While reading on the Open Congress website we learned about H.R. 45 sponsored by Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois. It would redefine a "qualifying weapon" to include all handguns, and then in turn require all gun owners apply to the Attorney General for a license since it would be illegal to possess one without a license. While this concerned us, the same website also contained this information:
The Vast Majority of Bills go Nowhere
Relevant part:
Every once in a while we get an email from someone concerned about some obscure bill they have found on OpenCongress that they think poses a direct threat to their freedoms and liberties. Common examples include H.R.45, a bill to establish a nation-wide firearms licensing system, and H.J.Res.5, a bill to repeal presidential term limits. They cite these bills as evidence that Congress is trying to take away their guns, or that Congress is trying to make Obama king for life.
The article linked a story called The Life and Death of Bills
This story showed that of the 11,056 bills that were introduced in the 110th Congress, 9,904, were referred to a committee by default, never saw any action, and died there. Statistically, this means 89.5% of the bills were a waste of time and our tax money.
We are paying each member of the house and senate a minimum of $174,000 each year. Do you believe we are getting our money’s worth if our representatives are wasting time with fringe bills that never go anywhere? If 89.5% of what is being done accomplishes nothing, why are these people there on our dime? If you owned a business, would you pay someone full time wages for part time work?
For the record, according to the Open Congress website, as of 9-12-09 the current Congress (111th) is up to 3,547 bills since January 6, 2009.
Why is there so much hate? Recurring misconceptions about the Tea Party movement.
Of late, it seems like there is a lot of name calling and several recurring misconceptions about the Tea Party movement. We want to address them here.
1) Why weren't you critical of the prior administration? Since you weren't, you have no right to be critical of this one.
Response: We recognize there was excessive spending done during the prior administration, and some in our community did speak out about it. For the sake of the debate, even if no one did so, or did so 7 days a week, how does this affect our rights as Americans to express our opinions and views as we see fit now?
2) You are just a bunch of racists and are (expletives deleted, name of deviant practice deleted), hateful, stupid, ignorant, etc.
Response: The foul language is not deserving of a response. We'd ask what level of intelligence is required to call someone a name versus supporting your side of the debate with facts and experiences? While we don't support calling other Americans bad names, there may be a small faction of any organization that does. We'd rather talk about ways to return our nation to that of a Constitutional Republic by educating voters. As to the racism, if this were the case, we would not welcome members and speakers of any race or ethnicity to our movement so long as they support our conservative viewpoint. Why else would one wish to join? If you drive a dump truck, you will probably not be interested in joining the local sports car club to talk about hauling gravel. Look at who sings the Tea Party Anthem, and who spoke not only at our 9-12 event, but also Mason Weaver at the D.C. event. As stated elsewhere, what we are involved in are not black or white issues, they are American issues. If this was in fact a racist movement, you would only see one race in the entirety of the organization as well as a denouncement of other races.
3) You're funded and organized by wealthy Republicans!
Response: While some of our members are Republicans or former Republicans, some are also Democrats and Independents or even No Party Affiliation. Our philosophy is not one of a set political party. We don't endorse any candidates. We don't solicit funds for any candidates. Our funding is right out in the open here. Some indicators of an organized movement would be fancy pre-printed signs and paying people to attend events. Our recent trip to D.C. cost Bob $2,500 out of his pocket. He paid for his gas and lodging, not some wealthy Republican. Our events are paid for via donations and fundraising done in our local communities and hopefully at some point via online donations. As of September 2009, we're not "organized" enough to get that part working and would have no need for it if in fact we were supported by wealthy people.
We find it sad that some accusing the Tea Party movement of hatred are expressing exactly that concept when they speak about us. We should all be working towards a United States, not Divided Fates.
How much will it cost to pay off an $11 trillion debt?
The national debt is over $11 trillion and growing, as evidenced by the Treasury Secretary's request to have the existing debt ceiling lifted as it was in 2004. We tried to find a standard loan calculator to find out how long it would take, but none would accept 11.8 trillion dollars. We ended up using a $1 million amount over 40 years at 1% interest and multiplying the resulting payment by 11,821,878. We got a payment of $2,528 per month per million, which when multiplied by 11,821,878 equals $29,885,707,584 per month. That is $29 BILLION per month that would have to be repaid just to get us out of debt in 40 years. How many of us will be alive then? If we are not, then our children and their children will be saddled with this debt.
Could you operate your household with ratios like these?
According to the National Debt Clock:
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 22 Sep 2009 at 01:47:39 PM GMT is $11,821,878,937,438.12.
The estimated population of the United States is 306,966,915 so each citizen's share of this debt is $38,511.88.
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.88 billion per day since September 28, 2007!
That website also has an FAQ page with more information about the debt.
Click here for a real-time estimate of the debt: