We get a lot of questions about why FreeAndEqual.org would be so involved in supporting ReTeaParty.com and the Tea Party movement in general.  What does ballot access reform have to do with these Tea Parties?

Our main mission at Free and Equal is to break down ballot access barriers by any peaceful means available.  Whether it is by petitioning to get candidates and parties on the ballot, supporting initiatives which reduce barriers to participation, lobbying state legislatures to reform their laws, filing and supporting lawsuits to strike these barriers down, or mobilizing public opinion to bring electoral reform to the forefront of the political debate, Free and Equal intends to be there.

However, ballot access is not an end unto itself.  Electoral reform is just one important way to achieve a much more fundamental goal.  Constitutional government can happen only when every citizen has an equal share of the rights and responsibilities to run it.

That’s where the Tea Parties come in.  The achievement of this goal becomes possible when educated people are willing to rise up and take back their government.  The Tea Party movement is the strongest outpouring of this activity in America today.  We are excited to be able to help it along any way we can.  Everything we do is a reflection of our independence and our desire to return political power to its rightful owners. (more…)

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., said he believes the technology exists to implement a mileage tax. He said he sees no point in waiting years for the results of pilot programs since such a tax system is inevitable as federal gasoline tax revenues decline.

“Why do we need a pilot program? Why don’t we just phase it in?” said Oberstar, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman. Oberstar is drafting a six-year transportation bill to fund highway and transit programs that is expected to total around a half trillion dollars.

The tax would entail equipping vehicles with GPS technology to determine how many miles a car has been driven and whether on interstate highways or secondary roads. The devices would also calculate the amount of tax owed.

You can contact Mr. Oberstar at one of his 5 offices listed below:

The Tea Party movement is so much more, and so much less, than what all the politicians and media pundits want it to be. Our system of government and those who live in that political world have drifted so far away from America that they are incapable of recognizing what is really happening.

It is simply this: a rapidly growing number of Americans are fed up. That’s it. Nothing more, and nothing less.

We’re fed up with politicians whose only answer to our problems is to try to spend our way out of them. We’re fed up with corporate fat cats who fly in individual private jets to collect billions of our dollars in bailout money. We’re fed up with this notion that we have to give up our privacy and our freedoms to feel secure.

We have had it up to here with politicians and corporations trying to run every aspect of our lives for their benefit. All we ever wanted was to run our own lives for the benefit of ourselves and our families.

We’re not just fed up. We’ve woken up. We realized that the politicians have stopped spending our money and started spending our children’s money, our grandchildren’s money, and probably even our great-grandchildren’s money. Every parent wants their child to have it better than they did. You politicians should realize that once we got wise to this, we wouldn’t like it one bit.

We’ve even gone to the trouble to find out what the Federal Reserve is. Honestly, we never paid it much mind before. But with the bailout, and then the stimulus, and now with more so-called stimulus in the works, we had to find out how you could possibly spend all this money that doesn’t really exist. And now that we’ve looked into this Federal Reserve system, we don’t like what we see at all.

We call it as we see it. This is looting, plain and simple. The politicians are handing our money and the money of future generations to their already ultra-rich corporate donor friends. And for what? Because they ran their businesses into the ground while taking nine figure bonuses and hosting lavish media-driven Super Bowl parties, all while becoming “too big to fail.”

Let them fail. Let us do our business with responsible companies who understand how to run a business instead. If the bankers demand that we keep our checkbooks balanced and positive every month, then we feel it’s only fair they hold themselves to the same standard.

Now that I’ve told you who we are, let me tell you about what this Tea Party movement is not.
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The political pundits keep insisting that the Tea Party movement doesn’t really stand for anything. Some Tea Party organizers insist that our economic and patriotic ills are a result of high taxes and our new President.

From day one, ReTeaParty.com has insisted that our grievances go well beyond an administration, a few policies, specific politicians, or a particular political party. The fuel behind our passion derives from the bipartisan destruction of our individual liberties, disrespect for our private property, and the shredding of our Constitution.

As such, ReTeaParty.com and FreeAndEqual.org offer the following statement of principles:

Corporatism: We believe that the role of the federal government is to uphold voluntary contracts executed by and between all individuals and entities within the bounds of the legal authority set forth in the Constitution of the United States. In no event, shall the federal government use its legal authority to alter the cost of production and/or service of one individual, set of individuals, entity, or set of entities relative to any other competing individual or entity.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

Gov. Rick Perry (R), who could face a tough challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) in 2010, endorses a state resolution affirming Texas sovereignty under the 10th Amendment. “I’m here today to offer my unwavering support to…millions of Texans just like yourself that are tired of Washington, D.C. trying to come down here and tell us how to run Texas.”

