Tea Party Contract From America: Activists Unveil 'Blueprint For 2010 And Beyond'

Tea Party groups across the country unveiled the movement's "Contract from America" on Wednesday, one day before proponents plan to rally and protest in honor of Tax Day.

The "Contract from America" is the Tea Party activists' "legislative blueprint for 2010 and beyond" -- a document of ten principles and priorities outlining the movement's agenda for the road ahead.

Who was responsible designing the "Contract?" According to the coalition behind its construction, "Grassroots activists from across the country visited the website to choose their top ten priorities from a list of 21 action items that committed Americans from all walks of life proposed. The top ten issues comprise the final Contract."

Below -- a slideshow of the ten principles outlined in Tea Party's contract:

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Protect The Constitution

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

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gadgets/slideshows/218103/slide_218103_830691_small.jpg

Andy Gipson, Mississippi GOP Lawmaker: Gays Are Still Sinners, But I Don't Want Them Dead

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

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Comments

[AverageJosef]

04:35 PM on 04/17/2010

Ok I read the "Contract From America". Seems lame and superficial and really only a platform to allow people to create talking points. Just look at any one of its points:
"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. (82.03%)"

WTF? That will do nothing at all. Of course any bill can have that tacked on and no matter what, politicians will make it work, cause, surprise, most politicians are lawyers. How will bookkeeping of how each bill relates to constitutional interpretation (that's why we have a judicial system and constitutional scholars) help anyone?

I can just see how the voting went. Should I vote for helping dem d'are little ole ladies cross the street or constitutional tracking of already dense unreadable bills? Duh.... I'll go for the second. If I try to help old people cross the street that means I'll have to slow down when I drive my 4x4 or be careful when I shoot pigeons wid my trusty assault rifle with the engraved bible references.

[Chernynkaya]

11:33 AM on 04/16/2010

What poor reporting. Americans For Prosperity ( funded by KocH Industries) wrote the contract and fund the TeaBaggers.

Rachel Maddow exposed it last night. Try to stay current HP.

[AntiMarxist]

09:18 AM on 04/16/2010

This Contract from America is fantastic and will help get America back on track.

[nickclone]

08:59 AM on 04/16/2010

A lot of this just seems to be superficial sentiment.

[Sonja Tofani]

03:09 AM on 04/16/2010

Wow. Just... WOW.
Just off the top of my head...
-W let his dad's policy of pay-as-you-go government expire before he started the war on terror.
-We are currently too far down to even consider that- although getting our troops home would help a lot with not adding to the deficit.
- I'm having trouble with the focus on the huge deficit combined with no new taxes. How is the federal government supposed to get out of debt then?
-Focus on smaller government? Aren't most of the states horribly in debt right now? Would they be ok paying huge state taxes? Not to mention, about half the federal budget is military-related, anyway.
-2/3 vote for any tax increase?! HA! Political suicide. Most of these tea party enthusiasts wouldn't even have an increase in taxes with what's on the horizon for later. Why can't they see they're doing the dirty work for the upper, say, 5%?

[meemu]

08:16 PM on 04/15/2010

Well, most of the 10 contract items either seem impractical, or just plain stoopid (limit the tax document to the same number of words as the constitution?! Y? Lol) Nothing of REAL use to the country, such as elimination of the lobbyist system (bribery) and a SET amount for political campaigning, funded by our government (us, actually) and that's ALL they get. Reverse the ignorant and criminal decision to give corporations the same rights as a citizen....these things would have a major effect on our country, and a few steps toward getting BACK our democracy (such as it was, but way better than it is now)!!

[Sonja Tofani]

03:11 AM on 04/16/2010

Same rights as citizens, but a lot of them don't have to pay federal taxes!

[Bloggerrogr]

06:13 PM on 04/15/2010

Tea Party is playing the rubes for all the $$$ they can siphon.
Politico.Com writer provides the grist:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35785.html

This confirms what I've been saying all along; the "Tea Party" collective is nothing more than a giant fundraising machine configured to vacuum all the $$$$ from those gullible to believe that there will ever be any change in the power structure.

This was the lead story on KO last night. Read the article in it's entirety. It's three pages long should take the average reader all of 10 minutes.

TEA WHINERS - YOU'VE BEEN HAD ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
FWIW

[CynAnne]

12:05 AM on 04/16/2010

And they've been "...had..." more than once, Bloggerrogr...more like they were passed 'round the teaper fronts like foolish favors. Rachel has been doing some research today, and look what she's found: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#36583904 and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#36584153 ...there's those 'grass roots, down-home' teapers, courtesy of Dick Armey...again.

[Bloggerrogr]

05:53 PM on 04/17/2010

CynAnne;

FAN you - for your appreciation of Rachel M. She is awesomesauce!

