Speak Up Memo

The Voice of Young ConservativesTHE WEEK OF APRIL 12, 2010

The Outrage

Used and forgotten. In 2008, young people gave Democrats their vote and in 2009Democrats showed young people the door. Well it’s time to tell the Democrats tostop and listen up. From health care to student loan reform, Democratic policieshave consistently ignored the needs of our generation. If we want change, 2010must be different.

What You Can Do About It

Speak up! As a conservative we must begin to win hearts and minds before we canwin elections. The process starts by educating people about what we truly believe. It starts with you in the classroom. We’ll arm you with the facts you need to win the argument. It’s your job to carry themessage on to your campus. It’s your job to speak up! By engaging ourselves in thedebate, we’ll spread the message of conservatism – the message of smallgovernment, iscal responsibility, and individual rights – to one campus, oneclassroom, and one student at a time.Over the next ive weeks the CRNC will be looking into the growing entitlements that left unreformed will doom this country’s iscal future. We must realize that government is not the solution to the problem…it IS the problem.

This Week’s Theme: Happy Tax Day!

The Promise

: “Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically andinternationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead Washington isshifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children andgrandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.” ‐ Sen. Obama3/16/06

The Reality

Senator

Obama hit the nail on the head.

President

Obama on the otherhand has worsened the problem dramatically. Following the 18th straight month of budget deicits (the longest such streak in history) the Obama administrationcontinues to lead us down a reckless iscal path. According to the CBO analysis of the

President’s budget the debt will grow $9.3 trillion dollars in the next decade ‐ morethan double what it would be without the President’s proposals.

Fact 1:The Current Fiscal Path is Unsustainable

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf has said that, “U.S. iscal policy is unsustainable,and is unsustainable to the extent that can’t be solved with minor tinkering.” So what do Democrats have in mind?The budget released by President Obama adds $1.9 trillion in tax increases. Despitethe higher tax burden the cumulative deicit still rises $9.3 trillion under thePresident’sproposal. Despite trillions in new taxes by 2020 our country will barelycover the beneits the government has promised and the interest it must pay toservice the debt. So unless Americans are willing to stomach the idea that thegovernment will spend northing on defense, education, highways, etc. additionalthings must be done. Democrats have begun to discuss the idea of a Value Added Tax(VAT) which acts as a national sales tax levied on the value added at each step of production.Republican Paul Ryan has a different plan. Rather than continue with recklessspending that forces higher taxes, why not reduce spending. As heexplainedthismorning, getting the national debt under control is doable:“Yes it can be done and it can be done on spending. We’ve got to focuson spending. We shouldn’t be taxing our way out of this problembecause if we try we’re going to kill our economy. Spending is theproblem.”

Fact 2:The Government Isn’t Spending Our Money Wisely

A new CNNpollinds that 97% of Americans believe that the government wastesour tax dollars. A whopping 74% believe the government wastes “a lot” and 23%believe the government wastes “some” of the money we pay.That should be an unacceptable number for politicians. Rather than make sure ourdollars are going to the right place the federal government is only asking us formore. In just the past year Democrats have increased taxes by $670 billion dollars,$2,100 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Forinstance:• A $52 billion tax on employers who fail to fully comply with government insurance mandates