"Pledge to America" Unveiled by Republicans (Full Text)

Members of the Republican House leadership, from left to right, Michigan Rep. Candice Miller, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam, Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader John Boehner, introduce the party's new "America Speaking Out" campaign at the Newseum May 25, 2010, in Washington.

/ Getty Images

CBS News has obtained a final draft of House Republicans' legislative agenda for the next Congress, a 21-page "Pledge to America" that they will formally unveil Thursday morning at a Virginia hardware store.

"The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated," the introduction says.

It continues: "With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America."

For a breakdown of the document, check out "Pledge to America: The New Republican Agenda," by CBS News Senior Political Producer Jill Jackson. Below are some highlights, and the full document is at the bottom.

Jobs:

- Stop job-killing tax hikes

- Allow small businesses to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income

- Require congressional approval for any new federal regulation that would add to the deficit

- Repeal small business mandates in the new health care law.

Cutting Spending:

- Repeal and Replace health care

- Roll back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels before TARP and stimulus (will save $100 billion in first year alone)

- Establish strict budget caps to limit federal spending going forward

- Cancel all future TARP payments and reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Reforming Congress:

- Will require that every bill have a citation of constitutional authority

- Give members at least 3 days to read bills before a vote

Defense:

- Provide resources to troops

- Fund missile defense

- Enforce sanctions in Iran

GOP's "Pledge" Gets Mixed Reviews from Conservatives
Rep. Mike Pence Defends Pledge
Critical Contests: Interactive Map with CBS News 2010 Election Race Ratings

Updated: The Full Text of the Final Version is Below:

[PatrioticAmerican1956]

If you spent as much time researching the real truth as you do regurgitating what the wing-nut right idiots broadcast on Fox News, you might be smart enough to see the smoke and mirrors yourself. Before you get p_ssed off and blow your top, why not do some real research of the content you just broadcast? After all, it is better to be thought of as a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!!

[winks_LBJ]

And likewise, 1 million paranoid rants will not make you appear to have 1 brain!!! Democracy is a vehicle for maintaining our republic, not our form of government. You are the one who is dumb. You should try to do some research on your own, instead of regurgitating lies from the same old tired web site you have been referencing for over a month now. Get over it!!! The pledge which originated these posts is already ancient history, so why do you dwell on something that happened 150 years ago? You think the repuke teatards are going to restore your phantom amendment? Get real dude!!

[ZerObamaLameDuckBarack]

This is not about Bushlicans or Obamacrats this is about Restoring the republicS and ABOLISHING DEMOCRACY = SLAVERY = TYRANNY.

In our COnstitutional Republic there is no place for Anti-American Bushlicans or Obamacrats. Your reign of de facto CORPORATION COV'T, Corruption & Fraud is about to be ABOLISHED.

www.RepublicOfTheUnitedStates.org

[BIGGOP]

Obama has Driven the American Economy into a ditch. He wasted 3 trillion dollars raised unemployment to 10 percent and apologized to the world. The Pledge stops the Government overreaching and over spending, is it perfect? no there should be term limits and balanced budget but at least its a step in the right direction. The American voters are ready to fix the mistake of thinking any change is good. Obamas change ended up being a disaster.

[PatrioticAmerican1956]

You have a short memory. The cause of thiese problems came began before Obama took office!

[rzrbckred]

What a load of crap. Forget how John Stewart already pointed out how the new "Pledge" is shockingly similar to the same crap they've been saying since '94. There's NOTHING specific or of any kind of substance there. Sounds like the campaign pledge of a 12 year old running for student council president.
They may as well pledge to:
Do good things for America, not bad.
Free Ice Cream for everyone!
Less homework and longer recess
Let's also keep in mind it seems to take every one of their best minds to get together once every few months and come out with something as utterly stupid as this for the whole group to stand on. Then you start hearing the same handful of talking points over and over again from each of them. How are people so easily fooled by this charade of idiots trying not to have their true inadequacies outed? This half-assed pledge just tells me that this is the best the LEADERS of the party can come up with, and it's absolutely nothing.

[winks_LBJ]

Nothing about balanced budgets; nothing about term limits; repeal the healthcare law and the re-pass most of it??? These guys are not serious about anything except their golf games.

