Curtis Coleman for U. S. Senate

Curtis' Blog Moved to New Website

2010-01-29T10:34:00.001-08:00

The Coleman for U.S. Senate blog has been moved to the campaign's new website at www.curtiscoleman.com. New blogs will be posted there. Subscriptions and RSS feeds are available at the new site.

Conservative Comment - "Out of Control Spending"

2010-01-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

America Rising

2010-01-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

Let's Stop it Now!

2010-01-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow’s Massachusetts special election for United States Senate is presenting us with a extraordinary opportunity to stop the liberals’ 60-vote super-majority in the U.S. Senate – and therefore to stop the government’s unconscionable takeover of our personal healthcare decisions.

As you know, Scott Brown is running for this open United States Senate seat, and the most recent polls indicate that it is an extremely close race which will go down to the wire. Every vote will make a difference, so your help is needed to get out the vote for Scott Brown. We can and will win this election for Massachusetts and for all of America with your help.

I am asking you to join me in making calls to Scott Brown supporters from your home. It is very simple. Just visit this page: http://www.brownforussenate.com/call-from-home-registration

Getting Scott Brown voters to the polls will be critical. Tomorrow is predicted to be quite cold. Your phone calls to voters -- and your friends -- in Massachusetts will help ensure that there is a strong turnout for Scott Brown

Scott Brown – and America - needs your help in the next 24 hours!

www.CurtisColeman.com

A Pledge to Fight for Arkansans

2010-01-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

The failing, flailing leadership of the Democratic Party of Arkansas (DPA) attempted to do the impossible yesterday – defend the indefensible, condescending, “I know better than you,” “I don’t care what Arkansans think” vote of Sen. Blanche Lincoln for the healthcare bill that recently passed on an entirely partisan vote in the U.S. Senate.

In a press release brimming with desperation, inaccuracies, and exaggerations – the DPA challenged Republican U.S. Senate candidates to pledge to repeal a bill that would constitute the government’s takeover of every Arkansans’ personal healthcare decisions. Like so much of their statement, their challenge badly missed one essential fact: there is no bill to repeal.

However, I gladly accept the real challenge. Today, I’m pledging to continue to fight with and for an overwhelming majority of Arkansans who clearly do not want this atrocious bureaucratic intrusion into the most personal and private parts of their lives. Together, we’ll continue the battle to stop this bill from ever becoming law and to prevent this horrific government takeover of 1/6th of the entire U.S. economy.

Arkansans are much more intelligent and well-informed than the DPA seems to give them credit. They understand that this bill represents the most sweeping erosion of personal liberty in our lifetime. If enacted, it will create the following:

• Sharp increases in taxes and health insurance premiums.
• Unbearable new costs for small businesses, destroying thousands of jobs at a time when more Americans are out of work than in the last quarter century.
• Sharp cuts in Medicare benefits for our seniors.
• An unprecedented and unconstitutional requirement for all Americans to buy health insurance.
• An unfunded and unconstitutional mandate requiring States to dramatically increase their state tax-funded Medicaid programs.
• A monstrous addition to our national debt, further mortgaging our children’s and grandchildren’s futures.
• The most significant increase in federal funding of abortions since Roe vs. Wade.

Blanche Lincoln, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi ignore the fact that the goal of improving healthcare for all Americans can be achieved without the government’s ill-fated takeover of our healthcare system. The simple fact is that we can make healthcare more accessible by making healthcare more affordable. But we’ve got too many people making the rules who – like Lincoln, Reid, and Pelosi – have never had to make a payroll or provide health insurance for their employees.

We can make healthcare more affordable and more accessible with simple but very effective steps, including these:

1. Eliminate the costs of unnecessary ‘defensive’ medical tests and procedures by making frivolous and unjustified lawsuits more difficult.
2. Help Americans become healthcare ‘value shoppers’ by expanding health savings accounts.
3. Lower premiums by making health insurance more competitive by allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines.
4. Increase benefits for home healthcare and managed care which have as their objective letting Americans avoid long and expensive stays in hospitals – ultimately dramatically lowering the costs of healthcare.
5. Eliminate the fears of losing one’s healthcare or of not having pre-existing conditions covered by allowing employees to own their policies, with premiums reimbursed by employers with pre-tax dollars.
6. Make private individual health insurance premiums tax deductible.

With backroom bribes, midnight votes, and closed-door political payoffs, it hasn’t been hard to recognize how bad this bill is. What’s difficult to understand is how anyone could pretend to defend it.

We need healthcare reform, but this bill makes the problem worse and I will do everything in my power to defeat it. It is my most sincere wish that Sen. Lincoln would re-think her position when the conference report comes back before the Senate. Now, it is HER turn to answer to the people of Arkansas. "Will you represent the values and views of Arkansans, Sen. Lincoln?"

The Death Tax Needs to Stay Dead

2010-01-01T03:08:00.000-08:00

The death tax expired at midnight on December 31, 2009. But don't look for its obituatry in today's newspaper, because it is not expected to stay dead.

Since 1916, Americans have been subject to a blatant redistribution of wealth called the “federal estate tax.” Also called the “death tax”, this is a tax you are required to pay when you inherit an amount above certain limits from your parents or family. The tax rate can be as high as 55 percent. It is not uncommon for heirs to have to sell the inherited assets just to pay this tax. In other words, the federal government gets the majority of your inheritance – not you.

For instance, more than a dozen family-owned timber farms no longer exist in Arkansas because families had to sell their farms to big out-of-state corporations to pay death taxes. Hundreds of Arkansas jobs were lost because this tax targets the capital used by family business owners and farmers to create jobs.

The 2001 tax act began the phase-out of the estate tax. The amount of assets exempt from the tax went up over the years, while the tax rate on bigger amounts went down. At midnight on December 31, 2009, the death tax disappeared – for one year only. If nothing is done, the estate tax returns in 2011 under 2001 rules. Then you will be able to shelter $1 million from the estate tax, while larger amounts will be taxed at a maximum rate of 55 percent.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that nearly 600,000 families will be subject to the death tax over the following 10 years. With a tax rate as high as 55%, former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin estimates small businesses would be forced to reduce their payrolls by more than 500,000 workers [1]. This would be a disaster for an economy still deep in recession.

Although this tax may be the most blatant example of the federal government’s intrusive efforts to redistribute the hard-earned wealth of its citizens, repeal of this tax is not about protecting the wealthy. This is about creating jobs and protecting working families. With our unemployment the highest it’s been in 26 years, Holtz-Eakin found that Congress could create more than a million new jobs just by acting now to permanently repeal the federal death tax.

The permanent repeal of this counterproductive and destructive tax would create thousands of new jobs in Arkansas and help Arkansas’ working families. And the federal government’s tax revenues would actually increase, because the taxes generated by the new jobs created will actually exceed the amounts that would have been collected from death taxes.[2]

I appreciate Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s thus far unproductive efforts to moderate the impact of this onerous tax. If Sen. Lincoln really wants to protect Arkansas families and farms, she will forcefully support the permanent repeal of the death tax. The time for compromise on this immoral and counterproductive tax has passed. The death tax needs to be permanently put out of our misery.

[1] Holtz-Eakin, Doug; “Changing Views of the Estate Tax: Implications for Legislative Options”; February 2009.
[2] Entin, Stephen, “Economic Impact of the Estate Tax: Effects of Various Possible Reform Options,” American Family Business Foundation, June 2009, page 3, www.nodeathtax.org/files/AFBF_Entin_2009.pdf.

www.CurtisColeman.com

Wishing You a Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

Coleman Says Lincoln Guilty of “Grievous Dereliction of Duty”

2009-12-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

For immediate release

(LITTLE ROCK, AR – 21 DECEMBER 2009) In the wake of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s midnight vote to move the Senate version of healthcare legislation to final passage later this week, conservative Republican businessman and U.S. Senate candidate Curtis Coleman accused Lincoln of “grievous dereliction of her duty”.

“This bill represents the most sweeping erosion of personal liberty in our country in my lifetime,” Coleman said. “This legislation throws open the door for the bureaucratic takeover of our most personal healthcare decisions. Sen. Lincoln callously ignored the clear wishes of her constituents and voted for an unprecedented federal mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance. She also voted to require Arkansans to pay for unfunded increased Medicaid costs in Arkansas and Nebraska. Her vote can be described as nothing less than a grievous dereliction of her duty to the people of Arkansas.

“Sen. Lincoln has accused those who have opposed this atrocious legislation – which includes most Arkansans - of being ‘un-American’ and ‘of spreading scary but untrue rumors about the effect the bill would have.’ If Sen. Lincoln has no concerns about how the American people will feel about this bill, she could have simply voted against the motion to proceed which would have given the people an opportunity to read and study the bill for themselves. It’s very clear that Sen. Lincoln and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are very concerned about how the American people will react to this horrific bill, which is why they are determined to get it passed before legislators go home for the Christmas break. She even ignored and violated her own pledge for ‘legislative text and complete budget costs from the Congressional Budget Office to be posted on a public website at least 72 hours prior to the first vote to proceed to health reform legislation.’

“Make no mistake about it. This bill demands sharp cuts in Medicare benefits, and sharp increases in taxes and health insurance premiums. It will be a monstrous addition to the national debt and has no other possible ultimate outcome than government-rationed healthcare. If there’s anything truly historic about this bill, it is that it represents the government’s intrusion into the personal lives of Americans in historic proportions.

“The goal of improving healthcare for all Americans can be achieved without the government’s ill-fated takeover of our healthcare system. The simple fact is that we can make healthcare more accessible by making healthcare more affordable. But we’ve got too many people making the rules who’ve never played in the game.

“We can make healthcare more affordable and more accessible with simple but very effective steps, including these:

1. Eliminate the costs of unnecessary ‘defensive’ medical tests and procedures by making frivolous and unjustified lawsuits more difficult.
2. Help Americans become healthcare “value shoppers” by expanding health savings accounts.
3. Lower premiums by making health insurance more competitive by allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines.
4. Increase benefits for home healthcare and managed care which have as their objective letting Americans avoid long and expensive stays in hospitals – ultimately dramatically lowering the costs of healthcare.
5. Eliminate the fears of losing one’s healthcare or of not having pre-existing conditions covered by allowing employees to own their policies, with premiums reimbursed by employers with pre-tax dollars.
6. Make private individual health insurance premiums tax deductible.

“Sen. Lincoln will have a couple more opportunities to do the job the people of Arkansas elected her to do with regard to this legislation. So far, it appears Sen. Lincoln is much more concerned about pleasing her party than the people of Arkansas. The people want this stopped. We must continue to fight until the last vote.”

Ben Nelson's Sell Out

2009-12-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

As I was preparing my statement on Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NE) hypocritical decision to support Harry Reid’s (D-NV) healthcare bill now being debated in the Senate – giving Democrats the 60 votes needed to pass this atrocious bill that can destroy essential healthcare liberties for millions of Americans for generations, I received the following note from my good Mountain Home, AR friend, Chris Tuthill. She accurately captures the sentiments of millions of Americans and, with her permission, I’m sharing her thoughts here:

Truly a disheartening day. If this is how business is done on a regular basis then I am embarrassed and ashamed. I am not proud to be an American today....if this is the American process.

These are not "sweetheart deals". This is bribery and extortion. It is vote buying. It is ACORN on a large scale.

I am sick and tired of watching the corruption and then the same corrupt people slapping themselves on the "historic event". Corruption is not historic....it has gone on throughout history and has resulted in the downfall of many.

Ben Nelson is the Pontius Pilate of abortion. Wringing his hands and then washing them because the dead babies will not be in Nebraska. And taking money for his constituents from the rest of the country's citizen’s labor as tribute for a vote.

He should be ashamed and leave in disgrace. But then....he is a US Senator and that is what they do....

Is that what you will do?

My response to Chris’ question was, “This is what I'll fight with all my being.”

