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THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY’S COLLEGE REPUBLICANS NEWSLETTER

NOV 2011

Welcome Back!

SE Cupp Speaks to CRsChristmas Party

CRs and Campaigns

Conservative Perspective

Interested in Writing?jill@gwcollegerepublicans.org

spring semester 2012

Who Will It Be?

2012 Primary Schedule

in this issue:SE Cupp Speaks to the GW College Republicans

Christmas with the CRs

College Republicans and Campaigns

Conservative Perspective Kevin Reagan Alex Marchak Christopher Ring Michael Morgan

Upcoming Events

2012 Primary Schedule

Interested in Writing?

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SE CUPPvisits the College Republicans

On December 5th, conservative political commentator and writer SE

Cupp came to speak to the GW College Republicans and GW YAF.

SE talked about a variety of topics, including the candidates up for the

GOP nomination and her personal views on religion. As expected, she

was an great speaker to have (and she’s hilarious). We hope to have her

back to speak to the CRs soon!

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CRs Christmas

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December 8th, 2011

The CRs gathered at Tonic to celebrate an early Christmas before leaving for break. The food was amazing and everyone had a great time!

More from the Festivities...

5What a great way to end the year!

CRs and Campaigns

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Elie Litvin makes phone calls for Mitt Romney

College Republicans campaigning for Jon Huntsman

the conservative perspective

Kevin Reagan

Terrorists in Paradise: Guantanamo

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By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposi-tion of individuals currently detained by the Depart-ment of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo… – Executive Order #13492, January 22, 2009

There is no question that the upcoming election will largely be a referendum on the economy and the Obama administration’s abysmal management of it. And there is no question that Republicans should have no shortage of ammunition with which to hit the Obama administration, including numerous promises which the president has failed to keep. However, there is one significant promise the presi-dent has failed to keep which has garnered relatively little attention and which the Republicans will never mention (nor should they).

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, nearly three full years after President Obama signed an executive order for its closure, Club G’itmo is still open for business. We continue to house some of the world’s most danger-ous terrorists, sorry, “enemy combatants,” (no wait, I can’t use that term either… er, religiously-motivated and impassioned activists) at that tropical location.

Of course, the fact that the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay remain open must irk the Left more than I can even begin to imagine. After all, this is where we commit all sorts of atrocities against the

captured subjects. They are undoubtedly struggling to survive while watching big screen televisions and dividing bulk meals amongst themselves (and saving the rest for later).

One of the most repeated arguments against Guan-tanamo is the occasional use of enhanced interroga-tion techniques against select detainees to gain information. Critics decry techniques like water-boarding, calling them torture. The fact that there is still a debate over whether waterboarding is torture astounds me. When many more journalists have willingly submitted themselves to the treatment than the number of times it has been used against detain-ees in interrogation to prove it is torture, it is clearly not torture. A sane individual would never willingly submit himself to torture. Chopping off a finger or injecting pepper spray under the toenails is torture; waterboarding is not. Nor is it used nearly to the extent the Left would have you believe. The reports about the 83 (or 183, depending on the source) incidences in which it was done to Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and other individuals are absolutely false. And the former CIA director, Leon Panetta (whom Obama appointed, no less), admitted that enhanced interrogation techniques have produced good intelligence… but excuse my tangent.

The fact remains that the United States continues to bend over backwards to accommodate detainees. The Guantanamo Bay facility is such a house of horrors that:

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Policies have been enacted with regard to respect-ing the faith and practices of the detainees. Each detainee is given a Koran in their language, and a surgical mask. The surgical mask is used as stor-age for the Koran. It is hung from the wall in the cell of the detainee. There is a recorded call to prayer that is broadcast five times a day. During the broadcast, a yellow traffic cone, with a big “P” stenciled on it, is placed at the center of each cell block. This is a signal to the guards to maintain a respectful silence while the detainees are praying. There are also arrows around the camp that point in the direction of Mecca. Certain “comfort” items are provided to detainees that comply with the rules of the camp. These items include a prayer rug, perfume oil, and prayer beads.

Of course, the Washington Post cries over the president apparently “caving” to political pressure and that the administration did not push hard enough for its closure. Indeed, the White House did face steep opposition to the closure of the facility from Congress. However, that opposition was backed by the American people. A majority of Americans believe that Guantanamo should remain open. Could it be that the administration was actually listening to the American people? It must be a coincidence.

