Monday, 20 Sep 2010 01:15 PM
House GOP leaders are set to unveil a new “Contract with
America” this week that will define the goals of the Republican
Party and lay out in detail the agenda they will pursue if they
win control of the House and possibly, the Senate. Party
spokesmen confirmed to
The Hill Monday that they will unveil the new contract in
Virginia on Thursday.
Based on leaks that emerged on Monday, the new document will
represent nothing less than a rollback of the entire Obama
agenda on healthcare, finance, and taxes.
The
contract is modeled after the 1994 “Contract with America,” a
document commonly credited with allowing the GOP to take control
of the House that year and hold it until 2006. The new contract
will borrow many of the ideas that have percolated up from the
grass-roots tea party movement that stunned many Republicans
this year with its performance in state primaries.
The most reliable projects thus far indicate that Republicans
could win more than the 40 House seats they need to retake the
House. Since the upset victory of Christine O’Donnell in the
Delaware Senate primary last week, some have suggested that the
GOP cannot take the Senate. But criticism of O’Donnell seems to
have had the opposite effect, invigorating an already angry
grass-roots movement and propelling a flood of donations into
her campaign fund.
Republicans also are expected to increase their numbers in the
Senate, though winning a majority in the upper chamber would be
more difficult.
What’s in the new contract? House Minority Leader John Boehner
has called for a two-year freeze in tax rates and a reduction in
spending to 2008 levels. The Obama administration wants to
extend middle-class tax cuts, but has indicated it would allow
the taxes on families with incomes above $250,000 annually and
individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year to go up.
The other big item will be the effort to repeal Obamacare, or at
least severely defund its programs. Some Republicans have
pressed for repeal of the healthcare reform law in favor of
other types of reform. Still another program that could be on
the chopping block would be the new Wall Street reform.
Republican candidates won't sign the new governing document as
GOP candidates did in a highly publicized event in 1994,
according to The Hill. But the new contract will provide the
party with a list of items to take to voters ahead of the
midterm elections in which Republicans hope to make major gains.
The new contract is ostensibly the result of a three-month-long
listening session with the public online and through town hall
meetings, dubbed "America Speaking Out," CNN reported, and is
intended to show that House Republicans would have a governing
agenda if rewarded with enough votes.
Though Republican leaders have stressed that they will not
ignore the concerns of social conservatives, a senior GOP
leadership aide working on the project told CNN that the new
contract is mostly an economic reform documents.
Republican leaders plan to brief rank-and-file House members
Wednesday on the details of the plan, which is being refined,
according to the GOP sources.
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