Nelson won increased federal funds to cover Nebraska's cost of covering an expanded Medicaid population at a cost that one Democratic official put at $45 million over a decade. So if Sen. Blanche Lincoln votes for this bill, she will be voting for Arkansans to pay for the dramatically increased cost of Medicaid in Arkansas and in Nebraska.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), who pushed through abortion restrictions in the House-passed bill, rejected Nelson's deal. He called it "not acceptable" because it "would allow the federal government to subsidize insurance policies with abortion coverage." Under Nelson’s abortion compromise, states will be able to opt out of federally subsidized payments for abortions. The net effect is that while Arkansan’s federal tax dollars may not be subsidizing abortions in Nebraska, they will be in other states.

The next and possibly most critical test vote is set for about 1 a.m. Monday. Yes, 1 a.m. Reid reportedly has scheduled the final Senate vote on the bill for 8:30 p.m. on Christmas eve. It is significant that Reid is determined to get this bill passed before Senators can go home for the Christmas break – and hear from their employers.

The Healthcare “Reform” Bill Has Heart Trouble

2009-12-17T06:45:00.000-08:00

On October 23rd, a CNSNews reporter asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Speaker Pelosi shook her head and before moving on to another question replied: “Are you serious? Are you serious??”

Both the House and Senate healthcare bills include provisions that require all legal residents of the U.S. to purchase health insurance. In the entire history of the United States the federal government has never mandated that Americans buy any good or service.

Yesterday, at a press conference on Capitol Hill, CNSNews asked Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), “What part of the Constitution do you think gives Congress the authority to mandate that individuals have to purchase health insurance?”

“Well, I just think the Constitution charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people,” Sen. Lincoln eventually answered.

“You’re saying ‘the health and well-being’. What area, though, does that fall under?” the reporter asked. “The health and well-being of the people of the country,” she replied. Of course, the words “health” and “well-being” do not appear anywhere in the Constitution.

The constitutionality of this unprecedented mandate has been questioned by, among others, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If that is held constitutional--for them to be able to tell us we have to purchase health insurance--then there is literally nothing that the federal government can’t force us to do,” said Hatch. “Nothing.”

James Madison said that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary and if angels governed men, no limits on government would be necessary. Because neither men nor the governments they create are angelic, government and limits on government are both necessary for ordered liberty. Politics may tell us what we want to do, but the Constitution tells us what we may do and we must keep those separate. The ends do not justify the means for one simple reason – liberty. Liberty requires limits on government power, it always has and it always will.”

The public option provison may be gone, but this healthcare bill is seriously flawed at its very heart. It is symptomatic of the fact that we are at a desperate place where we must unequivocally commit ourselves to re-anchoring our Republic to the original document which defined it – the Constitution.

Yes, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Lincoln. Seriously.

Sen. Lincoln: Have Courage for Arkansas

2009-12-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

That Senator Lincoln might vote for the government’s takeover of our personal healthcare decisions when such a clear majority of Arkansans have passionately expressed their opposition has the rumors flying in Washington. Having been (like many of us) the object of untrue, hurtful, and even hateful rumors, I have a distinct aversion to them.

But Senator Lincoln’s condescending and willful ignorance of the clear wishes of her employers gives some credence to the question, “What has she been promised?” An ambassadorship? That’s the talk on the streets in D.C.

I am praying and even hoping against hope that we will never find out what she’s been promised. I hope she’ll vote courageously for Arkansas. In fact, if I were given only the choice between (a) defeating this horrific healthcare “reform” bill now being debated on the Senate floor and (b) winning the race to represent Arkansas in the U.S. Senate, I would choose (a), defeating this unprecedented and unconstitutional invasion of the federal bureaucracy into our most personal and intimate decisions.

Please call Senator Lincoln’s office. Ask her to have the integrity to do her job, which is to faithfully represent the wishes and views of the people who entrusted her with the office. Ask her to have the courage to choose what’s best rather than what’s easy.

She may hold the vote that defeats this atrocious bill. When it comes up, her vote against cloture may be all that’s needed to stop this government takeover - then we can start over to craft a uniquely American solution for our health care problems. What an extraordinary opportunity to be a person of extraordinary courage!

355 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4843
Fax (202) 228-1371

912 West Fourth Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
(501) 375-2993
Fax (501) 375-7064g
Toll Free 1-800-352-9364

GOP Can Take Lesson from Arkansas Senate Race

2009-12-13T07:04:00.000-08:00

John Allison III has a very well-written and insightful article, "GOP can take lesson from Arkansas Senate race," on the relationship of the TEA Party with the GOP (which features our campaign) at http://americayouaskedforit.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/gop-can-take-lesson-from-arkansas-senate-race/

Here is my recent speech, "The Time for Compromise Has Passed," for the Arkansas Republican Party's Winter Leadership Conference straw poll: (or it can be viewed in full-screen HD at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYkjDvtF4I)

When a Bureaucracy Steps Between Physicians and Their Patients

2009-11-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

Under Sen. Harry Reid's version of healthcare "reform" (the consideration of which Sen. Blanche Lincoln voted to advance), bureaucrats and insurers will have justification to refuse coverage for annual mammograms as a cost-cutting rationing measure, pursuant to the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

On Sunday’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) explained that the Task Force’s guidelines on mammograms “become the law” under the Senate bill, meaning that rationing would occur. In response, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) accused Republicans of politicizing the issue of breast cancer.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) noted that while a “cost” argument for the guidelines could be made, “from a patient standpoint, they’re atrocious. And that’s the problem with a bureaucracy stepping between a physician and their patient.”

One person posted this well-crafted comment on this video: "That IS the very ESSENCE of any collectivized medical care scheme: that the afflicted individual is denied appropriate attention unless he fits some preconceived pattern(s). The whole thing is about as 'politicized' as it can get. The 'progressive' idea of a 'streamlined modern administrative' state is just window-dressing. Its essence is 'herd'-control. You will be one of the 'sheep'!"

Information from The Heritage Foundation was used for this article.

Click here to return to www.CurtisColeman.com.

Americans Are Growing Tired of the Theatrical Hypocrisy

2009-11-23T06:28:00.000-08:00

The cable news channels quickly cut away to the Senate floor last Saturday as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) announced that she would vote for the motion to proceed on debate on the Reid healthcare bill, but that she would oppose the bill “in its current form”. It was a moment of high political theatre as Sen. Lincoln appeared to single-handedly keep alive the future of the Obama Administration’s hallmark project.

In what other deliberative or legislative body on the planet can one vote for something while saying they’re voting against it?

Arkansans are much more politically savvy than Sen. Lincoln seems to give them credit.

We understand that her dramatic vote on Saturday evening was much more than a procedural vote, but that it was the vote for the federal bureaucracy’s takeover of our everyday personal and private medical decisions, an incalculable further erosion of the basic liberties and freedoms of the American people.

The fact is – and this is what Arkansans do understand – is that the motion to proceed for which Sen. Lincoln voted on Saturday was necessary for the Senate to ultimately need only 51 votes to pass legislation for the government’s takeover of our personal healthcare decisions. When only 51 votes are needed to pass the legislation, Sen. Lincoln can “safely” vote against the bill when her vote won’t be needed to guarantee passage.

Tragically, Sen. Lincoln’s vote was a clear and unmitigated betrayal of Arkansans – reflecting her disturbing disconnection from and her distressing disrespect for her employers. A recent credible poll showed that almost 70% of Arkansans opposed the healthcare bill for which Sen. Lincoln voted. Reportedly, calls coming into her office late last week were 15-1 against her voting as she did.

Clearly the wishes of her employers made little difference. Why? Because – as we have long witnessed – Sen. Lincoln is not working for us. And we are growing very tired of her theatrical hypocrisy.

A Call on Sen. Lincoln to Vote for Arkansas

2009-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

With more willing-to-work Americans out of work than at any time in the last quarter century, and with our country’s debt increasing at the rate of $5 billion per day, the last things Americans and Arkansans need are higher insurance premiums, higher taxes, more penalties and more unfunded mandates – but these are exactly what are promised by the healthcare “reform” bill that will be voted on in the U.S. Senate tonight.

This is a call to Sen. Blanche Lincoln to vote for Arkansas by voting against the motion to proceed with the debate of the bill in the Senate. This atrocious bill will, it is universally agreed, create higher insurance premiums, higher taxes, more penalties and more unfunded mandates. It is an understatement to say that these are heavy new burdens that hard-working Arkansans do not need now.

With the latest poll showing that 64% of Arkansans are opposed to this bill, Sen. Lincoln has a singular opportunity to demonstrate that her vote will not be controlled by Harry Reid, Barack Obama, or Nancy Pelosi, but that she will vote FOR Arkansas and FOR Arkansans.

Sen. Lincoln also needs to be aware that Arkansans do understand that a vote tonight for the motion to proceed (or a vote for cloture) is a vote for the healthcare bill, and that Arkansans will not be bought off by future inconsequential votes against the bill. Arkansans will be watching tonight to see if Sen. Lincoln will vote for them.

We Can Defeat the Government’s Takeover of Healthcare!

2009-11-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

It’s possible that Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) may finally unveil his healthcare “reform” bill as early as today, triggering one of the most important votes to date on this massive attempt by liberals in Congress to takeover 1/6th of the nation’s economy and to control the most basic everyday medical choices Americans and their doctors now make.

The triggered vote will be on what is known as a motion to proceed. If passed, the vote will bring the bill to debate on the floor of the Senate and can eventually lead to a “reconciliation” vote which would require only 51 votes to pass the government’s takeover of healthcare in America, not the 60 votes required to pass the motion to proceed.

It is important to understand that if Senator Lincoln votes FOR the motion to proceed, she is voting FOR the government’s takeover of our healthcare.

Mrs. Lincoln has typically waffled on the public option in the healthcare bill, writing in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette only a few weeks ago that a public option was essential for effective healthcare reform. More recently, she has said that she opposes a public option. A “public option” would create a government-run health insurance program and would eventually lead to the government as the only provider of health insurance in the U.S.

According to the New York Times yesterday, Sen. Lincoln has said she cannot commit to backing the motion to proceed until she sees the final legislation, which is being written by Mr. Reid and his lieutenants and could be unveiled as early as today.

Given Sen. Lincoln’s track record of waffling on key legislation, it is critical that Arkansans continue to keep the pressure on her to vote against this atrocious attempt to have bureaucrats takeover basic healthcare decisions in America. Please continue to call, write, and email Senator Lincoln, insisting that she vote against a motion to proceed on the Reid healthcare bill. We can defeat the government’s takeover of our healthcare!

Senator Blanche Lincoln contact information:
355 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4843
Fax (202) 228-1371

912 West Fourth Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
(501) 375-2993
Fax (501) 375-7064
Toll Free 1-800-352-9364

How Could the Tragedy at Fort Hood Not Have Happened?

2009-11-13T04:49:00.000-08:00

By Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.) Ken Allard, former NBC News military analyst, author of WARHEADS, and a member of the Coleman for Senate Foreign Affairs and Military Affairs Advisory Council. [Originally published on 11 November 2009]

“How could this tragedy have happened?” wailed the anchor-hunnies as they broadcast the first reports of the horror at Fort Hood. “Did the Army brass miss some signals here?” harrumphed the pundits as the Islamist leanings of the shooter came to light. The President and congressional leaders were no less swift in calling for extensive investigations into whether personal demons or religious extremism were to blame for overcoming the murder’s double oaths of calling and loyalty to country.

Those issues clearly have their place: But are we missing some larger and infinitely more important lessons in the rush toward the next lurid headline or the most heart-wrenching YouTube video? The eerie juxtaposition of memorial services at Fort Hood occurring on the eve of Veterans Day provides a compelling rationale for asking more troubling questions: How long can you over-stress and over-use the best Army we have ever put in the field - but one that is thoroughly exhausted after eight continuous years at war? And exactly how long before lots of little things begin to go terribly wrong and those chickens start coming home to roost?