A Tea Party is the demonstrated collection of our concerns over the increase in government intervention in our lives, our freedoms, and our pocket books.  Our goal is to coordinate a truly non-partisan nationwide Tea Party event on July 4th in to one easy to navigate and user friendly place on the web. We are not all Republicans, we are not all part of the 912 project, we are not all Libertarians.  Some of us are Democrats, many of us work with TaxDayTeaParty.com, others with TaxDayCoalition.com, Independence Caucus, America Again!, TeaPartyRevolution.com or a host of other well intentioned movements, political parties, and/or organizations. However, we are all here as individuals concerned with the direction of our country and distraught over the destruction of our Constitution.  We have our own ideas, political tendencies, and personal desires, and we must respect them among one another.  In order to take on the trend toward tyranny, we must organize ourselves across many groups to inform, encourage and cooperate with one another, setting aside our relatively minute disagreements. If you are an organizer or would like to be, let us know if you are ready to take an active stand.

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” - Thomas Jefferson

We in the Tea Party 2009 movement are extremely unhappy about the explosive deficit spending taking place in our nation’s capitol at the behest of the Obama Administration and its Democrat cohorts in Congress. We ought to be. Deficit spending encourages the government to spend far above and beyond what it would spend if it had to swallow hard and raise taxes on us right now to pay for its budget. Much of the deficit is paid for by printing money, which causes inflation and destroys the value of the money that hard-working Americans have earned. Because this causes prices to rise, it hurts poor and struggling families the most- they already have barely enough to make ends meet.

The portion of the deficit that is not monetized (paid for by printing money), is paid for by taking out loans. The government takes out loans by issuing Treasury bonds, many of which are bought up by the Chinese and Saudis. This crowds out the market for credit, which is ironic since most advocates of Obama’s massive deficit spending spree argue that there is not enough freely flowing credit in the economy. Eventually the government has to pay off its debt (with interest), which means that by running deficits now, the government is only promising to tax us even more later. Just the cost of servicing the interest on the United States Government’s massive debt is a major drag on the economy.
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To lend credence to individual leaders and public figures, especially those in the roles of public servants, is a natural and understandable inclination. Today this practice becomes more risky for a number of reasons. Perhaps honor and nobility are not as highly acclaimed in this age as in others. Politicians continue to say one thing and do another, making it increasingly difficult to trust their word. Not to mention their “word” is often intentionally displayed in such a way as to discourage further research into their policies and voting records. Was there a day when representation was entrusted completely without fear of betrayal? A day when a person’s word was scarcely transgressed, especially in the public spotlight? Perhaps, but perhaps not; one needs only to read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States to learn a more accurate account of our early national leadership for reasons why not.
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I’m tired of big government sympathizers calling us selfish. I’m sick of the do-gooders calling us introverts. I can’t take it when someone has so little faith in the common man to think that just because I don’t want to give an overgrown, irresponsible, and impersonal government another $1,000 dollars for their next great plan, I might not be willing to donate that money to an organization that deserves my means to help people willing to help themselves instead.

The foundation of good will is voluntarism. If my neighbor is a good man, and he is in need, do you think I don’t have the compassion to help him? Do you think I should give Washington my means to be of assistance, in the hopes that government welfare finds him/her?

The Goodwill Foundation, for example, has given millions of Americans who had made bad choices or been in bad circumstances a job, to get them off of welfare and into the productive workforce. They rely 100% on donations. Goodwill spends 84% of its total revenue on salaries for those looking for work. And now, I have to give my money to Washington D.C., while they waste the fruits of my labor by bailing out businesses that are reckless, before I can give a hand up to an organization that will use it more productively.

ENOUGH!

Take you altruism, give it to Washington D.C., and let me know when you get it back.

Next week, a UN Panel of economic experts will recommend that the global community ditch the dollar as the world’s reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies. Russia even plans to propose a new, supranational reserve currency at next month’s G20 summit.

Despite serving as the world’s most valued reserve currency, the dollar has seen 30% devaluation since 2002 and is currently taking a big hit with the recent $1 trillion printing spree by the Fed. In addition, the world is growing more worried as the Federal government continues to skyrocket its budget deficit and national debt.

Read the article here.