Eric Cantor in Young Guns, by Rep. Paul Ryan, Rep. Eric Cantor & Rep. Kevin McCarthy
On Foreign Policy:
FactCheck: Jihadists resent US occupation, not our beliefs
Eric Cantor writes that Islamic jihadists "resent our beliefs" (p. 78-79). That's a standard riposte--that al Qaeda opposes the American way of life--but it is factually incorrect. Osama bin Laden opposed the US military occupation in Saudi Arabia, & the
Israeli occupation of Palestine.Bin Laden's "fatwa" of Aug. 1996 is entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places." That means Mecca and Jerusalem, or more generally, the Arabian Peninsula and Israel/
Palestine. Bin Laden's conclusion is: "...asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy--the Americans and the Israelis--...to expel the enemy, humiliated and defeated, out of the sanctities of Islam."
In bin Laden's 1998 fatwa, "Jihad Against
Jews and Crusaders", he writes, "for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula." He adds the expulsion of US forces from Iraq to the 1996 list of Mecca and Jerusalem.
Source: OnTheIssues FactCheck on Young Guns, p. 78-79
May 2, 2011
On Budget & Economy:
Alternative stimulus: reduce taxes; $7500 homebuyer credit
On Jan. 23, 2009, in a meeting with the president and his economic advisers, John Boehner and I presented the president with our alternative stimulus bill. What we proposed could not have been more different than the bloated $787 billion monstrosity that
was eventually passed by the Democratic Congress. It was a simple, direct way to create jobs and help our economy by focusing on small businesses. Here are the highlights:- Reducing the lowest individual tax rates from 15% to 10% and from 10% to 5%
- Allowing small business to reduce its tax liability by 20%
- Ensuring no tax increases to pay for spending
- Assistance for the unemployed
- A home-buyers credit of $7,500 for those buyers who can make a minimum down payment of 5%
Not only
was our plan fair, understandable, and more direct than the Democratic majority's bill, it delivered twice the bang for half the bucks spent in the Democratic plan. After I handed him the plan, Pres. Obama said, "Eric, there's nothing too crazy in here."
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 48-49
Sep 14, 2010
On Budget & Economy:
Not "party of No", but party of principled opposition
Obama and his spokespeople would describe our opposition to the stimulus bill as our coming out as the party of "no." Far from us having made a political decision to oppose the president, the liberal House leadership had made the political decision to
draft the bill without our input and ideas, and the president had made the decision to allow them to do so.I will let history judge whether government spending is the best way to spur job creation and economic growth, much less whether the $787 billio
Democratic stimulus bill did much to help our economy. But sometimes saying "No" is what's right for this country--and all 178 Republican members said just that to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Leader Reed's pork-laden stimulus package.
At the same time, we did so after offering our own, better alternative, which was central to creating a sense of purpose and unity among House Republicans--we were going to be the party of principled opposition.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 52-56
Sep 14, 2010
On Civil Rights:
False myth that GOP is bigoted & intolerant
People often ask me how I came to be a minority within a minority--an American who is not only Jewish but also a Republican. The short answer is--contrary to the myth of the Republican Party as bigoted and intolerant--my experience has been that it is
the party for all Americans who want an opportunity to build a better future for their children and grandchildren.I know, because it was the Republican Party that gave my father the opportunity to provide a better life for me and my family.
Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s was not as open and tolerant a place as it is now. My mom and dad saw firsthand the racial segregation that was the norm at the time.
My father rejected the politics of racial discrimination.
And it was in the small but growing Virginia Republican Party that my father found a home. The Republican Party was a place where he could be accepted and supported, both as an American Jew and as an entrepreneur.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 31-32
Sep 14, 2010
On Corporations:
I'm first and foremost a small businessperson
Like my grandmother before me, I was then, and consider myself to this day, first and foremost a small businessperson. My first business was in real estate development and
I learned the lesson that far too many small businessmen and -women learn when they try to be job creators: the process is tough, and the bureaucracy made it tougher.