The Chinese strategist Sun Tsu famously said that there is no record of a long war prospering any kingdom – an ancient truth needing no update. But you quickly jump from Marginal Strategy to Just Plain Stupid when you fight with a force far too small for whack-a-mole combat half a world away – and then do so indefinitely.

The not-so-hard-to foresee result: Today’s soldiers average three or four combat tours with no end in sight. They leave for a year, come home for a year and then begin the cycle all over again. Their superiors are under constant pressure to retrain marginal performers rather than to discharge them. Compromises are inevitably made, a context that still doesn’t explain the psychology of a murderer recruited as a first line of defense against combat stress. But it is beyond any question that the Army’s stress levels are increasing, manifested by divorce, alcohol abuse and even suicides, including the murder cum police-assisted suicide attempted last week at Fort Hood. Like unwanted heirs, those problems are the second-order effects of basic public policy choices.

Don’t jump to the conclusion that this is just another disguised rant against surging the force deployed to Afghanistan. Whatever its merits, that debate has largely ignored the possible effects on an Army that is a profoundly human institution. Also ignored has been the issue of how we might cope with worsening security threats much closer than the Afghan-Pak border. Another border – barely 75 miles from where I write these words – begins in Laredo, which is already experiencing spill-over effects from the Mexican drug wars. The Army’s ingenuity at counter-insurgency and counter-drug operations is likely to be tested defending the American heartland – and possibly sooner rather than later.

Whether you care more about the Middle East, the Near East or the Slightly Nearer Southwest, defending anything is more difficult without a world-class Army. That basic rule-of-thumb applies equally well to Democrats or Republicans, interventionists or isolationists, one-world federalists or rock-ribbed nationalists. After eight continuous years of war, re-building that badly over-used Army is becoming an urgent national problem. It is important to tackle that problem somewhat more effectively than, say, the reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. (The Army unit which restored order there was the 82nd Airborne Division, catnapping at home between deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.)

In these United States, disasters are frequent, recoveries less so but the common defense is usually a bipartisan affair. So it was when Richard Nixon and a Democratic Congress united to end the draft in 1973. They spawned the superbly professional force that endures to this day but inexorably widened the social cleavages between the nation and its now-volunteer military. After the Cold War, the peace-dividend consensus required a down-sized Army. Its too-easy assumption: the Reserves would be a cadre against uncertainty, temporarily filling the ranks in any future emergency. On 9/11, George Bush neglected to commit the American people, calling us to the malls rather than to national service and effectively drafting the Reserves. Finally, in 2008, we changed everything, except those comforting and enduring assumptions that someone else’s sons and daughters would defend us with their lives – and would sometimes pay the ultimate price.

So, you ask on this Veteran’s Day, how could the tragedy at Fort Hood befall us? Indeed, how could it not?

Could the Real Unemployment Rate be Near 22%?

2009-11-08T05:47:00.000-08:00

Mac Slavo pointed out in his article on the Seeking Alpha site this morning (and I quote generously from his article) that “the official U-3 unemployment number is 10.2%. The broader and more comprehensive official unemployment number, the U-6, is at 17.5%. The U-6 counts all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, and all the people who dropped off unemployment benefits because their unemployment benefits ran out. John Williams at Shadowstats.com suggests that real unemployment is actually running at 22%, which, by our calculation, is approaching Great Depression unemployment numbers.”

Mr. Slavo included some “choice quotes from those we’ve entrusted with our economy:”

President Obama (February 13, 2009):

"That’s a story I’m confident will be repeated at companies across the country — companies that are currently struggling to borrow money selling their products, struggling to make payroll, but could find themselves in a different position when we start implementing the plan,” Obama said. “Rather than downsizing, they may be able to start growing again. Rather than cutting jobs, they may be able to create them again.”

David Axelrod, Senior Adviser to President Obama on whether the stimulus plan will keep unemployment from reaching 10 percent (February 15, 2009):

That’s our hope – that’s our hope. There’s no doubt that without it, that’s where we were looking: double-digit unemployment. That’s what we’re trying to forestall.

Nobel Prize Recipient and Economist Paul Krugman on the benefits of trillion dollar deficit spending spending (January 21, 2009):

I’m looking for the unemployment rate. I want to see the unemployment rate stay safely below 10 percent, which is by no means a foregone conclusion. And I want to see it coming down notably next year.

Larry Summers, Lead Economic Adviser to President Obama (January 18, 2009):

I don’t think so. I think while we’re going to see some substantial job losses, frankly what is important about the president’s program here is that it is going to contain what would otherwise be just a vicious cycle, people spend less, therefore they earn less. We’re going to contain this problem.

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifying before Congress’s joint economic committee (May 5, 2009):

Currently, we don’t think it will get to 10 percent. Our current number is somewhere in the 9s.

How disconnected from reality can our Representatives be to pass a healthcare "reform" bill that creates enormous new taxes, penalties, fees, and fines on America's hard-working families in the midst of such horrendous unemployment and economic adversity?

Click here to read all of Mr. Slavo’s And Bernanke Didn’t Think Unemployment Would Reach 10% article.

Click here to return to www.CurtisColeman.com.

Coleman Calls Republican Wins in Virginia and New Jersey Beginning of Conservative Comeback; Issues Caution

2009-11-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

[LITTLE ROCK, AR – 4 NOVEMBER 2009] Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman said today that yesterday’s Republican wins in the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey signal the beginning of a conservative comeback in the U.S. “These victories signal the beginning of the nation’s return to the basics of smaller government, responsible spending, lower taxes and the fundamental American freedoms and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution,” Coleman said.

Coleman congratulated Republican Bob McDonnell for his landslide election for governor in Virginia and Republican Chris Christie for his win over Democratic incumbent Governor Jon Corzine.

A caution accompanied his congratulations. “We must understand that this is not just about winning elections,” he said. “This is about stopping Washington’s out-of-control spending and reducing the size and cost of government. This is about making healthcare more affordable and more accessible for all Americans while we stop the government’s takeover of our most personal healthcare decisions. This is about creating jobs and lowering taxes for America’s hard-working families.”

“We’ll be winning more elections all over the country in 2010,” Coleman said, “but we must not lose sight of the goal of recovering the liberties we’ve been losing one election, one bill, and one vote at a time. The time for compromise on fundamental freedoms has past. We must use our victories as Republicans to recover what we’ve lost as Americans.”

Coleman, who has been gathering volunteers and grassroots support as he campaigns across Arkansas, will be the keynote speaker at the Campaign for Arkansas rally in Mountain Home, AR at 10 a.m. CT on Saturday, November 14. The event is open to the public; members of the media are invited to attend. Additional details are available at www.CurtisColeman.com.

# # # # #

Contact Information:

Lauren Huckabee, Lauren.Huckabee@CurtisColeman.com
Brandon Scaife, Brandon.Scaife@CurtisColeman.com

Praying for Election Year Conversions

2009-11-03T07:40:00.000-08:00

With our national security put in increasingly clear and present danger by a federal debt approaching $12,000,000,000,000.00 ($12 trillion) and the highest unemployment in 26 years, it’s disturbingly irrational that the Congress is even considering a healthcare “reform” bill that will make both situations much worse by dramatically increasing the tax burden on all hard-working Americans and further crippling small businesses, the job-creation engine of the country.

Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln (D) has already experienced election year conversions this time around. With this horrendous healthcare bill that would have the federal government takeover another 1/6th of our economy, we can only hope and pray that she will have another one.

For instance, she’s now reportedly opposing the card check portion of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). (Has there ever been a bill that has been more conspicuously misnamed?) She’s saying that she cannot support the bill in its current form. Of course, she co-sponsored the bill in its current form in 2005 and voted for the bill in its current form in 2007. Well, okay, the bill did change in 2009 – the date and one comma were changed. Election year conversion?

A few weeks ago the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published an op-ed piece by the Senator in which she said that a public option was necessary for effective health care reform. Later she said she opposed a public option. But more recently she said she might vote for one. Election year conversion?

While we call, write, and email her, we can also pray that her election year conversions from Reid/Pelosi liberal to Arkansas conservative will continue long enough for her to vote against the disastrous healthcare bill now being debated in Washington.

But we know that election year conversions are only temporary. That’s because they’re conversions of convenience, not conviction. So Arkansans will need to make a permanent conversion in November 2010 and change from representation in the U.S. Senate 1/6th of the time to representation of our conservative Arkansas values 6/6th of the time.

While you’re praying, call, write, and email Senator Lincoln. Make sure she understands that you, her employer, don’t want Washington bureaucrats making your healthcare decisions.

355 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510-0404
Phone:
(202)224-4843
Fax: (202)228-1371

Statement on Attack Ads by National Democrats on GOP Candidates in U.S. Senate Race

2009-10-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released its “The Arkansas Scary Seven!” attack ad today, attacking the Republican candidates in the Arkansas U.S. Senate race. The fact that the ad was released a year before the general election is indicative of the Committee's extraordinary concern about Sen. Lincoln's plummeting poll numbers and Arkansans' growing dissatisfaction with her job performance.

What’s really scary is Sen. Lincoln’s consistent failure to faithfully represent the views and values of Arkansas voters -- and her votes in the U.S. Senate to support $1 trillion in new spending on health care and an estimated $4,000 in new taxes for Arkansas families to pay for it.

Frankly, as Arkansans struggle in these tough economic times, Sen. Lincoln's unflinching support for more government spending and $1.4 trillion in new debt to finance it is what is truly scary. She supported a $700 billion non-stimulating stimulus bill she didn’t even read. Her voting record has been far more 'trick' than 'treat'.

I applaud every concerned Arkansan who has endured the Senator’s accusation of being “un-American” to stand against Washington’s insane out-of-control spending and the bureaucratic takeover of our fundamental healthcare rights and liberties. The time for compromise on fundamental freedoms has passed.

I ask every Arkansan to stand with me to recover our voice and our vote in the U.S. Senate – and to join me, Friday, October 30, at noon CT at the Springdale Arkansas airport for our ‘Campaign for Arkansas’ rally.

Lincoln is Supporting Tax Hikes - Again

2009-10-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

According to the Wall Street Journal this morning, Senate Democrats are close to finalizing their health bill and could unveil a measure as soon as early this week. Significant tax hikes are lurking in this healthcare “reform” bill supported by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR).

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) recently outlined some of those new taxes and tax increases. All of these new tax increases violate President Obama’s and Lincoln’s promises not to raise “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year.

We’ve grown to expect as much from Sen. Lincoln. Even more disturbing is the fact that one of my opponents in the Arkansas U.S. Senate Republican primary recently advocated that Congress should pass a bipartisan healthcare “reform” bill, a bill that would create a huge new federal bureaucracy that could eventually be guided by the most liberal and onerous regulations one could imagine.

The time for compromise on our fundamental freedoms has passed. We must stop this takeover of our government healthcare, and then start over to develop real-world reductions in the cost of healthcare. I call on Senator Lincoln to represent the best interests of the people of Arkansas by voting against this appalling legislation.

We must reduce the cost of healthcare and make it accessible and affordable for everyone – but without a government takeover, mandates, fines, and tax increases. Tort reform, expansion of health savings accounts, removal of state-line limitations on health insurance companies, portability of health insurance by allowing employees to own their own policies and reform of the tax code to make premiums for health insurance policies fully deductible for individuals whose employers don’t provide health insurance – these are all effective and efficient steps that can make the best healthcare system in the world more affordable and accessible.

There is no question that the legislation proposed by Lincoln’s team will dramatically increase the tax burden on all hard-working American families and further depress and harm small American businesses, the job-producing economic engine of our country.

According to ATR, the increases in the legislation Sen. Lincoln is supporting include the following:

Health Insurance Mandate Taxes on Working Families

• Individual Mandate Excise Tax. Americans who do not sign up for health insurance will have to pay an excise tax in the following range:

300 percent of the federal poverty line is well under $250,000. For a family of four, it’s $67,000. For an individual, it’s about $30,000.

