Immigration Amnesty – Repealing DADT – Tax Rates Extended – Open House Jan 2nd

• Missouri Loses a Congressional Seat
• Open House January 2nd
• Tax Rates Extended at the cost of Billions in Pork
• Immigration – Keeping the DREAM Alive
• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Missouri Loses a Congressional Seat

Decades of slow growth have cost Missouri another seat in Congress.  There are many reasons that Missouri lags behind robust states like Texas, but suffice it to say that we need to do less of what we have been doing and more of what they are doing.  We will see how the congressional districts are redrawn soon enough, but it is a shame that a state as great as Missouri is not growing at a better rate than it is.

Open House January 2nd

We would love for you to join us on Sunday, January 2nd, from 3- 6pm at Two Hearts Banquet Center 4532 Lindbergh Blvd. (Lindbergh and Gravois) in South County for an afternoon that will fondly recall the fun and fellowship of this past year as well as provide a chance to look forward and discuss all the  opportunities that lay ahead.

Tax Rates Extended at the cost of Billions in Pork

Despite complaining bitterly that extending the current tax rates for two more years ought to incite people to anger (metaphorically “pitchforks and torches”) Senator Claire McCaskill votes “yes” on the “Middle Class Tax Relief Act of 2010.”   The final bill was heavily larded with new spending.  The bill also was bereft of spending cuts to offset the fresh outlays.  These facts may have been enough sugar for McCaskill and Representative Russ Carnahan to vote for tax rates they’ve spent a good deal of their careers vilifying.

President Obama’s administration is taking credit for averting an economic disaster which then begs a lengthy series of questions, the first being – what took so long?  Two years of uncertainty, billions in wasteful spending, pork projects and new entitlements have resulted in a weak economy with job anemic growth.  In desperation, and after an epic shellacking in November liberals lead by the president want to be given kudos for not putting another hole in the leaky boat of our economy.

If the president – and candidly members of congress on our side – really believed that current taxation levels are good for the economy, why are they only extended for two years?  Nothing has changed in the economy  other than delaying the debate over the increase.  A two percent cut in payroll taxes is a net good, but the deal includes billions more in spending.

America borrows up to 40 cents on every dollar it spends. As early as 2025 – 14 years from now – 100% of the revenue we bring in will be needed to pay for entitlements and debt.
Congress remains out of control.  While I acknowledge that the new Tea Party and other conservatives are not yet in Washington DC, the next leaders are.  Fiscally, the Democrats are showing that they are as incoherent as they are wrong.  Our team needs to do a better job of sticking to principles of good stewardship.

Keeping the DREAM Alive

America has an enormous problem with illegal immigration on our southern border, yet congress continues to try to sell Americans “Amnesty Before Enforcement.”  Congress has no track record of offering credible enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws and while many of us might be sympathetic to the plight of a young man or woman in America due to the criminality of their parents we cannot create yet another incentive to come to America in a repeat of the amnesty before enforcement under the Reagan administration.

Senator Claire McCaskill and Congressman Russ Carnahan both voted for yet another illegal alien amnesty despite (or because of) the many loopholes the DREAM act contains that are ripe for gaming.

America is a wonderful nation, and no one could fault someone who wishes to live here, but we have to have a rational, controlled immigration policy.  Americans are going to have to keep after Congress until we get it through their collective thick skulls.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Our military is not a test environment with which liberals can engage in experimentation.  We have a professional, all volunteer fighting force that has a singular mission of projecting American power and interests by force of arms.  It can be dangerous, demanding work and it calls upon many sacrifices and subordination of personal goals and desires to the needs of the mission.

Homosexual men and women were and are able to serve honorably in our military and have for as long as we have had a military.  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a reasonable compromise policy in which the military has been directed to not “hunt” homosexuals and those who were gay have been asked to keep their private lives private.  I believe the overwhelming majority of servicemen and women who are gay accept that the mission is more important than their personal life and are satisfied by the bargain. Over 80% of honorable discharges under DADT have been initiated by a service member breaking their part of the agreement by making their sexual orientation a matter of unit discipline.

Senator McCaskill and Congressman Carnahan may have secured for themselves the accolades of the left by ignoring the concerns of our combat troops but they have introduced a potentially disruptive variable into the volatile mix of a military in a protracted war.  I hope my grave concerns are never realized, but I fear the self-righteous indulgence of these thoughtelss leftists will have awful consequences.

Thanks for reading.  I cannot wait until the Sunday after next!

Read more at Ed Martin for Congress