For anyone with a background in business, Washington DC can be a frustrating, even infuriating place. Talk about disconnected from the realities of creating and maintaining jobs (if you're not using the taxpayer money to do it, that is).
In 2009, since 1900, the current administration has the least private sector experience of all the presidential administrations studied.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 33-34
Sep 14, 2010
On Corporations:
Threat of taxes & regulation deters business & jobs
Small businessmen and -women tell me virtually every day that the threat of increased taxes, regulations, and government mandates are deterrents to business expansion and job growth. And they know of what they speak.
During its first fifteen months, the Obama administration has considered more than one hundred separate regulations that would cost the economy--including small businesses--more than one million dollars each.
Do you know any small businesses that can handle this type of crippling loss? Of course not.For our economy to grow and create jobs,
Washington needs to repeal any government regulation that will impose an economic cost, trigger job losses, or disproportionately impact small businesses. Our rule should be, first, do no harm!
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 71-72
Sep 14, 2010
On Education:
Dollars to classrooms, not dollars to unions & bureaucracy
Education is all about dollars in the schools and dollars in the classroom, not dollars to the unions and the bureaucracy. We have to go to parents and say we are about letting the local schools get more dollars and that means don't let the dollars be
trapped here in Washington. You get a double benefit from ending [high salaries at the Department of Education]. If you're going to keep the dollars in the classrooms, not only are you benefitting the kids but you're also reducing the size of Washington.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 14
Sep 14, 2010
On Education:
Dollars shouldn't go through bureaucrats to get to classroom
Despite the fact that parents are constantly being taxed at the federal, state, and local levels, our children seem to be less and less equipped to compete with their foreign counterparts. Why? A big reason is because our dollars are going through
lobbyists, middlemen, and bureaucrats before they ever reach our students and our classrooms. Considering America's more than 70 billion-dollar federal education budget, that's far too many dollars ending up away from our children.
So let's get education dollars out of Washington and back, closer to our communities. The "Dollars to the Classroom" bill would require 95 cents of every federal education dollar to go to the classroom, not the bureaucracy and the special interests.
This would provide immediate benefits to our children. But, I believe we should go further. We can and should so the same with federal spending on transportation, housing, and other needs best left to the states and communities.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 74
Sep 14, 2010
On Energy & Oil:
Cap-and-trade is a national energy tax
We differed--radically--from the Democrats in charge of Washington when it came to energy and the environment. Their cap-and-trade bill has rightly been called a cap-and-tax bill. It would essentially amount to a national energy tax that would slam small
businesses with higher energy bills and put more pressure on already struggling middle-class American families. The best thing a nation can do for its environment is to generate wealth and prosperity.
There's a better way to protect our jobs and protect our environment--it's offering incentives to develop new energy technologies, not penalties for heating your home and operating your business. We need to protect our national security by developing
AMERICAN sources of energy like our clean natural gas and our abundant coal from shale. And we need to offer incentives for our companies to develop the alternative energy we need to make us energy independent.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 60-61
Sep 14, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
American exceptionalism: we're not an ordinary nation
I am an unapologetic believer in the concept of American exceptionalism. America offers opportunity like no other nation, and with hard work, sacrifice, and perseverance, no one is limited. Our country is built on the notion that hard work, creativity,
& responsible risk-taking are rewarded.Yet today, America rests in the hands of a Democratic majority that views America differently. They love their country, but it seems to me that they tend to focus on its flaws rather than its greatness.
They crave the approval of the very international elites whose nations have never offered the opportunity that America has. And above all, they think America is an ordinary nation, not an exceptional nation in the way that tens of millions who
risked their lives to come to our shores legally in search of the American dream saw it. They think America is just one nation among many, with few unique virtues, responsibilities, enemies, or destiny.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 67-68
Sep 14, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
Our enemies resent our beliefs; we are not imperialists
Contrary to what the conspiracy theorists say, America doesn't have any imperialist impulses; we're not out to conquer the world for power, oil, or any other trophy. Unlike European colonial powers,
America's museums aren't stocked with artifacts and works of art plundered from abroad. What we do have, though, is a set of beliefs.