[gorge548]

This is just more of the same BS. Where is there anything about limiting immigration by illegals and putting a stop to allowing citizenship for newborns.

If they are sincere then I would like to see them taken off their gravy train of pensions and healthcare and join the rest of Americans with Social Security, Medicare and retirement similar to industry today.

[winks_LBJ]

Zero, You are the revisionist, paranoid idiot. The post you referenced (as well as about 1000 other posts which you chose to ignore) clearly explains that there were several revisions of the 13th amendment before the final version as we know it was ratified and then signed by the President. I have not denied the existence of other versions of this amendment, but only ONE has been ratified and signed by a US president, and that is the one we know. Congress NEVER added it to any version of the Constitution. Only the states in which the various revisions were ratified was the text printed in state constitutions. If you look at the wonderful historical images on the web site YOU referenced, you can see this very clearly. The so called revisionist at the end, whom you claim had no facts, factually outlined the progression of each state as it joined the union and the subsequent resulting ratification requirements. Clearly, the so called revisionist offered facts. You simply choose to ignore them, because you would rather rant about something that happened 150 years ago, and about whether or not Columbus was Italian!?!?! SERIOUSLY??? Get into this century Zero. You are not worth any more of my time. This string was interesting until it became a battle of wits and facts with a totally unarmed opponent. Good luck to you. Again, I invite you to get the Fu(k out of this country is you so loath the revisionist history we are being taught and so loath the foundations of DEMOCRACY. I am following several other conversation strings in which the people are actually literate and interested in this world - not the alternate reality you seem to espouse. Enjoy life.

[ZerObamaLameDuckBarack]

DEMOCRACY?? That is where the BIG LIE REVISIONISM STARTED.

We are nto a DEMOCRACY we are a Constiutional Representative Republic.
Maybe you need to recite The Pledge of Allegiance again and pay attention this time "and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands..." did you see anything there about DUMBOCRACY???
DEMOCRACY = SLAVERY = TYRANNY
We the People Will Rule AGAIN.

CONGRESS passed an act to Fund the education of Children on teh newly ratitified ORIGINAL 13th Amendment. Does it make any sense they would do this because it it was not ratified?
What your revisionist buddy wrote in there is a bunch of BS. Even if the new states ratified the FAKE FRAUDULENT 13th they did it without full disclosure of the ORIGINAL 13th Already existing. This was done during Reconstruction decades after the ORIGINAL 13th was already part of the Constitution for decades.
1000 revisionist Communist Lies will NEVER replace the ONE TRUTH.

[dabbrown]

Now, Obama will have to come up with a new line besides "The Republicans are the party of no".

[winks_LBJ]

Yes, now he can call them the party of NO HELP for Americans.

[winks_LBJ]

Zero, apparently, you skipped half of my response. When Virginia ratified the original version of the 13th Amendment, they were the first and only state. The document was re-written twice before the version we know of today (the one which outlaws slavery), was fully ratified by both houses and all the states then signed by the president. Aside from my college education, I have also seen a microfilm of the 13th Amendment in elementary school when we were taught about the Emancipation Proclamation. Even if your logic is correct, and there is some secret hidden or lost 13th Amendment, that merely means that the one Lincoln signed which repeals slavery is really the 14th Amendment, and the one we know as the 14th is the 15th and so on. If Congress attempted to modify the first version of the 13th amendment, that does not negate the passage of what we know today as the 13th Amendment. Or perhaps you need elementary school leve math and logic courses as well?

Again, as for your slavery comments: whether you are on welfare or whether you are a taxpayer, you are not a slave. You have every right to leave this country anytime. I dare you to find any place better. In fact, if you think our political parties and our democratic system only lead to indoctrination and slavery, you should get the he11 out!!

[ZerObamaLameDuckBarack]

There was never a period of more than 30 yrs without an amendment to the COnstitution in our early history. Does it make any sense that in over 65 yrs there was no Amendment especially after the first 2 and when the country was still in its infancy?

HERE and this is from a LIEberal website. Visit there and you can see the 1825 copies of the Constitution withthe ORIGINAL 13th Ratified Amendment. You college History Course if indoctrianting you blinding you to the TRUTH and FACTS.

It also had a secondary purpose, which would have an astounding today:
http://www.w3f.com/...