There were reports circulating recently that the administration was considering a deal to release high-ranking Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in exchange for peace talks. That is very problematic considering the nature of many of the leaders, most of whom were field commanders and liaisons to Al Qaeda. The administration has denied the deal, and I certainly hope it is telling the truth. Given the already alarming recidivism rate out of Guan-tanamo Bay, we cannot afford to release these despicable individuals back into the fight.

Yes, Guantanamo is still open, and it should abso-lutely stay open. It is more than sufficient to meet our needs in terms of detaining and trying those who are attempting to kill American troops and civilians. Just don’t say that too loudly. We actually don’t want the administration to follow through on this one.

Almost every election we Americans are told: this one will be the most important of our lives! Now we all know that this is a phrase used by the media and campaigns to liven up enthusiasm for ratings or support, respectively. But this year it's obvious that Americans' frustration with the government has soared to a new level. This frustration was building in 2008, but since has been enhanced by the policies and lack of leadership of President Obama and Congress. Common sense tells us this!

America has an opportunity to commence the pro-cess of getting back on track, and the Republican Presidential candidates should be providing hope for America's resurgence. 2012 should be the year for this to occur, but when I look at the Republican Field viscously attacking one another, I see President Obama emerging unscathed and armed with new attack ideas, given to him by his political enemies. The establishment GOP is not innocent either. They are so worried about the politics, who can beat Obama, and who has less "baggage," that they are missing the point. The point of elections is not who can survive the attacks and rumors only to crawl across the finish line, the point of elections, espe-cially this one, should be the ideas and solutions that can once again create an environment in America where jobs can be created and people can prosper. Establishment Republicans are so convinced that Mitt Romney is the only one who can beat Obama, that they have created this attitude of: destroy all other candidates, so no one can hear all their ideas and possibly like them. I hear many pundits say: that's what a primary is for. Throw pointless attacks at all the candidates and see which one can take it, and therefore emerge stronger to challenge the President. Wrong! That is not what a primary is for. The goal of a primary should be: which candidate has the most innovative solutions and proven ability to work with both sides to actually get legislation passed that will improve, not harm, the country as a whole. If Republicans want to expand the party and make more Americans understand conservative solutions and how affective they are, then this primary season must be one

Who’s the Enemy?Alex Marchak

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in which candidates draw off one another's ideas and have substantive debates, where new solutions are brought to the table. This way the people can see which candidate has better ideas and each candidate can even gain insight from their oppo-nents. That's how a candidate emerges stronger from a primary to challenge and defeat the Presi-dent!

But with the establishment Republicans thinking their own candidates are the enemy and each candidate throwing attack ads at each other, the race completely loses its focus on actual issues that make a difference in our lives. Of course the candi-dates are all trying to prove they're the best man or woman to beat the President, but they need to keep their focus on attacking the final opponent: Presi-dent Obama. The voters will then determine which candidate has the best and most innovative solu-tions to debate the President in the fall. But so far, nothing productive, in terms of new and bold solutions, has come out of this primary season- with the exception of Newt Gingrich's immigration, judicial, and other ideas outlined in the 21st Cen-tury Contract with America and Herman Cain's commencing of a dialogue on tax reform. We need more candidates with the courage to talk about issues, even when they're controversial to the conservative base, and avoid the horse race the media reports on all the time.

That brings me to the topic: Who is the political enemy of the Republican Party? If it's President Obama, they’re certainly not acting like it. In fact, Republicans are helping keep him and his disas-trous agenda in office for four more years through their focus on the politics of this primary instead of talking about ideas that the American people would surely get on board with if they were to have the candidates explain it to them instead of demolish-ing their fellow conservatives. The only way I see President Obama being beaten is if Conservatives and Republicans nominate a candidate who will speak to the people's concerns and provide them with solutions for the future. That's a campaign based on Hope and Change- not one based on attack ads that tear candidates with good ideas down. It's common sense! If Republicans do chose to continue to focus on the attack and negative campaign style, Obama will be reelected, because there's simply no one better at dirty, viscous, and

negative politics than President Obama. After all, it was his Chicago style politics that put him in the White House.