We believe in government by the consent of the governed. We believe in freedom of speech. We believe in full and equal rights for women. We believe in the economic freedom to work hard and see your work rewarded.
We believe in the freedom to worship as you choose or not to worship at all. Make no mistake--it's these beliefs, not any real or imagined offense that America has committed--that our enemies resent.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 78-79
Sep 14, 2010
On Free Trade:
Entrepreneurship, free markets, & level playing field
This time in the minority has given us all a chance to remember why we came here. It's given us the chance--especially in comparison with what the Democrats are doing--to see what has worked in this country, which is entrepreneurship.
Free markets, and a level playing field. We need to refocus our party toward the future and the young people. It's up to us to provide them with more opportunity. I hear it again and again when I go home. Right now kids are getting out of college
and they're not finding jobs. So if we reclaim the majority in November, we must, first of all, tell the public what they can expect from us. And we also have to realize that this isn't going to be a one- or two-year process. We have got to
rebuild the public's trust through taking concrete steps to get our fiscal house in order. We have to show that we get it. Clearly the other side has demonstrated that they don't get where the public is. We've got to reconnect and inspire people.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 12
Sep 14, 2010
On Government Reform:
Moratorium on earmarks now; change culture for future
I think being in the extreme minority is what it took for us to have the dose of contrition necessary to do this. But I also think you're seeing now an administration & a congressional leadership in Nancy Pelosi that is so extreme in ignoring the public.
We see it and feel it when we go home. People are so upset. Earmarks are such a symbol of the problem in Washington. We know the moratorium doesn't fix the problem but it certainly is the beginning. It's a recognition that we need to change the culture.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 3-4
Sep 14, 2010
On Government Reform:
Government is so big it deprives Americans of their rights
Neither party has addressed a building crisis in America; a crisis of government spending and growth that, if continued unchecked, will--not might, but will--change our country from a place where every generation does better than the last into a place
where every generation piles more debt and more burden on the next. Now, we're getting far too used to the overheard rhetoric of crisis. It's not a phony "crisis". The message is being sent from the people to
Washington today, not the other way around.
Last February, a remarkable poll came out in which a majority of Americans said they believe the federal government has become so large and so powerful it is trampling on their rights as ordinary citizens.
Let me say it again--most Americans believe government is so big it is depriving them of their rights. By overwhelming margins, Americans believe their government is broken.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 21-22
Sep 14, 2010
On Health Care:
Trillion-dollar price tags when decision by bureaucrats
As work began on health care in the spring of 2009, their "big government is better government" approach to America's problem came into sharp relief. Democrats and Republicans agree that our health-care system is broken in fundamental ways.
We agree that costs are too high, putting health care out of reach to millions of Americans without insurance, and endangering the coverage of millions of American with health care.We disagree fundamentally, however, on how to fix our system.