• Employer Mandate Tax. $400 per employee if health coverage is not offered. Note: this is a huge incentive to drop coverage, as $400 is much less than the average plan cost of $11,000 for families or $5000 for singles (Source: AHIP)

Small businesses pay their tax liability on their owners’ 1040 forms. This $400 employer mandate tax does not hold harmless business owners making less than $250,000

Tax Hikes on Healthcare Spending Accounts

• Cap on Flex-Spending Account (FSA) contributions at $2500: Currently, the contribution level is unlimited

• Medicine Cabinet Tax : Americans would no longer be able to purchase over-the-counter medicines with their FSA, Health Savings Account (HSA), or Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)

• Increase in the Non-Qualified HSA Distribution Penalty from 10% to 20%: This makes HSAs less attractive, and paves the way for HSA pre-verification

There are 30 million Americans with FSAs. About 8 million Americans have an HSA. Virtually all of them make less than $250,000 per year. These are clear tax hike on these families

Denying a Tax Deduction for Medical Costs

• Increase “haircut” of medical itemized deductions from 7.5% to 10% of adjusted gross income (AGI), further denying medical itemized deductions

There is no exemption made here for families making less than $250,000 per year.

A Pledge to Fight for Arkansas Families and Businesses by Repealing the Death Tax

2009-10-14T15:24:00.001-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A Call to Arkansas' Senators to Fight for Permanent Repeal of An ‘Immoral Tax’

(LITTLE ROCK, AR – OCTOBER 14, 2009) U.S. Senate Candidate Curtis Coleman (R-AR) today pledged to fight for the full repeal of the federal estate tax, an onerous tax that negatively affects family businesses, individuals and workers and destroys jobs in Arkansas and other states throughout the nation.

“I will work for the permanent repeal of the federal estate tax (the “death tax”) — an immoral tax that destroys family-owned businesses and farms in Arkansas and hurts Arkansas workers and their families,” said Coleman.

“With our unemployment the highest it’s been in 26 years, Congress must act now to permanently repeal the federal death tax. If the death tax was repealed today, 1.5 million jobs could be created,” he said. “The permanent repeal of this counterproductive and destructive tax would create thousands of new jobs in Arkansas and help Arkansas’ working families.”

Arkansas’ farming and timber industry has been adversely impacted by the federal death tax, he said. “The death tax is almost entirely responsible for the enormous transfer of wealth from family-owned businesses in Arkansas to large corporations with headquarters outside of Arkansas.”

“I call upon our U.S. Senators and Congressmen who represent the hard-working families, farmers and business owners of Arkansas to fight hard to get rid of this unfair and onerous tax,” said Coleman, announcing that he has signed the American Family Business Institute (AFBI) pledge.

“Arkansas families are already over-taxed,” Coleman said. “We’ve got to fight to reduce the size and cost of government. This is why I’ve also made the commitment to oppose any increase in the marginal tax rate or decrease in allowable tax deductions. As government grows, liberty shrinks.”

“We must realize that we are in a battle to recover the very fabric of the American dream,” Coleman said. “The death tax represents the ultimate destruction of the very dream that brought our forefathers to this great country.”

According to the AFBI, the death tax hurts American workers and wastes $24.6 billion each year in potential capital — the source of new jobs and economic growth — to pay expensive compliance costs. It also punishes people for saving and investing, ultimately destroying thousands of jobs.

The American Family Business Institute represents family business owners, large and small, throughout America. Founded in 1994, it was one of the first organizations to call for a permanent repeal of the death tax. Today, it remains the coalition leader of organizations fighting for death tax repeal.

For more information, please visit the website at www.CurtisColeman.com

Curtis Coleman Calls on Senators to Reject Health Care Bill

2009-10-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LITTLE ROCK, AR – U.S. Senate Candidate Curtis Coleman (R-AR) today called upon the Senate to reject the Baucus healthcare reform bill that was passed this afternoon by Sen. Blanche Lincoln and members of the Senate Finance Committee.

Coleman cited a recent editorial in The Washington Post titled, “Health Reform Shell Game,” in which the Post opined that “The Senate just patches the problem for one year and pretends that doctors take a 25 percent cut in reimbursements the following year and then stay at that low level forever. No one believes that will happen, so the money is going to have to be scrounged up later or else add more to the deficit. At least the House makes that unpleasant fact clear, rather than sweeping it under the rug.”

“As the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers evaluation reveals, claims that the Baucus bill reduces the deficit are a complete fraud since there is simply no way Congress is going to cut doctor pay by 25% in one year. The proponents of this bill have been deeply dishonest about its true costs,” Coleman said. “This is an incredibly bad bill. Bad for the economy, bad for Arkansas taxpayers, and bad for healthcare in America. The right thing is to stop it now.”

“We must stop this government takeover of our healthcare, and then start over to genuinely improve healthcare and make it more affordable and accessible for all Americans,” Coleman said. “There are effective and practical solutions to this issue, but they require the federal government to get out of the way instead of making the problem much worse.”

For more information, please visit the campaign's website at www.CurtisColeman.com

Why Cut Government Waste?

2009-10-08T05:25:00.000-07:00

The Pelosi/Obama/Lincoln/Reid (“POLR”) Administration recently proposed partially offsetting a costly new government health entitlement by reducing $622 billion in Medicare and Medicaid "waste and inefficiencies" over the next decade. What a novel idea: cut government waste!

But why? I’m not asking if reducing government waste should be done. I’m asking, “Why should it be done?” The POLR Administration wants to cut government waste to partially “pay” for an incredibly costly new entitlement: government-funded and bureaucrat-controlled healthcare. Here’s a better reason to cut this waste and inefficiency: to reduce the mushrooming out-of-control cost of government that’s destroying jobs, families and dreams in America. The obvious question seems to be Windex-clear to everyone except POLR, “If it can be done, why hasn’t it been done already?”

Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation hits it on the head. “Reducing wasteful spending is not easy,” he writes. “Even the most useless programs are passionately supported by the armies of recipients, administrators, and lobbyists that benefit from their existence. Identifying inefficiencies and abuses is much easier than devising a system to fix them. Many lawmakers focus more on bringing home earmarks than on performing the less exciting task of government oversight. Exasperated taxpayers see the cost of government rise with no end in sight.”

In an email distributed this morning, Riedl suggests that “building public credibility to reform Social Security and Medicare will be extraordinarily difficult if lawmakers cannot even first pick the low-hanging fruit of government waste.” And he offers some compelling examples:

$72 billion in improper payments annually
$92 billion spent annually on corporate welfare (excluding TARP) versus $71 billion on homeland security
$25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties
$123 billion on programs in which government audits cannot find evidence of success
$2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job
$350,000 to sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland; and
$3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at the Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters.

Please read these $ amounts as your money being wasted my dear tax-paying friend. It is.

Here’s a fact. Reducing government waste won’t happen until there are more people in Congress who are committed to getting it done and who understand that the obese national debt being fed by reckless, out-of-control, unrestrained spending has created a clear and present danger, a grave issue of national security for our country.

What is This Insanity?

2009-10-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

Our country is suffering its highest unemployment rate in 26 years – millions of willing-to-work-hard Americans are without jobs and paychecks. We’re witnessing a staggering 22% increase in government spending and federal deficits greater than that created by the budgets of all previous administrations combined. Meanwhile, we’re consumed with a debate over healthcare reform that will raise taxes on millions of Americans. And looming on the horizon is a battle over a “climate change” bill that, if passed, will drive hundreds of industries out of Arkansas and the U. S. and millions of jobs with them – and dramatically increase the cost of everything made in America! What is this insanity?

It gets worse. The healthcare bill currently being considered in Congress will create a huge new unfunded Medicaid mandate for states. The Washington Post reported yesterday that “the legislation the Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve this week calls for the biggest expansion of Medicaid since its creation in 1965,” creating a huge new unfunded mandate for states that are already coping with the most severe economic downturn in decades.

He is so alarmed about this potential impact on his state, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid cut a deal with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to ensure that the federal government would pay the full cost of expanding Medicaid in Reid's state, Nevada. So, my fellow Arkansans, if this bill passes we are going to pay for the expansion of Medicaid in Arkansas and in Nevada.

What is this insanity? It is the kind of insanity that happens when people who’ve never played in the game are making the rules. We have too many people in the House and Senate who have no qualifications for being in office – except that they’ve been in office. Too many career politicians who’ve never taken the risk of starting a business, created jobs, made a payroll, provided health insurance for their employees, or tried to survive under a stifling, smothering system of career bureaucrats who have the same problem.

It is time to recover our common sense vote and restore the voice of reason in Congress. It’s time to put citizen politicians in the House and Senate who have played in the game; people who have created jobs, made payrolls, provided health insurance, and survived (or perhaps even succumbed to) the bureaucracies. It is time for the kind of change that makes sense – and cents!

Lincoln Fails to Represent Arkansans - Again

2009-10-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

Senator Blanche Lincoln has once again failed to represent the values of Arkansans by voting against two key amendments to the Senate Finance Committee’s “Baucus Bill” yesterday.

“Arkansans should know that I will not support a health care plan that would require insurance companies to cover abortion, require physicians to perform abortions, or allow federal dollars to fund abortions,” Lincoln said. But in clear contradiction of this statement, she voted (by proxy) against two amendments submitted by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Sen. Hatch proposed an amendment that would have ensured that taxpayers’ dollars would not be used to fund abortions through the new programs or subsidies created in the current health bill. Senator Lincoln voted against the amendment. According to Americans United for Life, the Baucus bill allows qualified health plans to provide coverage for all abortions and mandates that at least one plan in each state exchange provide coverage of all abortions. Senator Hatch proposed his amendment “because this bill both authorizes and provides the funding for the premium subsidies, [and] no future appropriations bill would be necessary in regards to this specific funding.”

The second amendment offered by Sen. Hatch would have prohibited the federal government, state governments and local governments from forcing health providers, such as hospitals and physicians, to provide abortions. His amendment also would have prohibited governmental bodies from receiving federal dollars if they take action against any health care provider because the provider does not cover, provide or make references for abortions; in short, from discriminating against those who do not want to perform, cover or make references for abortions. Senator Lincoln voted against this amendment also.

It is clearly time for Arkansas to recover its voice and vote for life in the U.S. Senate.

ABC's John Stossel Reports on the POLR Healthcare Plan

2009-09-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

ABC's John Stossel reports medical breakthroughs will likely stop and Americans may be in for very long waits under the Pelosi/Obama/Lincoln/Reid healthcare agenda.

Click here to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJgkvF19QA

The Travesty of Reconciliation

2009-09-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

Normally, reconciliation (being brought into agreement or harmony) is a very good thing. It is the best outcome for marriages in trouble. It is why God sent His Son to earth…to reconcile us to Him.

It now appears that Senate Democrats may we willing to turn reconciliation into a national travesty. With news of Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-Maine) announcement that she cannot back the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare bill, Senate Democrats will have to move forward on their plan for government’s takeover of healthcare without a single Republican supporter. Democrats control 59 seats in the Senate. Without a single Republican vote, they would be forced to advance healthcare using a budgetary maneuver called “budget reconciliation” that requires only a simple majority.

“Budget reconciliation” was originally intended to help the government save money and keep federal budgets closer to balance. But it has become an abused process that allows Congress to minimize debate, prevent amendments, and circumvent filibusters in the Senate. If used in this instance, it will allow Senate Democrats to nationalize 17% of our economy on a simple majority of 51 votes without the 60 votes properly required for this kind of legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that Democrats are prepared to use budget reconciliation as a last resort. “If we can’t get the 60 votes we need, then we’ll have no alternative but to use reconciliation.”

