GREATEST POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME

Exclusive: Joseph Farah offers plan to return U.S. to constitutionally limited government

 JOSEPH FARAH 

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, "The Tea Party Manifesto," and his classic, "Taking America Back," now in its third edition and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market dailies.

Are you ready to get radical to preserve American liberty?

Are you ready to think and act outside the box to return America to constitutionally limited government?

Are you ready to try out some ideas that will shake up business as usual in Washington?

Are you ready to join a grass-roots political movement to return America to the lost principle of constitutionally limited government - a goal we're losing ground on every day in Barack Obama's America?

If so, we must understand that Obama and the Democratic Party cannot continue to grow government without the total complicity of the Republican Party.

Obama and the Democrats don't make any excuses for wanting unlimited government.

Republicans do. Republicans claim to support constitutionally limited government. In fact, few if any Republicans would ever be elected to office if they didn't at least pay lip service to the strict limits the Constitution places on the federal government.

So how do we use this critical philosophical difference between the two parties to put the Republicans to the ultimate test? If they pass this test, Washington returns overnight to something resembling constitutionally limited government. If they fail, America at least will know that Republicans are not true to their word, not serious about liberty, and we can build a third party that does or start organizing the revolution.

Fair enough?

Here's the plan to do this starting right now with a target completion date of the first quarter of 2015.

It's called the No More Red Ink campaign.

Republicans say they don't like Obamacare. They say they don't like entitlement programs. They don't like wealth redistribution schemes. They say they don't like out-of-control spending. They say they like constitutionally limited government.

But here's the dirty little secret in Washington: Republicans, even with control of only one house of Congress, have the absolute power to stop all of these abuses and more with one negative vote. Republicans in the House alone can do this. They have the power to return us to something resembling constitutionally limited government - overnight! They have had opportunities to do it in the past, and they will have more opportunities to do it again in the very near future.

They could kill Obamacare. They could kill unnecessary and unconstitutional Cabinet-level departments like Education. 

They could kill the EPA. They could kill taxpayer subsidies for state-controlled media like PBS and NPR. They could kill all foreign aid. They could kill taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood. They could kill thousands of wasteful and counterproductive programs and much, much more simply by refusing to approve any more raises in the debt limit.

They don't need to bargain with Obama. They don't need to make deals with Harry Reid. They don't need to plead with Nancy Pelosi. They simply have to say no the next time a debt-limit hike comes before them.

In fact, House Republicans could do it without even all the Republican votes in the House. They could do it with only 218 of the 234 votes they control.

Could that happen? How could we force the issue? How could we let John Boehner know that his job as speaker of the House depends on it?

That's where the No More Red Ink campaign comes in.

To date, this campaign has generated 1.5 million red letters to House Republicans urging them to live up to their own rhetoric and use the political nuclear weapon they have at their disposal. They can't overturn Obamacare without help from the Senate and a signature from Obama. But they can defund it.

By freezing any more outrageous borrowing, they can force Washington to live within its means and cut more than $1 trillion annually from federal spending.

I figure it will take about 10 million letters to do this before the next debt limit vote sometime this fall.

Is that possible?

Absolutely. Here are some polling facts in round numbers:

• 80 percent of Republican voters say they want to freeze borrowing.
• 70 percent of independent voters say they want to freeze borrowing.
• 60 percent of Democrats say they want to freeze borrowing.

In other words, we've got the people on our side. We've got the wind to our backs. We've got a mechanism in place to flood House Republicans with a message that will instill panic in them. And we start with more than 10 percent of the House Republicans already committed to voting no. We just need to convince most of the rest that their very future in Washington depends on voting correctly on this one issue.

Now let's talk practical politics here for a moment.

What is the main obstacle to getting this done?

In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich did something like this as House speaker, and Bill Clinton, with media help, turned it around on him. That's been the fear ever since by the Republican establishment.

Obama has gone even further. What did he do pre-emptively when faced with the possibility his illegal and immoral spending would be dried up?

• He threatened not to cut Social Security checks.
• He threatened not to pay military retirees.
• He threatened not to pay soldiers and sailors on active duty.
• He threatened to gut spending on anything and everything Americans care about.
• He even threatened not to pay interest on the massive debt he has already incurred, leading to a default.

Notice he did not threaten to abandon Obamacare. 

He knows Americans don't want it!

Notice he did not threaten to stop paying for food stamps. 

He knows Americans don't want it!

Notice he did not threaten to gut foreign aid. 

He knows Americans don't want it!

All Republicans need to do is show Americans the transparent strategy Obama is employing here.

The federal government could provide all of its vital and constitutional duties and service the interest on the debt with the $1.6 trillion in revenues it actually receives every year - with no borrowing.

It's time for Republicans to look at the polls, explain that endless borrowing is unsustainable and immoral. It's time to be bold. If they don't listen, we know with certainty Republicans are nothing more than enablers of monstrous, bloated, unconstitutional, unlimited government - clearly part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Believe me, I understand that most Republicans will need to be dragged kicking and screaming to this conclusion.

But the debt now stands at nearly $17.5 trillion.

Do you want your kids, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren saddled with that kind of obligation?

Do you agree that in order to get out of a hole like this you've first got to stop digging?

Have you had it with business as usual in Washington?

Are you willing to get radical and stop listening to the state-run media about what's possible and what's not?

The debt is a terrible thing. Most of us recognize that. But what most of us don't recognize is that it represents a political opportunity of enormous potential. How many chances do we have to bring America back to constitutionally limited government with one negative vote by one house of Congress?

Is it worth a try?

Is it worth some effort?

If not us, who? If not now, when?