Congratulations! Today is the first day you get to file your income taxes. You ready Turbotax 2012 and start running through the tax code in order to grab as many deductions as you can find for your miserable self. Then, after staring at the manual for 30 straight hours looking for the most obscure deductions that you could possibly use, you fall asleep right in the middle of the Turbotax manual and wake up several hours later realising that your goal of taking advan-tage of the ever so glorious grotesque thing that is the American tax code is a total failure. That is if you did not major in accounting or one or both of your par-ents is an accountant. The horrendous existence of the so-called “Internal Revenue Service Code of 1986” is not only a disgrace to these United States but to humanity as well. A select few of übermensch known as certified public accountants or rich people who hire CPAs can dare to be the masters of this monstrosity. (If you do not know what übermensch means look it up or you’re a communist.) If you are not one, sucks for you. Again, unless you have par-ents as accountants you are most likely going to die a horrible miserable death in trying to master the code. (This lucking son of a gun has two CPAs as his par-ents but for some incredibly screwed up reason, will not be majoring in accounting as he finds studying the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and how awesome Rhodesia was much more fascinating. HAHAHA what a loser!)

Anyways, the moral of this incredibly depressing story is that the Internal Revenue Service Code of 1986 is too complicated for virtually everyone in the country. Even CPAs have severe issues trying to master it. (WARNING: Stay as far away from John and Lisa Ring during the filing of the Ring family taxes.

The American Tax Code and Why it Sucks

Christopher Ring

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It gets quite ugly!) Yet there once was a time, back in 1986 when the greatest president ever after Jefferson Finis Davis was in office, the Redskins were actually winning football games and going to the playoffs routinely, and the tax code was cleaned up for the most part. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, the second round of Reagan tax cuts, was passed overwhelmingly by both houses. The Act was originally sponsored in the House by Democrat Dick Gephardt (this was before he became a com-munist progressive) and in the Senate by former basketball legend Democrat Bill Bradley. This was a remarkable bipartisan achievement that was very popular in both the Congress and the country. The act eliminated most deductions, loopholes, subsi-dies, and BS that was in the tax code and left in its place were two rates of 15% and 28%. It was incredibly awesome for Americans to actually understand the tax code and they were not being cheated by the IRS. (Being cheating by the IRS? Surely you can’t be serious? I am serious, and don’t call me surely. HAHAHAHA what a joke!)

Ever since this ever so glorious event, terrible things happened. President Bush the First lost his marbles against the Democrats in a budget and had to introduce a “special” tax rate for the wealthiest among us in 1990. “The Bubba” aka Bill Clinton and his Democrats in Congress barely passed a massive tax increase in 1993 that partially lead to the takeover by Gingrich in 1994. In the 17 years following, taxes were cut but the waste flooded back in to the point where the IRS is losing just over a trillion dollars in tax expenditures. (Welfare State much?) Then a presidential commission on deficit reduction in 2010 came up with a crazy idea. Why don’t we eliminate ALL of the expenditures in the IRS Code of 1986 and leave the rates at 8%, 14%, and 23%? Such a radical idea is it not? Of course this Marxist-Leninist-Obamist living at 1600 Pennsylvania used the commission as toilet paper instead of something meaningful. Out of the many blunders that Obama, the General-Secretary of the United Soviet Socialist States of America, has made, this was the worst and potentially could end his Soviet regime to Mitt Romney and Chris Chris-tie. (Christie would just eat his regime for break-fast.)

Well, what to do? Right now there is not much, but there is some relief in the future. Each of the three

men in the Republican primary race have ideas on how to fix this “thing”. (Intentionally ignoring Ron Paul for you Paultards out there.) Gingrich wants an optional flat-tax of 15% with several deductions left allowed. While a flat-tax is an excellent idea, the massive drop in revenue would lead to another downgrade unless you cut ten trillion over the next decade. Rick Santorum has called for two rates of 10% and 28% along with the elimination of most deductions, very similar to the 1986 act. I would highly recommend that all those brave souls who have even bothered to care to read this much should look at Santorum. Yes, the frothy mixture will always remain but Santorum’s tax plan is serious, doable, and deserves consideration. (He is serious but do not call him surely.) Mitt Romney is proposing a top rate of no higher than 25%, as seen in the Ryan budget. Romney has also indicated that once in office, he would sign the Ryan budget, which would leave two rates of 15% and 25% left along with a few deduc-tions. (Disclosure: this loser is a die-hard Romney supporter.)

On a personal level, I strongly favour a tax code that is left with no expenditures and two or three rates. I believe the easiest transition to a better tax code is to take out the top three rates in the tax code presently and take out the deductions. This leaves a 10%, 15%, and 25% as the three rates left with no deductions. While over a decade this is a considerable tax hike, I also favour eliminating the current corporate tax code with a flat rate of 20% for all businesses, lower than the average tax rate of 27% for businesses presently. Over time, a goal of establishing a flat tax for both businesses and individuals of 15% with no loopholes is most desirable, but an interlude is required as a sudden shift would lead to a drop in revenue that cannot be afforded.