In the winter of 1983, archival research expert David Dodge, and former Baltimore police investigator Tom Dunn, were searching for evidence of government corruption in public records stored in the Belfast Library on the coast of Maine. By chance, they discovered the library's oldest authentic copy of the Constitution of the United States (printed in 1825). Both men were stunned to see this document included a 13th Amendment that no longer appears on current copies of the Constitution. Moreover, after studying the Amendment's language and historical context, they realized the principle intent of this "missing" 13th Amendment was to prohibit lawyers from serving in government.

So began a seven-year, nationwide search for the truth surrounding the most bizarre Constitutional puzzle in American history -- the unlawful removal of a ratified Amendment from the Constitution of the United States. Since 1983, Dodge and Dunn have uncovered additional copies of the Constitution with the "missing" 13th Amendment printed in at least eighteen separate publications by ten different states and territories over four decades from 1822 to 1860.

In June of this year, Dodge uncovered the evidence that this missing 13th Amendment had indeed been lawfully ratified by the state of Virginia and was therefore an authentic Amendment to the American Constitution. If the evidence is correct and no logical errors have been made, a 13th Amendment restricting lawyers from serving in government was ratified in 1819 and removed from our Constitution during the tumult of the Civil War.

Since the Amendment was never lawfully repealed, it is still the Law today. The implications are enormous.


So what is in this mystery 13th Amendment:

"If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them."

For those who want hard evidence, I offer up the Constitution of the United States of America, printed in 1825 in Portland, Maine:

SEARCH for ORIGINAL 13th or READ ON here on a LIEberal website with pictured PROOF (this just proves that one can be LIED TO and MISGUIDED and educated by LIES):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/10/155241/107

[winks_LBJ]

Zero, I take back my suggestion that you take a college class. You are far too stupid and paranoid for higher education. You would hold the rest of the class back with your refusal or inability to read and comprehend facts. Perhaps you should start with elementary school, because apparently you cannot even read or comprehend my posts or the web sites you reference in your own idiotic post. In my previous post, I clearly state that there was a proposed 13th Amendment. Anyone with any knowledge of history knows this. In fact, here is what I said: "There is a KERNEL of truth to that. In 1825, Virginia ratified a proposed amendment to prohibit lawyers from serving in congress, but no other states ratified this amendment, so it was never formally ratified by our nation." To further illuminate what seems to be so elusive to you, the president never signed this amendment - IT WAS NEVER RATIFIED.

Now, since apparently you do not read thoroughlly, this is from the web site you are referencing:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/10/155241/107

"Even if Virginia ratified the amendment at any time during the ratification process, the amendment did not become part of the Constitution, because the amendment was never just one state away from this threshold. If Virginia ratified in 1819, as extremists claim, the ratification came far too late to matter.

When the amendment was submitted to the states in 1810, 13 ratifications were required; Louisiana was admitted to the Union on April 30, 1812, raising the required number of ratifications to 14. Prior to that date the amendment had received only 11 ratifications

New Hampshire ratified on December 9, 1812, raising the total number of ratifications to 12 out of the needed 14. But Indiana was admitted on December 11, 1816, raising the required number of ratifications to 15. Mississippi's admission on December 10, 1817, did not change the threshold, but Illinois's admission on December 3, 1818 raised the threshold to 16.

The extremist claim that these later states are not relevant, because an amendment only needs the support of three-fourths of the states in existence when it was submitted to the states. History reveals this claim to be specious - and this fact was known at the time the amendment was under consideration. "

Now just for the sake of indulging your very inferior intellect, let's just assume for a second your logic is correct. Let's assume that is really does not make sense for the Constitution to have stood for 65 years with no successful amendments - SO WHAT!! Is that proof of anything? No, of course not!

If indeed, as you say, this was a legitimate amendment, SO WHAT? That merely means we now have 28 amendments instead of 27. What else exactly would it prove??