FWIW

[Artemis34]

05:51 PM on 04/15/2010

To Rickshaw Johnson's "Government bad" grunts

Take your Neanderthal concepts to Somalia.

It is your utopia.

No government and all the arms you can buy!

[Bloggerrogr]

06:14 PM on 04/15/2010

AMEN, BROTHER !

FWIW

[gentlewomanfarmer]

05:23 PM on 04/15/2010

As we all know - and of course, the "highly educated" Tea Bagger certainly know - a contract is a "bargained for exchange". What are the Tea Baggers offering in exchange for these 10 talking points? An America with no social safety net of any kind, for starters, since 56 cents out of every tax dollar goes to entitlements (source: NPR). And a weaker America as well, thanks to a reduced defense budget - that's another 20 cents (source: NPR). Fabulous - something for everybody.

With the focus on "how much" - dollars - to the exclusion of "why spend" - policy, they'd do well to nominate Mitt Romney, a beancounter from way back (he was a venture capitalist which, as you highly educated Tea Baggers know, is not a businessman) who can read financial statements but doesn't know anything about government accounting rules. Or Sarah Palin, who is as dumb as a post. Makes no difference.

[PamperedHousecat]

07:36 PM on 04/16/2010

Well Gee Whiz gentlewomanfarmer. When we wuz writin' it, it didn't seem stoopid. But you make it sound like we don't know what we talkin' about.

[pbnyc59]

05:20 PM on 04/15/2010

Funny how you never see anyone of color at these protests. Just angry white folk, at a black president.

[tlgeiger62]

06:38 PM on 04/15/2010

Seems that everyone notices that except the teabuggers.

[Katzencats]

05:17 PM on 04/15/2010

“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.”

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Ah, yes - the original Constitution. The document that said only white land/property owners could vote, that specifically said "slaves" were to be counted as 3/5 of a person for purposes of the MANDATED Census (no wonder there aren't too many TPs of color!), and other fun stuff.

Yes, let's not only go back to the "original" (no amendments), let's go back to that time's population count, so it will work. Which of the TPers is willing to leave the country & how soon can they go?

Seriously (and the above is semi), what is the obsession with buying insurance from another state? Will someone be kind enough to clue me in to this?

[AverageJosef]

04:16 PM on 04/17/2010

"...what is the obsession with buying insurance from another state? Will someone be kind enough to clue me in to this?"

Since the insurance carriers in a state will not be monopolizing the market, there will be more competition, hence better coverage.

Funny, there is plenty of competition, yet costs are still going up. Why can't I get affordable credit and everything else, these are available across state lines?

[DevonTexas]

04:25 PM on 04/15/2010

“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"
That "free-market" system is the one we're trying to fix now with the Health Insurance Reform! More of the same broken system isn't going to help anyone!

[fr33d0mhawk]

04:21 PM on 04/15/2010

This contract is a complete farse, just like the biggest lie ever told, that "conservatives" are for smaller government. Conservatives are for the biggest chunks of socialism to their own kind, farm welfare galore, corporate welfare, , loss of constitutional rights in favor of a gestapo police state, forfeiture laws stealing billions without due process, eminent domain stealing property from poor people and giving it to extremely wealthy people, protectionism of certain industries which tramples capitalism, in other words, the very worst of Ultra Big Govt.

When will the rest of America catch on to the biggest lie ever told? We saw what happened in the 90's, it took a liberal to reduce the size of government, and we saw what happened with the Grand Poobah of all conservatives, Ronnie Reagan, and how Ronnie TRIPLED the national defecit, created forfeiture laws, used the CIA to peddle cocaine to US citizens whom Reagan promptly imprisoned in the neocon Gulag system, and more telling, gave Iranian terroirsts millions of dollars of US made weapons, while teabaggers accuse Obama of helping terrorists. Its a fascist joke and America are the dupes. Any "conservative" care to explain their Grand Poobah's departure from alleged conservative priniciple?

[GrandmaBEE]

04:50 PM on 04/15/2010

I am speechless. Fanned

[satanlite]

03:58 PM on 04/15/2010

The world is witnessing what a group of wealthy white Americans who are either poorly educated or selectively educated think is a priority issue to protest. Not the criminal actions of the Bush wars, not the terrible inequitey of income between working class and wealthy Americans, not the victimization of the poor in America, but their "high" taxes and their hatred of socialism. They make me sad and ill at the same time.

Hey, rest of the world, not all white Americans are lousy, whiny, uneducated self centered piles of bipedal richly adipose flesh. Some of us are still good people.

[chazmanr]

05:27 PM on 04/15/2010

They used to make me sad. Now they just make me angry.

[darr]

03:57 PM on 04/15/2010

If they had some good plans to go along with those ideas they would be more credible. This "list" is nothing but talking points with very little real solutions presented. Same as the repubs. Pointing fingers but giving no real solutions.