt, and in the end we have no jobs. While I understand liberty is not to have government, we are losing liberty because there are some 2 billion cheap laborers who want our jobs. We are losing liberty as there is no upward movement for the middle class. And we are going to lose liberty if the far right wing wackos want more religion in government. So, for those who preach liberty, will eventually cause more control as we move more to an Oligarchy and a theocracy.
In the end, the country still has to be managed. Yes, I said a dirty word, because that reminds us of the Soviet Union. But every body is managed some way. And the sad part is that republicans with their laissez-faire will only fragment the economy all the more and we will have no cohesiveness and we will be a country listless in a world economy.
Here is what Congress is authorized to do: (Article I, Section
Anything beyond that should be defunded and dismantled.
Section 8 – Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
In other words-do nothing. Sorry, don’t buy it. I saw the tax cuts and laissez-faire of Bush while we lost the jobs. Doing nothing doesn’t fly.
I would like to see members of the House meet with a coaliton of constituents from a diverse section of their district on a regular scheduled basis. I would like them to be required to report directly to the people of their district on upcoming legislation and explain their support or nonsupport. They should be required to meet with this coalition on a monthly basis.
I appreciate Cantor’s ideological focus on shrinking the state and increasing (should be “cease restricting”) liberty. His other and larger focus, jobs/the economy, is a specific subset of the size/liberty issues. Cantor offers some concrete but minor solutions for change – band-aids, at best.
It is natural for a state to create power for itself. The American people expect and even demand this. Cantor correctly calls the state “Leviathan” and it is unnatural and nearly impossible for the leviathan to shrink itself. Over the next two years, Republicans will take actions common to all congresses, creating new fundings and regulations (many but hardly all related to terrorism and the military). These will surely grow the state and harm liberty more than any reductions Cantor and the Republicans will win.
At a minimum, truly shrinking the state and increasing liberty requires removing whole sections of entitlement programs, eliminating whole bureaus and departments of the state, and actually removing powers the state claims for itself rather than just declining to use them. The only Republican proposal bold enough to create even minor systemic change is the “Fair Tax”, which when implemented will actually grow the state and further infringe on liberty. When the state trades one power or tax for another, it does not truly give up previously claimed powers.
True long term change requires change at the base of the system: a change in peoples’ attitudes regarding responsibility, community, work, property, consumption, protection, and rights. A recognition that a monopolistic state is not essential to individuals or society, but community is. Eric Cantor’s proposals, even if all become law or practice, will create no real change.
Why is Virginia afraid of free speech?
I notice that the forum clip links has been removed from the home page.