[winks_LBJ]

Zero, I can defend my opinions, prove you wrong and ALSO insult you, because people like you deserve to be insulted. You are insulting every intelligent and educated American with your stupid bu11$hit - and all it takes in order for evil to spread is for good people to remain silent. I won't remain silent in the face of your evil comments. So first: when half of yor income is taken in the form of taxes in order to pay for the society in which we are lucky enough to live freely, that is not slavery. We have the right to leave this country if we wish - slaves do not. In fact, you seem to hate it here in this ENSLAVED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL country we have here - why don't you LEAVE???) We have the right to quit our job or be unemployed (in fact, I think one of your paranoid screeds was about how the dems are paying for people not to work...hardly slavery!!) You are so cought up in your conspiracy theories, you don't know which paranoid belief system to rant about at any given moment.

Now, as for your so-called missing 13th amendment. There is a KERNEL of truth to that. In 1825, Virginia ratified a proposed amendment to prohibit lawyers from serving in congress, but no other states ratified this amendment, so it was never formally ratified by our nation. Originally the amendment was co-authored and sponsored by Representatives James Mitchell Ashley (Republican, Ohio) and James F. Wilson (Republican, Iowa) and Senator John B. Henderson (Democrat, Missouri).

The 13th amendment was actually re-authored three times, because the first two versions did not pass (though neither of the first two have anything to do with the education of schoolchildren.) While the Senate did pass the amendment in the form we know of today on April 8, 1864, by a vote of 38 to 6, the House declined to do so. After it was reintroduced by Representative James Mitchell Ashley, President Lincoln took an active role to ensure its passage through the House by ensuring the amendment was added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts came to fruition when the House passed the bill on January 21, 1865, by a vote of 119 to 56. The Thirteenth Amendment's archival copy bears a Presidential signature, under the usual ones of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, after the words "Approved February 1, 1865."

You should really take a college level history class if you are qualified, sheesh or just google some of this stuff before you make yourself look more ignorant or crazy. I showed some of my liberal friends your posts, and they told me to lay off of you because you are probably retarded or something, and they feel sorry for you.

[ZerObamaLameDuckBarack]

Virgina was teh last state required to RARITY the Orginal 13th Amendment therefore it was RATIFIED.

Where is the RATIFICATION of your "President Lincoln took an active role to ensure its passage through the House by ensuring the amendment was added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts came to fruition when the House passed the bill on January 21, 1865, by a vote of 119 to 56. The Thirteenth Amendment's archival copy bears a Presidential signature, under the usual ones of the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, after the words "Approved February 1, 1865.""

SHOW US PROOF OF THE RATIFICATION OF THE 1865 13th Amendment with your college level history course.

BTW I said there was an ACT of CONGRESS that provided funding for education of children on the ratififed ORIGINAL 13th Amendment in 1822.
Why would CONGRESS approve funding by an ACT to educate children on a 13th Amendment that was ONLY Ratified by ONE STATE (Virginia).
Do you see problems in these scenarios above? SHANANIGANS? LIES? FRAUD?

Lets use your college level (INDOCTRINATION) courses and follow the facts to a TRUTHFUL CONSLUSION.
This is not about Bushlicans or Obamacrats....it is about FREEDOM and TRUTH.

As for slavery. Getting a gov't check is SLAVERY.
Slaves were also given enough to keep them on the fields working. A gov't check keeps a need for fudning and budgets and gov't jobs to keep the slaves tuned in and VOTING. MODERN SLAVERY is DEMOCRACY. Only a LIEBERAL blind wouldn't see.

[winks_LBJ]

Zero, apparently, you skipped half of my response. When Virginia ratified the original version of the 13th Amendment, they were the first and only state. The document was re-written twice before the version we know of today (the one which outlaws slavery), was fully ratified by both houses and all the states then signed by the president. Aside from my college education, I have also seen a microfilm of the 13th Amendment in elementary school when we were taught about the Emancipation Proclamation. Even if your logic is correct, and there is some secret hidden or lost 13th Amendment, that merely means that the one Lincoln signed which repeals slavery is really the 14th Amendment, and the one we know as the 14th is the 15th and so on. If Congress attempted to modify the first version of the 13th amendment, that does not negate the passage of what we know today as the 13th Amendment. Or perhaps you need elementary school leve math and logic courses as well? Again, as for your slavery comments: whether you are on welfare or whether you are a taxpayer, you are not a slave. You have every right to leave this country anytime. I dare you to find any place better. In fact, if you think our political parties and our democratic system only lead to indoctrination and slavery, you should get the he11 out!!