If you bothered to read this, YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND! Why read something this boring and useless? You must have something else better to do such as taking the girl next door out on a date to Morton’s. And now your moment of zen.

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Let’s talk Medicare and Medicaid. That’s just some-thing the liberals love to hammer us on. I hope I’m not the only one who finds it ironic that the Far Left, the ones who champion their support for Medicare and Medicaid more than any other group, are the ones slowly destroying it. Rather than buckle down and reform it, rather than rework the benefits system to allocate for changing funds and necessities, they’d love to put forth a visage of complacency. In the good old days, when you pretended an arrow wound was fine, it usually became gangrenous and death would occur quickly. Now that we’ve got billions of federal spending to cover the wound, it looks less gangre-nous, but death is sure on its way. Why is it that Medicare pays $8.26 per liter of saline solution whereas the Department of Veterans affairs (VA) pays only $1.02 per liter. That wouldn’t be too repre-hensible, except that’s not the only case of overpay-ment by Medicare (not by a long shot), as well as saline solutions being one of the most commonly used medical solutions (used for a majority of people spending a day in the hospital or longer. You know those tubes you see going into patients in hospitals in all teledrams? Yeah. Those are saline solutions).

Furthermore, a solution from the Left to curb the ‘slightly growing problem’ of Medicare and Medicaid patients has been to drop payments to the primary healthcare providers (i.e. give less money to the private practice radiologists, physicians, pediatri-cians, etc. I mean, they’ve got enough money as it is, right?) The only problem with this is that primary healthcare providers aren’t required to see Medicare and Medicaid patients, meaning that these private practitioners (who tend to be the best of the best in their respective fields) will start refusing to see these patients in order to make more money from full-paying patients. This is an outrage. Sacrificing the quality of care because the bureaucrats are too lazy to make the spending changes to allocate for sufficient funds? It really gets at me when people say the Right doesn’t care about the poor, about the unemployed, about those on Medicare and Medicaid. It really gets at me when the Left champions sustainability and equal care for all. Both of these things couldn’t be more factually incorrect.

In Washington State, Medicaid patients have been informed they will receive three non-emergency related visits to the E.R, and any extra visits will come out of their own pocket (which, if such was possible, they wouldn’t be on Medicaid). Some of these ‘non-emergency related visits’ are shortness of breath and asthma attacks, kidney stones, and non-specific congestive heart failure. It doesn’t surprise me the Left doesn’t consider these as serious prob-lems (I mean, this is the same party that considers federal debt a blessing, not a problem), but it does surprise me that they’d cut the quality and number of E.R. visits before even beginning to relook at frivo-lous spendings.

But enough ranting, how about solutions? Something that the Left claims that we don’t have. Well, without a degree in Public Health, here are some solutions I think can reach across partisan lines (at least, until that one extremist incites class-warfare, and then I guess we’re plum-outta-luck):

Medicaid patients to buy the healthcare plan that best supports their specific needs (no more of this ‘5 acupuncture sessions per year’ shenanigans. Nobody uses those).

out-of-pocket copay for Medicaid patients when visiting the E.R. (something negligible based on a sliding scale based on income), this would greatly reduce the amount of spending on repeat-visitors to the E.R. for nonsense reasons. Each visit costs Med-icaid at bare minimum $1400. Of course, we can’t just ask Medicaid families to pay this with no assis-tance. If the government gave $2000 into a Health Savings Account (HSA) for each Medicaid recipient, then the copay could be deductible from the HSA. For the patient who visited the ER 125 times for nonsense reasons (yes, this happens, caused by A.B.S., acute-boredom-syndrome), if they had any skin in the game at all, then these repeat visits would be decreased significantly, thus reducing total state payments to ER visits. Then, with these HSA’s, Medicaid recipients can use this money on over-the-counter drugs, cosmetics (i.e. braces), and other great uses that Medicaid doesn’t cover (or doesn’t cover adequately). Imagine, saving money AND increasing coverage/capabilities for Medicaid recipi-ents. No wonder the Far Left hates us.

Let’s Talk Medicare and MedicaidMichael Morgan

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Interested in writing for the CR Monthly? Contact Jill Reavis at Jill@gwrepublicans.org

The views expressed in the CR Monthly represent those of our members, and are not necessarily the views or positions of the College Republican National Committee, the DC

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