Regardless of where you live, join the fight to take back the NJ and VA

Thankfully, the RNC is attracting new donors daily to the cause of electing Republicans to public office.  As we get closer to election time, it becomes increasingly important that we find ways to decrease our operating costs in order to provide more money and resources to Party-building activities and candidate support. 

As discussed in a prior Blog, I encourage energy efficiency in our office, to the point of being called a “Dad.”  We periodically send a few ideas to our employees to help reduce our expenses and conserve resources, and I wanted to share our latest tips with you:

• It's a turn-off. Shut down your computer, monitor, printer, lights, those energy hogging space heaters, and electrical equipment before leaving your office, even if it's just for a couple of hours.  Be a good neighbor and turn off any lights that neighbors may have left on after they have gone home for the day.  And neighbors don't turn against neighbors for being thoughtful ... more
  
  

With an ever-increasing number of Czar appointments by President Obama, it has become clear that no position is too absurd. In an effort to assist in adding another cumbersome bureaucratic layer to government and to help properly ensure the basic human right of friendship to all Americans, a new Friendship Fairness Czar has recently been appointed.

Tasked with the daunting responsibility of making sure that every  Facebook user is equal, this new Czar will help redistribute the wealth of friendship from those who are too popular to those who are poor in friends.

Please immediately report to the Friendship Fairness Administration on Facebook for your assessment. 

Details of how the position of Friendship Fairness Czar works are superfluous. The Czar may or may not have been properly vetted.  The most important thing is that disparity in the number of Facebook friendships is ended.

If it’s a busy day for the Obama Administration, it’s a busy day for us at the RNC Research Department.

On Recovery.gov, the White House just released the number of “jobs created or saved” as reported by federal contractors: 30,383. That’s less than 6 jobs “created or saved” per federal contractor … which is a far cry from the White House’s claim last month that at least 600,000 jobs “created or saved” by the stimulus. RNC Research was all over it, noting that Obama will be reporting 3 different stimulus job counts in the span of 2 months, estimates that have proven to be completely unreliable, all in an effort to turn Americans away from the reality that America has lost over 2.6 million jobs since Obama’s stimulus passed.

Vice President Joe Biden, otherwise known as Dr. Gaffe, is on the road today, visiting Minnesota to raise money for the DNC. It’ll be costly for any Minnesotan to shake hands with Biden today, with the minimum donation at $7,600 per person or $15,200 per couple. ... more

Be sure to check out

Stomping Grounds:  Who's Overseeing Medicare And Medicaid?

Communications: Tricky Business of Job Counting

by Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX)

When I was a practicing physician, I had patients with the best private health insurance available as well as patients with Medicare and Medicaid. I have seen what works and what doesn’t.

Meaningful reform should make it easier for Americans to shop for health care insurance, just like we shop for car insurance.  Let’s reform the tax code so that it treats small businesses, families and individuals looking for health care insurance the same way it treats big companies.  Let’s remove the barriers for patients with pre-existing conditions, and let’s allow patients to shop across state lines.

Medical liability reform is an important area that is largely ignored by Democrats.  President Obama has proposed “demonstration projects,” but these are not needed, because the President should look no farther than to Texas for what should be the national model for how it is done right.  A few of the impressive accomplishments of Texas’ 2003 reforms ... more

That is the question we asked thousands of our followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook last week and the responses are still coming in!  You can see the many faces of your fellow GOPers and their great responses by checking out Republican Faces.  While you’re at it, why don’t you add your own picture and Republican reasoning to the collage by submitting your information on this form.

In April of 2009, I accepted Chairman Steele’s offer to join the staff of the Republican National Committee.  I came in with an understanding that we, the RNC, operate on the “kindness of strangers.”  Those strangers that I speak of are ordinary citizens sending their hard earned dollars to the RNC to serve as their voice in the political process.  The average contribution to the RNC is $42.00.  Despite the stereotype that we are the party of the rich, the vast majority of our donations are from small donations; as opposed to the Democratic National Committee that gets its donations from big labor and the Hollywood elites.  Accordingly, I watch carefully every dollar spent by my colleagues as we work to carryout the mission of the Committee.

My colleagues will tell you how I encourage them to shut down their computers, cut off their lights, and turn off the air conditioning units before they leave the office at night.  I had to explain to a young intern who cracked about my ... more

Will Senate Finance Committee Democrats vote today to burden Americans with higher health insurance premiums, taxes and deficits?

This morning’s RNC Research Briefing shows while President Obama has often pledged that his government-run health care experiment “will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government,” the Senate Finance Committee Democrats’ bill does the exact opposite. A new report shows Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) bill would raise health insurance premiums for American families by $4,000 over the next decade because of the $506 billion in health care taxes and fees, as well as the $404 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid shifting costs “to private sector businesses and consumers.”

And don’t believe all the rhetoric that this version of a government-run health care experiment is “deficit-neutral.” Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) hid hundreds of billions of additional costs that would eventually create deficits shouldered on the backs ... more

Welcome to the all-new GOP.com!  We are happy to have you.  Please take some time to look around. 

Under the Discuss tab, you will find several dedicated blogs:

• The Action Blog will ask you to go beyond reading and start doing
• Change the Game By Michael Steele is where you can find out what the Chairman thinks
• Co-Blog is the blog of Jan Larimer, the Co-Chairman of the Republican National Committee
• Stomping Grounds features blog posts from the RNC Research department
• Say It Loud is the blog for our Coalitions department
• Communications features blogs from the RNC Communications division
• Political is where our colleagues in the field report from
• Feeding the Machine is the more tech-minded blog from New Media

Tying all these blogs together is this one, Sound Reasoning, the main GOP.com blog.  Here, we will direct you to the hot topics on the other blogs and tabs while also telling you what’s new here at the RNC, talking about the news of the day, highlighting action in OurGOP, and ... more