GOPFest 2008 tickets on sale now!
On September 20th, the Polk County Republicans will host GOPFest 2008, a festival and informal fundraiser. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will be this year’s guest speaker. Come and enjoy a great night of fun and entertainment!
To purchase your tickets please contact the Polk County Republicans at 280-6438 or ExDir@polkgop.com. Please include your Name, Address, Phone Number, and the number of tickets you would like. Tickets are $25 for Adults and $15 for Students.
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Poll watchers needed for Election Day
Poll watchers are needed the 2008 General Election. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Danny McNamara at dmcnamara@iowagop.org or (515) 864-6127 for more information.
Poll watching is a great way to contribute to the GOP while also being involved in the election process.
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Biden choice highlights Obama’s weakness
DES MOINES, IA – Today, Iowa Republican leaders questioned Barack Obama’s motives for choosing Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential nominee.
Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Stewart Iverson and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey took part in a conference call with reporters this afternoon.
IA Sec. of Ag Bill Northey: “As foreign policy becomes more important, it’s obvious that Obama is trying to play catch up to the John McCain campaign. This doesn’t change Senator Obama’s experience, but emphasizes the huge problem that he has: a lack of experience.”
RPI Chair Stewart Iverson: “Barack Obama is trying to compensate for an area of weakness by selecting Joe Biden as his running mate. Energy and the economy are the top two issues, and Biden and Obama are on the wrong side of these issues. Both of them oppose offshore drilling and nuclear power. John McCain wants energy independence and wants to drill here and drill now.”
At a press conference from the steps of the Iowa Capitol, David Roederer, Iowa chairman for John McCain 2008, was joined by former Iowa Senate President and former U.S. Ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean Mary Kramer and State Auditor David Vaudt to voice their concerns with an Obama-Biden ticket.
State Auditor David Vaudt: “I find the Biden selection interesting. If you step back and take a look at one of Obama’s biggest critics, it’s Joe Biden. Barack Obama’s experience, his credentials, have all come under question. I think he is reaching out to someone to balance that. As the state auditor, I always have to look at the fiscal side of things and Barack Obama and Joe Biden have supported some of the biggest tax increases in American history.”
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Paid for by the Republican Party of Iowa
Sunday, August 31, 2008
News From Iowa House GOP Leader Chris Rants
What's REALLY Going On With Your Tax Dollars?
For months we’ve been hearing from the governor and Democrats that a special session is urgent—we MUST come to Des Moines and address the needs of the storm victims and we must do it FAST, before the winter weather takes holds.
Now we’re hearing the complete opposite…maybe we don’t need a special session at all!
Since the flooding, the Executive Council has been meeting—allocating money at will for these emergencies.
The Iowa Code gives the Executive Council broad authority to act when the Legislature is not in session. The Executive Council consists of Governor Culver, Secretary of State Mauro, State Auditor David Vaudt, State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald and Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey.
Under the Iowa Code, the Executive Council has the ability to tap a "standing unlimited appropriation" from funds otherwise not appropriated to pay for emergency expenditures. Funds not otherwise appropriated means money available in the general fund ending balance. Approval of the expenditure of funds requires a simple majority vote of the Council.
While it is a good public policy to have the Executive Council approve emergency spending and therefore limit the need for a special session, it is also necessary for the taxpayers to know how much is being spent, what it is being spent on and if the money is coming from the ending balance, how much unobligated money is left.
Particularly distressing is news that as on Monday, the Executive Council approved $99.8 million in expenditures for flood relief. We have asked for a breakdown of the expenditures but at this point, our requests have not been answered.
However, we have been made aware that $3 million has been spent on consultants, Witt and Associates and State Public Policy Group (SPPG). Witt and Associates were hired to "cut through the red tape of the federal bureaucracy" and SPPG was hired to facilitate Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission meetings.
These expenditures bring up several important questions:
1) What is this money being spent on when we don't even know how much the federal government is going to come up with? Allegedly Speaker Pelosi has promised our congressional delegation another supplemental disaster funding bill before the end of September.
2) What is the current ending balance of the general fund - both for FY 08 and FY 09?
3) What programs are going to have to be cut to allow for these expenditures?
4) What if revenue does not meet the REC estimate? Will across-the-board cuts follow?
5) Why does the state need to hire a consultant to "cut through the red tape"? Isn't that the job of our Senators and congressional delegation?
6) And most importantly, how would $3 million have helped flood victims if they had received the money instead of it going to high-priced consultants?
House Republicans are calling on the governor to release ALL of the figures regarding approved expenditures by the Executive Council. Iowans deserve to know how the 2008 disasters are going to be paid for before taxes are raised. We don’t want it to be a surprised come tax season.
A Bi-Partisan Ticket
From Michael Zak, speaker on the history of the Republican Party:
Most history books written by Democrat professors downplay the fact that the Worst President Ever was a Democrat. Did the Democrats nominate him? No, he was the 1864 Republican nominee for vice president.
Andrew Johnson - Andrew Jackson Johnson, to be precise - was the only southern Senator not to go with the Confederacy. For being strong on national security, this hardline Democrat was nominated by the Republicans to be Abraham Lincoln's 1864 running mate. He was drunk at his swearing in as vice president, and it was downhill from there. A month later, the murder of the Great Emancipator made Andrew Johnson president.
Andrew Johnson shared none of Abraham Lincoln's compassion for African-Americans. Referring to Frederick Douglass, whom Lincoln had called "one of the most meritorious men in America," Johnson said: "I know that damned Douglass." "White men alone must manage the South," he declared. In a message to Congress, President Johnson said blacks have less "capacity for government than any other race of people. Whenever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a constant tendency to lapse into barbarism." This from a man whose political party was overseeing the mutilation and murder of countless black people in the South!
On this day in 1866, President Johnson began his "Swing around the Circle," a trip through the Midwest to win popular support for his policy favoring neo-Confederate, Democrat control of the South.
In one speech lasting an hour, the pompous and crude Andrew Johnson referred to himself more than two hundred times. In another, he went so far as to imply that the murder of Abraham Lincoln had been part of God's plan to make him president. At a third event, he said the Republicans' House majority leader deserved to be hanged. After Johnson compared himself to Jesus, his remaining speeches were drowned out by hecklers. State government officials refused to be seen with him.
In the midterm elections that November, so disgusted were most Americans by this buffoon in the White House that Republicans won two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. Congressional Republicans endured Andrew Johnson in the White House for nearly two more years before impeaching him.
In 1874, Tennessee Democrats re-elected Andrew Johnson to the U.S. Senate, making him one of four American presidents to hold federal office after leaving the presidency. Can you name the other three?
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