One prominent Democrat has denounced the abuse of reconciliation as a gimmick to circumvent legislative process. Sen. Robert Byrd (D -W.Va.), who participated in including the reconciliation process in the Budget Act of 1974, was emphatic in his opposition, writing on April 2 that it “would violate the intent and spirit of the budget process and do serious injury to the Constitutional role of the Senate . . . As one of the authors of the reconciliation process, I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose,” Byrd wrote. “Reconciliation was intended to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce deficits. It was not designed to cut taxes. It was not designed to create a new climate and energy regime, and certainly not to restructure the entire health care system.”

What can we do?

First, we must recognize that the battle may be won or lost on whether the reconciliation process can be stopped. We must carry on the fight to prevent Washington bureaucrats from taking over our personal healthcare choices by raising a national outcry against the abuse of the reconciliation process.

Second, we must call and write decision makers everywhere we have influence.

Urge your friends to join you in making phone calls and writing letters. Ask the members of your organizations to contact their senators. Use Facebook, Twitter, blogs and email groups to get the word out!

Send information to any other groups you can think of who might be able to help.

Write editorials for your local newspapers and comment in the press on your opposition to this abuse and the travesty it will create.

No less than the basic fundamentals of American liberty and freedom are at stake. When government increases, liberty shrinks.

Student Loans Under Attack

2009-09-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

From Congressman Eric Cantor's office...

What's Happening?

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, H.R. 3221, ensures the death of the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and will replace it with a government run lending program.

4,400 universities and colleges use the FFEL program, but the message from the White House is clear: “If you like your plan, you are going to lose it.”
FFEL was experiencing the same capital problems as the rest of the financial services industry – but this is the only place Democrats (so far) are seeking a permanent government takeover.

H.R. 3221 will most likely come to the floor this Thursday! Democrats clearly think this can and will pass without any backlash from those affected; indeed they are counting on our apathy!

What can you do?!

Call and write decision makers everywhere you have a presence

Have your organization send letters and urge individuals to make phone calls and write letters.
Spread the word to your members. This is the time to harness Facebook, Twitter, blogs and email groups.
Send information to any other groups you can think of who might be able to help.
Write Editorials for your local newspapers and comment in the press on your opposition to this proposal.

For more detailed information on H.R. 3221 please click here.

Gov. and Mrs. Huckabee to Host Private Reception

2009-09-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

Gov. and Mrs. Mike Huckabee are hosting a private reception on Monday evening, September 21st, in support of my campaign to represent Arkansans in the U. S. Senate. The reception, which will be held in the Huckabee’s home in North Little Rock, will begin at 6:00 p.m.

Tickets are $500 per person. For tickets or more information, please contact Lauren Huckabee at Lauren.Huckabee@CurtisColeman.com.

You Owe $483,000

2009-09-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

Your American household owes $483,000. And the government wants you to pay up.

“For what?” you ask! That’s your share of the $56 trillion we are obligated to pay for “unfunded obligations” related to Social Security and Medicare, according to David Walker, the former head of the Government Accountability Office1. An “unfunded obligation” is something we’ve promised to pay for but we don’t have the money to pay for. Kind of like having a big credit card balance but no money to pay it.

So if you’ve been paying into the Social Security System (the deduction shows up as “FICA” on your pay stub), you can legitimately ask, “If Social Security is unfunded, where’s my money?” Good question! Want to guess?

I’ll bet you guessed right. The government you trusted it to…spent it on other things!

At first this originally optional program deposited your money into special trust funds for “safe” keeping. Then in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" program, Social Security was changed to withdraw funds from the independent "Trust Fund" and put them into the General Fund for additional congressional revenue. Ah, “congressional revenue”. So that’s where your money went.

So now there’s $56 trillion “we” have promised to pay the folks who’ve been paying for Social Security and Medicare all of their working lives – and we’ve already spent their money!

So I ask you, is this the government you want to run your healthcare program?

I don’t think so. If you think $483,000 is bad, wait until your see your bill for government-run healthcare.

Click here to return to www.CurtisColeman.com.
______________________________
1The Wall Street Journal, September 5-6, 2009, p. A11

The Non-Stimulating Stimulus Bill

2009-09-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

This excellent article may be a little technical, but it is definitely worth the read time: The Non-Stimulating Stimulus Bill Take time to read the posted comments also.

The Fed Needs Some Sun

2009-08-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

There is an entity in our country that

Directly affects your bank account and the value of every dollar in your pocket
Sets the basic interest rates you pay for loans, including mortgages
Regulates how much and to whom banks can make loans
Determines the supply of the U.S. dollar and influences whether we have inflation or deflation
Makes agreements with foreign governments and banks regarding our U.S. currency

This entity is the Federal Reserve System (“Federal Reserve” or “the Fed”), the central banking system of the United States. So who oversees this powerful organization that dramatically affects almost every facet of our lives and freedoms? Only the unelected seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve 14-year terms.

The Fed enjoys a monopoly over the flow of our money and credit, but it has never been completely accountable to Congress, which is why we need S. 604: The Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009. Since the Fed was created in 1913, our U.S. dollar has lost about 95% of its purchasing power. Every dollar created by the Fed directly affects your bank account and the money in your pocket. You have the right to know where the money has gone and exactly how much has been spent.

Senate bill 604 will remove existing restrictions on how the General Accounting Office (“GAO”) can audit the Federal Reserve and will require the GAO to report its findings to Congress and to the American people.

Judge Andrew Napolitano recently commented on Fox News, "The job of the CIA is to steal and to keep secrets...yet we know more about the CIA than the Federal Reserve.” And someone once observed, “Unobserved behavior always deteriorates.” The policies and actions that will determine the value of your savings and retirement, how much you pay for a mortgage, whether or not you can get a loan for your business, and how much every dollar in your pocket is worth – those policies and actions are being discussed and determined behind closed doors. The Fed desperately needs some sunlight!

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) recently proposed language identical to the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009 as an amendment to another bill. You can watch his excellent presentation here:

Click here to return to http://www.curtiscoleman.com/.

Poll Completed on Arkansas U.S. Senate Republican Primary

2009-08-24T05:52:00.000-07:00

The final results in the first Arkansas U.S. Senate Republican primary poll are in. The online poll was conducted by The Tolbert Report from August 14-21.

“If the Republican Primary were held today, who would you vote for in the U.S. Senate Race?”

Curtis Coleman (43%, 655 Votes)
Gilbert Baker (14%, 213 Votes)
Tom Cotton (14%, 212 Votes)
Fred Ramey (13%, 203 Votes)
Chris Bequette (6%, 96 Votes)
Tom Cox (6%, 83 Votes)
Conrad Reynolds (2%, 25 Votes)
Buddy Rogers (1%, 11 Votes)
Kim Hendren (1%, 9 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,507

Is Anyone Listening?

2009-08-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

The most asked question in Arkansas today may be, “Is anyone listening?” Based on Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s initial (but now recanted) refusal to hold open town hall meetings on pending healthcare legislation during the August Congressional recess, it would seem that the answer is a resounding and distressing, “No!”

In response to criticism about Mrs. Lincoln’s refusal to listen to worried Arkansans, Lincoln campaign manager Steve Patterson reportedly claimed that the senator “had appeared ‘more than 100 times’ in public events in the state since becoming a senator in 1998". In a recent statement from the senator’s office, this was further clarified as 10 events per year. How could he brag about that? Less than one appearance per month in Arkansas over the last 11 years?

The fact that Mrs. Lincoln’s primary residence is Virginia, not Arkansas, can explain some of that. And it may also explain why she and her fellow Washington elitists are so surprised by the concern and even outrage about the atrocious healthcare “reform” legislation being proposed in Congress.

It seems to me that it is very important to stay in touch – to listen frequently to the people one works for and represents to the country and the world.

That is why I have committed to 75 town hall listening meetings every year; a listening session in every Arkansas county every year I serve Arkansas in the U.S. Senate. Such a commitment is not only necessary but also simple, requiring only two days per month and a desire to listen! Listening to Arkansans is exactly what a U.S. Senator from Arkansas should be doing.

Is anybody listening? I am.

Declaration of Candidacy

2009-08-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

(LITTLE ROCK, AR – AUGUST 12, 2009) Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman, CEO of Arkansas based Safe Foods Corporation, has formally announced his candidacy for the United States Senate. Coleman is seeking the Republican nomination to represent Arkansans in the U.S. Senate race for the seat currently held by Senator Blanche Lincoln.

“We desperately need experienced business men and women in the U.S. Senate who know what it’s like to make a payroll, provide health insurance for their employees, and who have lived under oppressive regulations created by people who’ve never had to function in the real world outside of Washington, D.C.,” Coleman said. “The critical issues facing Americans today—like healthcare reform—will have such a profound impact on our daily lives that we must replace career politicians with citizen statesmen,” he said.

Coleman’s company is helping to make food safer on three continents, with a fourth continent expected to be added this fall. “Developing a global market for our technologies has given me extraordinary experience in foreign trade issues,” Coleman said. “I understand we must not take actions such as those proposed in the current cap and trade legislation that will cripple Arkansas businesses and send even more Arkansas jobs overseas.”

Coleman managed Gov. Mike Huckabee’s first campaign for political office when Huckabee ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992. “I understand from experience the sheer enormity of effort a state-wide campaign requires,” Coleman said. “I don’t have any visions of glory or grandeur. I do have visions of my grandchildren gathering around me in 15-20 years and saying, ‘Granddad, tell us what America used to be like.’ With our government’s out-of-control spending, we’re mortgaging our country’s future and our children’s futures. I will not sit idly by and let that happen without a fight.”

“The number one issue facing us is the crippling national debt being created at the rate of over $5 billion per day. A lot of folks in Washington don’t seem to understand the simple truth that most Arkansans apply to their personal budgets: ‘You don’t spend your way out of a crisis that was created by overspending.’ I’ve already signed a pledge to oppose any increases in our taxes. I have the same intense commitment to stopping the federal government’s outrageous deficit spending. This disastrous debt is a matter of national security and a clear and present danger to the well-being of every Arkansan.”

Coleman also expressed concern over the current healthcare legislation, “We’ve first got to stop the government’s healthcare takeover, then we can start over to genuinely make quality healthcare accessible and affordable for every Arkansan. There are feasible and practical solutions to controlling healthcare costs while protecting the fundamental America freedom to control personal healthcare choices. The plans being proposed today are counterproductive to that ultimate goal. Congress is proposing that health savings accounts be taxed, when instead they should be expanded. A ‘public option’ is being touted that will ultimately destroy insurance competition, not improve it. The Washington proposal is that employers be required to provide health insurance for their employees, a requirement what will destroy even more jobs in Arkansas’ small businesses. Instead, employees need to be able to control their own portable insurance policies.”

“Although these Washington proposals are clearly not Arkansas values,” Coleman said, “they are the positions the incumbent has taken. It’s tragic that Sen. Lincoln isn’t listening to folks in Arkansas and it’s sad that she’s lost touch with the very people whose views and values she had pledged to represent. Perhaps even more disconcerting is the fact that we rarely ever know which side of an issue the Senator may take next.”

“The days when horrible bills that destroy jobs and put basic American liberties at risk are voted on without even being read must quickly come to an end,” Coleman said.

“I understand what it’s going to take to fund this campaign and this won’t be my first time around this block.” Coleman said that he had to raise over $20 million to keep his company viable through its first seven years of domestic and international regulatory roadblocks and hurdles. Coleman was winner of the 2005 Arkansas Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Coleman is a graduate of Conway High School and Central Baptist College in Conway, and Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. He describes himself as a conservative Republican. “I have always been pro-life, I do not support embryonic stem cell research, and I am a defender of the Constitution, traditional marriage and the Second Amendment.”

Coleman, 61, is married to Kathryn Rosenbaum Coleman, and has three children and seven grandchildren. Curtis and Kathryn are active members of Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, where they currently reside.

For more information, please visit the campaign’s website at: www.CurtisColeman.com

Contact Information:
Coleman for Senate Exploratory Committee
Lauren Huckabee, Chief of Staff
Lauren.Huckabee@CurtisColeman.com
Scheduling@CurtisColeman.com

“Constituents” or “Employers”?

