Even the Democrats finally have admitted that Republicans may pick up 25-30 seats in the 2010 Congressional elections. People are angry. We need a creative way of harnessing that anger and giving the voters a weapon to fight the Left’s agenda for the rest of the President’s term.
Obama won in 2008 with 53% of the vote. The President felt he had a mandate to enact his legislative programs. But a lot of those independents and moderates who voted for him are having buyer’s remorse. It is clear that the President is far to the left of the average American. The Van Jones episode should make that obvious. It is not that Van Jones slipped through the vetting process and no one knew his true views. Van Jones represents the views of the administration. Van Jones is Obama. They just didn’t want the average American voter to find out about it.
The President also tried to hide his real agenda in health care-the government single payer system. But it didn’t work. According to Rasmussen, ObamaCare, is opposed by 53% of the people. Only 43% support it. However with old fashioned arm twisting, an unpopular bill like ObamaCare can still pass a Democrat Congress. According to Rasmussen, 57% of the people would like to replace this Congress! But that doesn’t matter to ideologues on the Left. They want their agenda passed even if the public is against it. Once a bill is enacted, it is difficult to dismantle the structure. There must be a remedy for this.
We elect a President every four years but we pay taxes every year. I propose that we create a Check-Off on our Federal Tax Form like the Presidential Campaign Fund. Every year all the bills signed by the President would be listed and we could check off if we want our tax money to go towards it. If our IRS Form listed ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, Stimulus, Auto Bailouts, TARP, how much money do you think these programs would be able to spend if we had a say in it?
It took Congressional legislation to create the Presidential Campaign Fund Check-Off. There is precedent. States use this type of check off on their tax returns to raise money for a many charitable and social causes. Some states have programs to fund the Olympics, veterans, disease research, prevention of child abuse and senior programs. California, of course, has a check off for sea otters. Many people don’t care about sea otters and don’t want their money spent on them. But those who care, can check it off. That’s fair!
States have many ways to differentiate between political and charitable check offs and how it affects the taxpayer’s liability or refund. But in the end it is all political since even charities have to lobby the legislature to be included on the tax form.
There will be constitutional issues involved. We are a republic not a democracy. Congress has the right to appropriate money. However it has already been adapted for the purpose of the Presidential Campaign Fund by legislation. Maybe it could be triggered by the gap between what a President won by and support for a bill. If there is a 10% gap in support for a bill like ObamaCare then we have the right to the Check Off on our next tax return. There must be a way of doing this.
This would give us a yearly “vote of confidence or no-confidence” in Presidential leadership.
Of course the Democratic Congress will never enact this. They don’t want to give all of those angry people power. But Republicans can make it an issue in the 2010 campaign. “Do you support the Check Off?” could be the question to everyone who is running for Congress. Considering the inversion of the poll numbers we could call it the 53% solution!
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