Speak Up Memo

The Voice of Young ConservativesTHE WEEK OF MAY 4, 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: Ignoring Our Debt

The Promise

: While in the minority Democrats understood the importance of passing a budget. In 2006, then‐Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said passing a budget is “the most basic responsibility of governing. Rep. John Spratt, the top Democrat onthe House Budget Committee, put it more succinctly when he said, “if you can’t passa budget, you can’t govern.”

The Reality

: Steny Hoyer has announced that for the irst time since 1974Democrats will not pass a budget resolution this year. Why? As

Roll Call

writes,“[W]ithout much else on the House agenda, they simply don’t have any

good excuses not to do a budget beyond cowardice.”

Fact 1:The Budget Resolution is a Necessary Process

As the House Rules Committee website explains,“The budget resolution provides Congress with the opportunity tolay out its spending, revenue, borrowing and economic goals andserves as the vehicle for imposing internal budget discipline throughestablished enforcement mechanisms. . . In recent years, the budget resolution has become a blueprint for achieving a balanced budget.”As we have seen this Congress is not exactly keen on “budget discipline.” Whether it be the $862 billion stimulus, the $1.2 trillion health care reform, or now the $134billion grab‐bag spending bill ‐ this is a Congress seemingly committed to diggingour generation a iscal hole.The exorbitant spending is not the only history Democrats are making. The Hillreported,“The House has never failed to pass an annual budget resolutionssince the current budget rules were put into place in 1974,according to a Congressional Research Service report.”Though not Constitutionally required, the budgeting is a very important process.Without goals and a commitment to lowering spending in the upcoming year thereis very little incentive to keep the government’s budget in check. As CongressmanPaul Ryan (R‐WI) explains, “you’re lying blind without a budget.” With our nationfacing record debt and deicits as far as our generation can see, lying blind, is not what we should expect of our federal government.

Fact 2:Democrats are Ignoring Their Duty Because of Pure Politics

Democrats are facing tough elections in November. A recent Gallup poll shows that only 23% of Americans are satisied with the way things are going in the UnitedStates ‐ the lowest percentage in a midterm year since Gallup began asking thequestion. Moreover, as Gallup explains, “low satisfaction ratings have beenassociated with greater net seat change between parties in Congress in midtermelection years.”Democrats are looking to buoy this satisfaction rating however they can ‐ even if it means concealing the depth of our iscal troubles. The House Rules Committee saysthat the“The budget resolution must include a projection of annual budget deicits, as well as a statement of the aggregate federal debt.”Given the Democrats spending spree, the idea of giving Americans a chance to see