2009-08-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

This past week Sen. Blanche Lincoln was reported to have said, “Efforts to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform are un-American,” reportedly in reference to the less than enthusiastic reception given to Arkansas Representatives Vic Synder and Mike Ross at a recent town hall meeting in Little Rock.

There were two extraordinary errors in that statement. First, these were not “efforts to disrupt” and second, the exercise of our freedom of speech is not un-American. There is nothing un-American about Arkansans who are concerned and even scared about a government takeover of their healthcare showing up for meetings to question and even challenge their elected representatives. What could be more “American”?

A few hours later, Mrs. Lincoln issued a statement saying, “I shouldn’t have used the term ‘un-American.’” We certainly agree. Of course, now we know she got that phrase from the Nancy Pelosi playbook. See the op-ed in USA Today.

But here’s where we should be enormously concerned. The Arkansas News Bureau went on to report, “She said she is looking forward to visiting with constituents but has no plans for a town hall meeting on health care.” It is extremely disturbing that any of our elected representatives would not be willing to meet with us and listen to our concerns about pending landmark legislation that will dramatically affect our everyday lives and liberties.

Perhaps it’s time for our senators and congressmen to stop describing us as their “constituents” and start using the more accurate term “employers”. Would the senator ever make a statement that her employers are “un-American”? Is she willing to say that she is not willing to meet with and listen to her employers’ concerns and positions?

We seem to have lost this fundamental understanding of the employer-employee relationship – an understanding desperately in need of re-discovery.

Should Arkansans choose to have me serve them in the U.S. Senate, a commitment to this fundamental relationship is why I’ve made a pledge to hold listening meetings in every county every year that I serve Arkansans as their U.S. Senator. Every county – every year. 75 town hall meetings every year. Listening to my employers.

Would we consider Norman Rockwall’s famous painting, “Freedom of Speech”, to be “un-American”?

Arkansas Showing Its Conservatism

2009-08-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Roby Brock’s latest Talk Business poll suggests what many Arkansans say they have been sensing for some time; Arkansas is increasingly showing is basic conservatism.

Talk Business’ latest findings among the 600 Arkansas voters they polled: 69% say they somewhat or strongly disapprove of the job that the U.S. Congress is doing, while 26% approve.

Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the job the U.S. Congress is doing in Washington D.C.?

5% Strongly Approve
21% Somewhat Approve
22% Somewhat Disapprove
47% Strongly Disapprove
5% Don’t Know

Q: If the 2010 elections for U.S. Congress were held today, for whom would you vote for Congress in the district where you live?

32% Republican candidate
13% Lean Republican candidate
25% Democratic candidate
9% Lean Democratic candidate
21% Unknown

Click here to see the full Talk Business report.

Response to Sen. Lincoln's "Un-American" Comment

2009-08-08T05:31:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Sen. Blanche Lincoln was reported to have said, “Efforts to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform are un-American.” In a conference call with reporters, she said “I think it’s sad that they choose to do that. I think it’s un-American and disrespectful.”

What's sad is that Senator Lincoln apparently doesn't value the opinions of hard-working Arkansans who took time away from their busy schedules to express their concern over losing control of their healthcare to the government. Senator Lincoln's description of these Arkansans as 'un-American' illustrates how deeply out of touch she is with the American people.

It is an enormously troubling proposition when our elected officials are not willing to meet with us and listen to our concerns about pending landmark legislation that will dramatically affect our everyday lives and liberties. Town hall meetings are a time-honored tradition and a way for elected officials to hear from a wide variety of constituents. Now is the time to listen to their opinions, especially when so many Arkansans are concerned about government intrusion and the costs and quality of health care, increasing energy costs, our nation at war, our fragile economy, and out of control government spending. I encourage my fellow Arkansans to stay informed and to make their views about these important issues known to the people who represent us in the United States Congress, including Sen. Lincoln.

If Washington Takes Over Your Healthcare

2009-07-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

The Wrong Patient On the Table

2009-07-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Nancy Cascella was a healthy 64-year old employed woman when she died a tragic and unnecessary death. After surgery, Mrs. Cascella developed respiratory distress and died one month later, all due to complications caused by her unnecessary surgery. The surgery was unnecessary because she was the wrong patient. The wrong patient was on the table!

Today’s debate is about reforming healthcare. The proposition coming out of Washington D.C. is that we can reduce healthcare costs and improve healthcare efficiencies by having the federal government take over our healthcare. Let me ask you – when was the last time you used “federal government”, “reduced costs” and “improved efficiencies” in the same sentence? We’ve got the wrong patient on the table!

Our rapidly expanding federal government with its liberty-robbing out-of-control spending is the patient in need of surgery. Unnecessary and overlapping bureaucracies need to go. Budget-busting pork-barrel earmarks have to be eliminated. Ever expanding entitlements must be reduced. Career politicians need to be replaced with citizen politicians, “real-world” business men and women who understand this simple and profound principle: When your outgo exceeds your income, your overhead will be your downfall.

Let’s get the right patient on the table.

“Public” Health Insurance: The Beginning of the End

2009-07-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

In a July 8 “guest editorial” in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Senator Blanche Lincoln stated her support for a government-sponsored health insurance option: “Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan.”

This appears to be the opposite of what she reportedly told the Arkansas News on June 18: “One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do.”

Arkansans understand that Senator Lincoln’s public health insurance “option” will be the beginning of the end of the best health care in the world.

1. Like the business you own or work for, private insurance companies have to make a profit to survive. How long would your company last if your competitors could sharply undercut your prices because they didn’t have to make a profit? Not very long! And if America’s private insurance companies have to compete with a government-owned competitor, they won’t survive either.

2. When all of the private insurance companies have closed their businesses, only government-run health “insurance” will remain. That means there will be only one single entity – the government - that will pay for your health care.

3. If only the government pays for your health care, then the government will obviously completely control your health care.

Of course, the government won’t be paying for your health care – you will be. The government has only the money it takes from you. (Even the most conservative estimates have indicated that government-run health care will increase our country’s deficit by at least $1 trillion by 2019.)

So the government will be paying your doctor and your hospital. Which means the government will be deciding – not you and your doctor – what treatments you will or will not receive. What government agency can you think of that operates efficiently, or quickly, or responsively? Will their choices be made in your best interest?

Here’s the organizational chart for how the government will manage your health care:

Health care needs to be reformed. Not destroyed! And destruction of the finest health care in the world is exactly what this seemingly harmless little “public health insurance option” will do. Arkansans will not be duped by this. They understand this is the whole ballgame.

For more information on government-sponsored health insurance, see “Refs Want to Put Their Own Team on the Field”

Click here to return to http://www.curtiscoleman.com/

Stop Making Sense!

2009-07-11T15:08:00.000-07:00

This is a "guest blog" written by Central Arkansas resident Tim Jacob. Tim works at Modern Image Systems...a printer and copier dealership. Tim says, "I also work for freedom anytime I can."

Staying logical and consistent in an effort to raise teenagers is an uphill battle.
The world isn’t helping.

On a recent vacation to California, my daughter and I found ourselves driving to the airport while still finishing up last minute chores. As I was driving, my 15 yr old was helping her dear old Dad sort his mail to make sure no bill went unpaid and past due during our family vacation.

“Most of this is junk,” she correctly surmised. Then to assist her sorting, I let her know that anything that said “URGENT” or “IMPORTANT, READ IMMEDIATELY” could be discarded. Her reaction to my instructions was, to say the least, curious, but I went on to explain the upside down world of modern day marketing.

Closer to the airport, we both see the driver ahead of us throw out a cigarette butt. She immediately peeks at me, knowing my lack of tolerance for littering. "Where’s your frown?" she wondered. “It used to make me mad”, I explained, “but times have changed”. Smokers are now paying taxes at such a rate that they deserve a little sympathy. Their state revenue contributions alone fund a statewide trauma system. And they do it all at the risk of their own lives. There’s no greater love. Smokers have transformed from delinquent punks to benevolent martyrs. Feeling guilty in the face of such sacrifice, I should have pulled over and picked up the discarded butt myself.

Settling into my seat, ready for the 3 hour flight to San Diego, I picked up a paper to digest more modern day irony. Today’s paper is full of new concepts. The concept of spending to stimulate an economy in distress from overspending. The concept of cutting the taxes of those who don’t pay them. A policy of new openness and transparency that for now remains secret. The first President to publicly claim he doesn’t want to own banks and car companies, owns them. Our administration warns us of looming debt while adding trillions to it. We pass legislation too important to read in order to save people too important to fail. We now even have Republican Congressional leadership alert to a dangerously growing deficit after an eight-year slumber party. It is enough to make one dizzy. Fortunately, I was still wearing my seat belt.

“Too Important to Read” is simply indefensible. “Too Important to Fail” has graver implications. It is the antithesis of equal justice for all. It is an infamous foundation that underlies every despised regime of racial or national superiority. Different rules for the “Important” and the “Unimportant” (that’s us) is more than a slippery slope. It is a super highway to tyranny and corruption. Are there some politicians simply too important to risk being denied another term by unimportant voters? Don’t be surprised.

Departing the plane in San Diego, my daughter and I stopped by a convenient Starbucks. “Small coffee, please,” I asked. “You mean a tall?” the young lady asked, pointing to the menu board. “No. Just a small coffee,” I quickly repeated. Anticipating my angst and confusion, my daughter explained that at Starbucks, a “tall” coffee is a “small”. Resigning to the new speak and with apologies to George Orwell, I robotically replied, “of course, it makes perfect sense”.

Rat in the Butter

2009-07-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

You may have heard the story of the woman who was churning butter a couple of generations ago…using one of those old cylindrical butter churns with a plunger. She had to leave the churn for a moment and when she returned, she discovered a rat had scampered up the side of the churn and had fallen into the thickening buttermilk.

She fished the rat out and as she finished churning her butter she formulated a plan to solve her dilemma. She carefully wrapped her block of butter in paper and headed down to the local butcher shop. Handing the freshly made butter to the butcher she said, “While I was churning this butter, a rat fell in the churn. I fished him out, and I think the butter is fine, but I just can’t forget that rat and I don’t think I can eat this. Could you exchange this butter for another block of butter and just sell this butter to someone else? After all, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

The butcher smiled and said, “Of course I can. I’ll be right back.” He took the lady’s butter and disappeared into the back of his shop where he carefully unwrapped the block of butter and then wrapped it again in new butcher paper. He returned to the lady, handed her the block of re-wrapped butter and smiled as he said, “You’re exactly right! What you don’t know can’t hurt you!”

Arkansans know that what you don’t know CAN hurt you! That’s why they have an unprecedented anxiety about the condition and direction of our country. Arkansans are worried about what they can see; things like the atrocious cap-and-trade legislation recently passed by the House, proposals to federalize America’s healthcare system, and the nation’s out-of-control debt that is putting our country and our children at unacceptable risk in the world. These are things they can see. Which makes them even more anxious about the things they can’t see.

Buried on page 6A of the June 28, 2009 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was just the kind of unnoticed concern that should worry Americans. Included in the paper’s regular feature, How Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted, was a story on the U.S. Senate’s confirmation (including Senator Blanche Lincoln’s confirming vote) of Harold Koh as the Department of State’s top lawyer. As the department’s legal adviser, Koh will help set American foreign policy.

A former Yale Law School Dean, Koh represents a wide variety of issues wildly out-of-step with the values and beliefs of Arkansans. He is an outspoken advocate for the belief that American justices should take international law into account when interpreting the United States Constitution. Under this philosophy, laws made by international organizations – even if they are rejected by Congress – can supersede American sovereignty!

For instance, in a 2003 essay titled “A World Drowning In Guns” (http://tinyurl.com/op49ll), Koh effectively sweeps aside the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms by arguing for a “global regulatory” scheme to outlaw firearms by using international law to trump American gun rights.

