Washington, DC- Last night, FreedomWorks celebrated a clear victory for limited government conservatives after a total of 67 “Contract From America” signers won seats in the House and Senate across the country. FreedomWorks PAC-endorsed Champions of Freedom, including Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Rand Paul and Tom Graves were among the list of signers who will be taking back the majority on January 3rd.
After garnering nearly half a million votes in less than two months, the “Contract From America” is an authentic grassroots document expressing what a majority of Americans want for their future. FreedomWorks strongly supports the ten ideas voted into the Contract, which advocate fundamental tax reform, fiscal responsibility and limited government.
“With this new generation of leaders in Congress, we have an extraordinary opportunity to create a fiscally conservative coalition that will fundamentally change the dynamic of the House and Senate,” commented Matt Kibbe, President and CEO of FreedomWorks.
The victory of these Contract-signing candidates comes on the heels of a recent poll conducted by FreedomWorks and The Word Doctors to shed light on the top political and economic issues motivating voters this election cycle. In a point-by-point analysis of the ten policy items addressed in the Contract, almost every item polled at least 60 percent positive for the general public and nearly 90 percent positive for Tea Partiers. A resounding 31 percent of Tea Party members consider their top policy issue to “repeal and replace the health care reform bill.”
“As our recent poll shows, the ‘Contract From America’ is the most accurate representation of the needs and priorities of the American people,” added Dick Armey, Chairman of FreedomWorks. “Electing these true blue legislative entrepreneurs was half the battle, but now it’s our job as citizens to stay involved and hold these leaders accountable to their promises of lower taxes, less government, and more individual freedom. The real work starts today.”
In addition to these 67 victories, FreedomWorks is currently awaiting the results of ten undecided races involving Contract signers, including 3 in the Senate and 7 in the House.
For more information about FreedomWorks or the “Contract FROM America,” please contact Adam Brandon at (202) 942-7698 or visit the website, www.ContractFromAmerica.org.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.
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.
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.
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.
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)
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. (72.20%)
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)
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. (64.90%)
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. (63.37%)
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. (56.57%)
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. (56.39%)
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. (55.51%)
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)