The Contract from America

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.

2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.

3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution.

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning.

6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs.

9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.

10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.

Here are the newly elected candidates who signed this citizen-created contract. They should be given the grassroots support to now act on this agenda:

House:
1 Alan Nunnelee
2 Andy Harris
3 Bill Flores
4 Bill Posey
5 Bob Gibbs
6 Bobby Schilling
7 Cathy McMorris Rodgers
8 Chip Cravaack
9 Cory Gardner
10 Cynthia Lummis
11 Dan Benishek
12 David McKinley
13 David Schweikert
14 Dennis Ross
15 Francisco Canseco
16 Frank Guinta
17 James Renacci
18 Jason Chaffetz
19 Jeff Duncan
20 Jeff Landry
21 Jim Jordan
22 Joe Wilson
23 John Culberson
24 Jon Runyan
25 Justin Amash
26 Larry Bucshon
27 Louie Gohmert
28 Lynn Westmoreland
29 Marlin Stutzman
30 Michael Grimm
31 Michael McCaul
32 Michele Bachmann
33 Mick Mulvaney
34 Nan Hayworth
35 Pete Olson
36 Ralph Hall
37 Randy Hultgren
38 Raul Labrador
39 Renee Ellmers
40 Rich Nugent
41 Rick Tubbs
42 Sandy Adams
43 Scott DesJarlais
44 Steve Chabot
45 Steve King
46 Steve Pearce
47 Steve Southerland
48 Tim Huelskamp
49 Tim Scott
50 Tim Walberg
51 Todd Young
52 Tom Marino
53 Tom Graves
54 Tom Rooney
55 Trey Gowdy

Senate:
1 Dan Coats
2 Jerry Moran
3 Jim DeMint
4 John Boozman
5 Johnny Isakson
6 Kelly Ayotte
7 Marco Rubio
8 Mike Lee
9 Rand Paul
10 Richard Burr
11 Ron Johnson
12 Tom Coburn

And the 10 candidates in undecided races (as of 11/03/10) who signed on:

Undecided Races:
1 Dino Rossi (Sen-WA) - lost 11/04
2 Joe Miller (Sen-AK) lost
3 Ken Buck (Sen-CO) - lost 11/04
4 Ann Marie Buerkle (NY15) won
5 Blake Farenthold (TX-27) won
6 Jesse Kelly (AZ-8) - lost 11/08
7 Joe Walsh (IL-8) - won 11/10
8 John Koster (WA-2) - lost 11/10
9 Ruth McClung (AZ-7) lost
10 Keith Fimian (VA-11) - lost 11/09

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