And you may think I’m making this one up: Hearings on the appointment of Harvard law Professor Cass Sunstein as head of the White House office of Information and Regulatory Affairs are underway. This gentleman published a book in 2004 titled, “Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions”, suggesting that animals should be permitted to sue humans.

There’s a rat in the butter, folks.

Click here to return to http://www.curtiscoleman.com/.

I Salute You, America!

2009-07-03T05:16:00.000-07:00

More than 400 people gathered outdoors in 97° heat in Bella Vista, AR last week because they were concerned about disturbing changes being proposed for America’s healthcare system.

Earlier this year, a surprising crowd of more than a thousand people gathered on April 15 in Mountain Home, AR (pop. 11,012) to participate in a TEA Party organized by Richard Caster, then a 17 year-old high school senior. Richard and his co-workers are expecting as many as 3,000 to gather in the town’s high school football stadium this Saturday to celebrate and renew their commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

These scenes are being repeated all over Arkansas this weekend; indeed, all over America.

I’ve been told in recent weeks that “America is lost – that people who do not believe in the principles on which America was founded have taken too much ground for us to ever recover.” I’ve also been told that “a tyranny by bureaucracy rather than a government of democracy is now strangling the life out of America – and that that bureaucracy has grown too powerful to reverse.”

I don’t buy that! America is not lost. In fact, America is finding itself again and anew! Americans are standing up in Bella Vista and Mountain Home and in a thousand small and large towns across this God-blessed land to recommit and re-pledge themselves to the fundamental truth that “We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; Americans who understand that our personal rights come from God directly to us and that we don’t wait for nor depend on the government to give them us. They are already ours – gifts from God – and we loan them to our government as we see fit.

In his 1858 debates with Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln said,

“Posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence, and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth, and justice and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.
Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back – return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution.
Think nothing of me, take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed those sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man’s success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity – the Declaration of American Independence.”

In more recent days Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” Americans are not weak nor are they timid. Proudly, defiantly, passionately and resolutely they stand across the breath of this great temple of liberty and, laying aside regard for life and personal gain, once again boldly affix their names and lives to the Declaration of Independence!

I salute you, America!

Click here to return to www.CurtisColeman.com.

The Biggest Tax Increase in American History is Completely Unnecessary

2009-06-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

Brace yourself, my dear friend, for the biggest and most unnecessary tax increase in American history. It’s called “climate change” legislation, but it used to be called “global warming”. Since global temps have flat-lined since 2001, it can’t be called “warming” anymore.

You may know it as “cap-and-trade” or formally as the Clean Energy and Security Act – the heinous bill that was passed Friday evening, June 26, 2009, by the U. S. House of Representatives. But one has to ask, “representatives of whom”? Certainly not of Arkansans.

Three of Arkansas’ four congressmen had the good sense and/or an adequate commitment to Arkansans to vote in their best interest. Rep. Vic Snyder did not.

The right name for this legislation is “decapitate and tax”. It will create enormous new tax burdens while decapitating any hope for Arkansas industries to successfully compete in a global marketplace. I salute Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) who voted against this bill, acknowledging in a guest editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (27 June 09) that the bill would cost Arkansas jobs. Rep. Ross also wrote, “We must be very careful in passing any climate-change legislation to ensure that we do not enact policies that close our local factories and ship our jobs and carbon dioxide emissions overseas, which would do nothing for planet Earth. The reality is that between now and 2040, 97 percent of new carbon emissions will not be produced from the United States or Europe, but rather from places like China, India and the Middle East.”

A cap-and-trade program is projected to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Since 85 percent of America's energy needs come from fossil fuels, cap-and-trade would constitute a massive new tax on energy consumption.

According to The Heritage Foundation, after adjusting for inflation, the government would collect $5.7 trillion in new tax revenue from this legislation between 2012 and 2035. The Foundation’s economic analysis found that, by 2035, this new energy tax would also:
• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 58 percent;
• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent; and
• Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,241.

But the $1,241 annual energy bill is just the direct increase in energy prices that consumers will face. As energy prices increase, the cost of making products becomes more expensive. Businesses will have to pass the higher costs of operating onto consumers, which will be reflected in the higher prices we will pay for products.

So how will this affect Arkansans?
• We make tires in Texarkana. They’ll cost more.
• We grow and process chickens all over Arkansas. They’ll cost more.
• We have world-class agriculture in Southeast and Northeast Arkansas. Everything Arkansas farmers grow will cost more.
• We make glass and steel in Jonesboro and Blytheville. That will cost more.
• In fact, practically everything we buy and consume will cost more.

The Heritage Foundation’s analysis concluded that
• Higher energy prices will push unemployment up by 1,145,000 jobs on average, with peaks of over 2,479,000 jobs lost.
• Our Gross Domestic Product will drop by over $9.4 trillion.
• The next generation will inherit a federal debt pumped up by $28,728 per person.

So what about the climate? What about global warming and the environment? Is all of this economic pain justified by gains against global warming?

Climatologists calculate that the measures in this legislation will lower temperatures by only hundredths of a degree in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century (http://masterresource.org/?p=2355).

This ram down, cram down legislation now moves to the U.S. Senate. Please contact Sen. Blanche Lincoln and urge her to vote against this atrocious legislation. We can hope that, like on the “card check” legislation, she’ll have a timely election year conversion.

This horrendous legislation is so unnecessary! There are practical and feasible solutions.

First, let's take the time to establish credible science on the issues of climate change. In spite of what you may have heard from the media, the world's scientists are sharply divided on this issue.

Second, let's move toward energy independence and protection of the environment in concurrent and synergistic steps by

Investing in the development of new transportation technologies such as hydrogen powered cars which offer the promise of zero emissions where the only byproduct from the cars is water vapor. This remarkable technology is already in use in California and Japan.
Leveraging America's vast resources of natural gas, coupled with new low carbon emission technologies. Unlike other fossil fuels, natural gas is clean burning and emits lower levels of potentially harmful byproducts into the air.
Producing electricity (and hydrogen for our cars) with nuclear power and with the world's largest supply of coal, using already available clean-burn technologies.

Finally, we must be constantly aware that we live and compete in a global economy. We must never take measures that unilaterally put our economy at a disadvantage - and therefore our national security at unacceptable risk.

Click here to return to www.CurtisColeman.com.

Refs Want to Put Their Own Team on the Field

2009-06-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Arkansas’ college football teams are in for some unexpected tough new competition this fall! The Razorbacks, Red Wolves, Reddies, Bisons, Tigers, Muleriders, Wonder Boys, Boll Weevils, Golden Lions, and Bears will each have a new game added to their schedules.

Saying they believe Arkansas football teams need to be more competitive, SEC, Southland, Gulf South, Sun Belt, and Southwestern Athletic Conference game officials are fielding their own teams starting this fall. A spokesperson said that officials do not believe that competition between member schools is adequate, so game officials from each conference are recruiting players from each school to play on their “all expenses paid” teams. Reportedly, “all expenses paid” includes all living expenses, including housing, cars, clothing, meals, and entertainment. (These “officials” are those great guys in striped shirts to whom we’d send Christmas cards every year if we could find any printed in Braille.)

Questions have arisen about potential conflicts of interest since these officials will referee the games in which their teams will be playing. A spokesman for the officials said they were promising only “a level playing field.”

Okay…as far as I know, everything above is fiction. But everything below is not.

Senator Blanche Lincoln’s team is proposing that government health care officials field their own team to compete with America’s private insurance companies.

“We want some competition,” a spokesman for her team said. Apparently, they don’t believe that free market competition is adequate. As clearly as I can recall, the goal in competition is to win. So let’s assume that the government fields its “public insurance” team to compete with America’s private insurance teams. Will the playing field be level? Well, let’s see…

Sen. Lincoln’s team is proposing that their team be paid for by taxing Americans for premiums paid to the other teams.
To even exist, the private companies have to make a profit. Will the government’s team have to make a profit? Of course not! They’ve got taxpayer money to sustain their existence.
Will government regulators hold their own team to the level of accountability to which the private teams will be held? I’ll let you answer that question.

Now, here’s the big question: When the government’s team wins (and it will win because the playing field will not be level), then what? If there are no private teams left in the game, who will provide health insurance for you? The only team left standing – the government’s team. What kind of health care will you have then? Stay tuned.

End Government Ownership of American Companies

2009-06-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

With the claim that the measures were required to stabilize the economy, the federal government has taken unprecedented actions over the past few months which have resulted in the federal government’s direct ownership in some of America’s largest companies. Americans have discovered that TARP has actually become a TRAP. This is a treacherous state of affairs on a scale which I would have never believed I would see in my country in my lifetime.

Writing that,

“Government control of private business hampers investment, innovation, job creation, and diminishes the entrepreneurial spirit on which our economy is based. Simply put, the government needs to get out of the business of owning American companies,”

Senator John Thune (R-SD) has introduced the Government Ownership Exit Plan Act of 2009 and is asking Americans to sign a petition supporting this legislation “to protect taxpayers, prevent conflicts of interest, end the bailouts under TARP, and increase transparency and accountability.”

I support Senator Thune’s bill, and I encourage you to sign a petition supporting this legislation.

Senator Thune explains that his bill will do the following:

End government ownership of private companies by:

Preventing the U.S. Treasury from purchasing additional ownership stakes in private companies in any form, including preferred stock, common stock or warrants.
Requiring the U.S. Treasury to sell any ownership stake of private entities by July 1, 2010.
Requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to submit a plan within 90 days for how it will end the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and end government ownership of those entities.

Protect taxpayers by:

Requiring that revenue from the sale of assets be dedicated to debt reduction.
Allowing the Secretary of the Treasury to hold current assets for up to one additional year, IF the assets are determined to be undervalued AND if there is a reasonable expectation that the assets will increase to the original purchase value in the near future.
Prohibiting the U.S. Treasury from holding any direct ownership in private companies beyond July 1, 2011, without additional authority granted by Congress.

Protect private sector management decisions and prevent conflicts of interest by:

Prohibiting the federal government from influencing management decisions of private companies in which it currently holds ownership by appointing senior executives and board members, closing plants, modifying labor contracts, or influencing other financial decisions of the companies.

Increase transparency and accountability by:

Requiring Treasury to report to Congress any government-held ownership stake in a private entity and any loans or loan guarantees made by the Federal Reserve.
Providing that the government ownership divestiture process will be overseen by the TARP oversight board and requiring Treasury to report to Congress on the progress of the divestiture process.

"Do they believe in God at the White House?"

2009-06-10T03:22:00.000-07:00

My daughter and son-in-law, Randi and Steven Mackey, have two beautiful children, Caleb (age 9) and Grace (age 7). Randi sent this email on 9 June 2009. It is unedited, just as she sent it. “BigDaddy” was my Dad, who passed away at home on December 15, 2006. "Grandmother" is my Mom.

Tuesdays are volunteer days this summer at the Mackey house. Wish you could have seen the kid's faces this morning when I said "OK today is volunteer day". Caleb says "OK, well can we play while you work?"

I told them they are working too. We are going to be picking up trash on the church playground and collecting stuffed animals to take to the Cabot Nursing home at the end of the summer. We need 100 animals.

Had some interesting conversation on the way...which makes it all worth it.

Grace got her $20 from Aunt Jan (thank you by the way) and was reading it - yes reading it.
"Mom, why does the $20 bill say IN GOD WE TRUST?" "Do they believe in God at the White House?"

Caleb says, "I hope they do Grace. That's why Grandaddy is trying to do something." (GOTTA LOVE IT!)

After the visit to the nursing home, (which completely freaked them out), there was a long discussion about why Big Daddy stayed with Grandmother at home instead of going to a nursing home. Grace said "It's because Grandmother loved Big Daddy so much". I couldn't bring myself to tell Grandmother this without getting choked up, but maybe one of you can relay the message.

They wanted to understand why old people liked stuff animals. Explained to them that they were just happy to have someone come see them and be nice to them. I told them they didn't have to help me distribute them if they didn't want to but by the time they got home they seemed like they might try.

Everyone was all gripey and impatient this morning about our plans, but I'm so glad we are getting the privilege to do this. What a joy!

I knew Dad especially would like to hear about the money conversation so thought I'd pass it on.

Love ya'll
Randi

Randi, my grandchildren, and I all agree that folks are in nursing homes because their families love them so much too.

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Ever Wondered Who We Owe?

2009-06-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that we (Americans) are in debt.

As of May 25, 2009, $11.3 trillion in debt, or about $37,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Have you ever wondered to whom we owe the money?

The Department of the Treasury / Federal Reserve Board updated the list (Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities) recently. Here’s their Top Ten List of the folks who hold the mortgage on our country as of March 2009:

And this week, the White House admitted that Blanche Lincoln’s team will rack up an unprecedented $1.8 trillion in additional debt this year! From whom are we going to borrow that money?

I acknowledge that Blanche’s team is talking about reducing the deficit in four years. Listen closely here. And look closely at the word “deficit”. They’re not talking about reducing the debt. They’re talking about reducing how fast we’re going to be borrowing more money (and then only if the economy improves fast enough and they can raise taxes)! Reducing the debt means that we’re paying the money back – not borrowing more!

There are two basic ways to reduce our deficits and our debt:
A. Increase taxes
B. Reduce government spending

Which one do you want to do? You may have noticed, Blanche’s team is not going with "B".

Can we turn this around in time? Absolutely! But only with people in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives who are absolutely committed to turning it around. That means we're going to have to put a new team on the field.

Click here to return to the Coleman for Senate Exploratory Committee website.

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“Caribbean Banking Centers” - includes the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands, Antilles, Panama and British Virgin Islands. Huge amount of wealth channeled into the U.S. due to their tax shelter status.

“Oil Exporters” - Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.

Hold On to Your Pocketbook!

2009-06-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

“We’ve got to cut record-high budget deficits,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted yesterday. Well, somebody in D.C. finally gets it!

Isn’t it amazing that almost every American outside the D.C. beltway understands the following simple basic principle?

When your outgo exceeds your income,
Your overhead will be your downfall.

But if you had to bet your dwindling 401(k) on how Blanche’s team would cut those deficits, would you bet on:
A. Cutting their spending?
B. Increasing your taxes?

Yes, indeed, hold on to your pocketbook, my dear friend.

It’s time we turned the beltway inside out.

The Right to Bear Arms Requires the 2nd and the 14th Amendments

2009-06-02T02:40:00.000-07:00

Freedom – the essence of the American dream and culture. As has been often but well said, freedom is not free. It is the beneficent award to future generations from those who are prepared and willing to pay its price.

It was to guarantee our freedom that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was drafted and ratified by those who understood its cost:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The right to keep and bear arms is the surest pledge of our liberty, but as Ronald Reagan reminded us, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

To sustain its existence, freedom demands that, as its recipients, ordinary citizens are able to defend themselves from violent criminals, and that they are prepared to ably stand as the last line of defense from an oppressive government – the essence and intent of the Second Amendment.

Whether Arkansans choose to have guns for sport or because they hunt, or if they choose to bear arms for the protection of their persons, families, and properties, this constitutional right must never be abridged.

The greatest peril to this fundamental guarantee comes not from frontal assaults. It is from flanking attacks designed to erode its essence and render it impotent, such as:

The Clinton Gun Ban of 1994 (and more recent attempts to revive it)
The attempt to legislatively exclude certain types of guns, such as “semi-automatic” firearms and handguns, from the protection of the Second Amendment
Bureaucratic oversight and restrictive regulation of gun shows

Perhaps the greatest threat to the guarantees of the Second Amendment is its historical but inexplicable exclusion from the commandment of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states in part,

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Second Amendment is the only part of the Bill of Rights that the Supreme Court has not specifically extended to the states through a process known as incorporation, which involves interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to read that no state can deprive its citizens of federally guaranteed rights.

On April 21, 2009 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit marked a milestone in Second Amendment history by ruling that the Second Amendment limits state and local government infringements on our right to keep and bear arms through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in January 2009 in Maloney v. Cuomo, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor signed an opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that states do not have to obey the Second Amendment’s commandment that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. In effect, Sotomayor opined that the Second Amendment does not protect individuals from having their right to keep and bear arms restricted by state governments.

Because the Supreme Court may soon be called upon to determine if the Fourteenth Amendment prevents state and local governments from infringing the guarantees of the Second Amendment, we must be ever vigilant to make certain that those who may one day rule on this critical issue will be faithful to ensure that the liberties guaranteed by the Second Amendment are never lost nor lessened.

Statement on George Tiller's Death

2009-06-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

I condemn the horrible act of violence, made even more despicable by its perpetration in a place of worship, that took the life of Dr. George Tiller and express my deepest sympathy to his widow, his children, and his grandchildren. Life must be valued, from the unborn to the elderly, regardless of one’s views.

Further, I found Mr. Randall Terry’s comments on this tragic event to be calloused and inappropriate, devoid of the grace, compassion, and grief for the loss of life that characterizes those who value the life of the unborn.

Sonia Sotomayor: Four Concerns

2009-05-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

Any capable businessman or businesswoman will tell you that he or she will resist the pressure to make a hasty decision before having all the information necessary to make a good one. “A compelling life story” notwithstanding (Clarence Thomas had an equally compelling life story), Arkansans should have grave concerns and require a thorough investigation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial record. But an ad hominem examination will provide little if any useful information for an intelligent conclusion on this critical decision. Americans recognize and appropriately value the difference between the denigration of a person's character and the examination of a person's positions.

Most serious among those concerns:

1. Her inclination to limit the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
In January 2009 (Maloney v. Cuomo), Sotomayor signed an opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that said that states do not have to obey the Second Amendment’s commandment that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In reaching her opinion, she ignored the 2008 Supreme Court’s decision in Heller v. District of Columbia, in which the high court said that the right to keep and bear arms was a natural right of all Americans and that the Second Amendment guaranteed that right to everyone.

2. Her potential propensity to use her judicial power to make new “law”.
With good reason, we’ll continue to hear her 2005 statement in which she describes the role appellate justices have in forming “policy”:

"All of the legal defense funds out there, they are looking for people with court of appeals experience because the court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law. I know. Okay, I know. I'm not promoting it. I'm not advocating it. I know."

On the other hand, under pressure from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) during her 1997 United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit confirmation hearing, Sotomayor said of her judicial philosophy:

"I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it."

With the President’s statement that he finds himself compelled “to side with Justice [Stephen] Breyer’s view of the Constitution -- that it is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world,” it would seem that one would have to give more weight to her 2005 statement than the 1997 description of her judicial philosophy.

3. Her questionable opinions on reverse discrimination.
According to a report by Seth Stern in CQ Politics on May 27, 2009,

“In 2008, Sotomayor was one of three judges on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit who upheld a trial court's ruling rejecting the reverse discrimination claims by 19 white firefighters, one of whom was also Hispanic. The plaintiffs claimed that the city of New Haven violated their rights by throwing out the results of an officers' promotion exam in which minority candidates received disproportionately low scores.

“The full court voted not to review the case but Judge Jose A. Cabranes [a Bill Clinton appointee] wrote a dissent in which he suggested that Sotomayor's panel ‘failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal.’”

This concern is exacerbated by a Sotomayor statement made in a 2001 interview at Berkeley in response to the famous Sandra Day O'Connor quote, "a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion when deciding case,” Sotomayor responded, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”

4. Her position on the right to life.
Americans United for Life’s analysis of Sotomayor’s position on abortion: “Despite 17 years on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has never directly decided whether a law regulating abortion was constitutional.”

However, pro-choice groups have hailed her nomination, with Planned Parenthood declaring that she "understands the importance of ensuring that our Supreme Court justices respect precedent while also protecting our civil liberties."

(Click here to return the Coleman for Senate Exploratory Committee website.)

The March to Mediocrity

2009-05-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

Americans have been and are the most generous and charitable people in the history of this planet. We have been consistently and frequently astonishingly willing to share our wealth, even when we lacked it ourselves.

In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf coast, flooding more than 80% of New Orleans and causing the death of more than 1,800 people. While the federal government’s failure to respond quickly and adequately was well documented, the national media typically failed to tell the real story about American generosity. The American Red Cross, Southern Baptist Convention, Salvation Army, Oxfam, Common Ground Collective, Emergency Communities, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, Service International, "A River of Hope" and many other charitable organizations raised US$4.25 billion in donations to help the victims of the storm.

The Salvation Army’s immediate response to Hurricane Katrina included more than 5.7 million hot meals, 8.3 million sandwiches, snacks & drinks. Its SATERN network of amateur radio operators picked up where modern communications left off to help locate more than 25,000 survivors. Salvation Army pastoral care counselors were on hand to comfort the emotional and spiritual needs of 277,000 individuals. As part of the overall effort, Salvation Army officers, employees and volunteers contributed more than 900,000 hours of service.

Lurking in the sometimes lofty appeals of the POLR[1] administration is an overreaching federal government's attempt to deprive us of both our resources and our opportunity to voluntarily redistribute our wealth. TARP, cap and trade, health care “reform”, the 2009 and 2010 federal budgets – all ultimately more about ideology than the economy, with POLR’s unapologetic goal of dramatically narrowing the “gap” between those with the highest levels of income and those with little or no income.

This POLR-izing of America requires the continuing transfer of wealth from those with higher incomes to those at lower levels or no incomes – a process that Americans have historically voluntary accomplished through

· thousands of charities and non-profit organizations that have been liberally supported by the most generous culture in the history of the world (something which the POLR administration now wants to discourage), and through

· outstanding Welfare-to-Work programs administered through faith-based organizations, such as the enormously successful program at The Church at Rock Creek in Little Rock (something else POLR now wants to discourage).

POLR wants to move America’s wealth from top to bottom through

· A much more aggressive progressive income tax – which penalizes Americans for being successful

· TARP – which includes a now clearly obvious strategy to control first executive salaries and then all salaries in American’s corporations

· Mortgage foreclosure relief, subsidies and “cram down” legislation – which require Americans who have responsibly and successfully managed their budgets to pay for the failures of those who haven’t

· New EPA regulations – new fees and taxes which will siphon new levels of income from productive businesses and individuals; POLR plans to distribute these new taxpayer funds to those in lower income levels to offset the inevitable dramatically higher home energy costs that will plague all Americans

· New income tax policies – which will eventually remove the requirement of approximately ½ of Americans to pay income taxes and expand “refunds” to those who have paid no taxes, therefore passing the entire tax burden to the “top” 50% of income-producing of Americans, dramatically increasing the tax burden on America’s most productive citizens and removing all incentive for 50% of voters to have any vested interest in controlling the size or cost of government, constituting the most egregious bribe of American voters in history.

The greatest tragedy of the mandated redistribution of wealth is not the inevitable disenfranchisement of America’s glorious creative entrepreneurial spirit. It is not that the labors of America’s workers are marginalized as their rewards are requisitioned. It is not the liberties lost to those from whom wealth is demanded. The tragic peripeteia of redistributed wealth is the liberty forever lost to those to whom the wealth is redirected. It is that those recipients become forever enslaved to the redistributors. That those who govern subjugate those whom they endow is invariably confirmed in history.

President Gerald Ford warned us that "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."

One of my (now deceased) mentors summed this up most succinctly:

· You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.
· What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
· The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
· When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.

In 1787 the Scottish history professor Alexander Tyler wrote:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

"Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

Can we break this catastrophic cycle or are we doomed to the ruinous repetition of history even in our own lifetimes? If anyone can change the course that has so miserably failed in so many other countries – it’s Americans.

Let us stand up and be just that – Americans! We reject this disemboweling of the American dream, this disenfranchisement of the American spirit, this sinister March to Mediocrity.

Click here to return the Coleman for Senate Exploratory Committee website.

[1]POLR – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, President Barack Obama, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Senator Harry Reid