We believe the patient and her doctor should be the decision makers when it comes to health care, not a bureaucrat in the basement of the Health and Human Services building in
Washington DC. Far from "bending the cost curve down," their plan had a trillion-dollar price tag.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 63-64
Sep 14, 2010
On Health Care:
Options without mandates: cross-state insurance & pooling
We are committed, not simply to repealing Democratic health-care reform, but replacing it with a system that works for all Americans by focusing first and foremost on lowering costs.What does a health-care system that works for all Americans look like
Republicans believe in providing individuals and families with more affordable options without costly mandates by expanding insurance market competition. We would allow families to buy insurance across state lines and give every individual and small
business the same access to tax incentives and pooling opportunities that unions and corporations have today. We would end discrimination against Americans with preexisting conditions by creating state-based high risk pools, not by forcing everyone to
pay more. And we would do something the Democrats will never do: reduce health-care costs by taking on the trial lawyers who force physicians into defensive medicine, which drives up costs for everyone.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 76-77
Sep 14, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Gitmo deals with terrorists as a different kind of danger
The Obama administration has been hell-bent on closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay--without any idea what it will do with the dangerous men being held there. From giving terrorist masterminds civilian trials in New York City to
reading the Christmas 2009 "underwear bomber" his rights after 50 minutes of interrogation, the Democrats in charge in Washington have revealed a fundamental failure to understand the enemy we face. The mechanics of our civilian law enforcement system,
with its defense attorneys and admirable openness, are designed fundamentally to respond to crimes; to react when a wrong has been committed. Terrorism represents a fundamentally different kinds of danger. We can't afford to wait for terrorists to strike
and then use our civilian system to react. Our leaders owe us more than making sure the perpetrators are caught and tried in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. They owe us the protection of these American lives from terrorism in the first place.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 84-85
Sep 14, 2010
On Jobs:
Government doesn't create jobs; private business does
The principles that guided me in trying to help fix the economy were the ones I had learned as a small businessman. Government doesn't create jobs and build wealth; entrepreneurs, risk takes, and private businesses do. But throughout a series of meetings
with Obama administration officials on the stimulus bill, it became clear that they didn't share this belief. The president's team were fervent believers in the economic theory that government can create jobs and spur economic development simply by
spending.I rejected this approach. We believed then as we believe now: it is small businesses--driven to innovate, invest and grow--that will regenerate the millions of sustainable jobs we so desperately need. Since every dollar government spends come
from the private sector via the taxpayers, our test of worthwhile public spending is this: will the return be greater if these funds are spent by the government or if they are left in the private sector to be spent and invested?
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 46-47
Sep 14, 2010
On Principles & Values:
Leader of the "Young Guns" conservative movement
Cantor was elected in 2000 and two years later was already on the leadership track, chosen as deputy chief whip. What prompted Cantor, Ryan and McCarthy to come together was a story in "The Weekly Standard". They knew each other as members of the
embattled Republican caucus that had lost control of the House in the disastrous 2006 mid-term election. But they hadn't realized their individual skills were remarkably complementary: Cantor the leader, Ryan the thinker, McCarthy the strategist.
With money, manpower, and advice, Young Guns supports challengers, many in races that otherwise might be ignored by the national party. Young Guns is partial to young, reform-minded Republicans. In short, Cantor, Ryan and
McCarthy would like to fill the ranks of House Republicans with members, like themselves, committed to policies and legislation infused with the principles of limited government, free markets, and individual freedom.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. vii-ix
Sep 14, 2010
On Technology:
Why should other states care about bridges in Alaska?
In 2005, Americans were learning that Congress was writing $223 million checks to obscure towns in Alaska with well-connected congressional representatives. I thought to myself, "What does anyone in Richmond--or Miami, Dayton, Denver, or anywhere else,
for that matter--care about a bridge in Alaska and why should they be asked to pay for it?"In retrospect, the signs that the Republican Party had become the party of Washington--instead of the party that wanted to change Washington--had been around fo
some time. What had gone wrong?
Corruption is at the heart of every political machine. Any notion of a common good--or a principle more important than the perpetuation of the machine itself--is lost. Power becomes the object of governing.
When
Republicans finally achieved a measure of control in Washington, they became what they had campaigned against: arrogant and out of touch. The GOP legislative agenda became primarily about Republican members themselves, not the greater cause.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 24-29
Sep 14, 2010
On War & Peace:
Demand that Palestinians stamp out homegrown terrorism
American stands with Israel for both moral and strategic reasons. Israel is not only a democratic ally and our only true friend in the Middle East; it is also a vital pillar of U.S. national security strategy.
When it is strong--its borders secure, its people free from the threat of Iran and its terrorist proxies--the Middle East is a much more stable and peaceful place.On the other hand, if Iran and the terrorist organizations Hamas and
Hezbollah are allowed to grow stronger at Israel's expense, the resulting victory for radical forces would deal a blow to U.S. antiterrorism efforts. Terrorism gains legitimacy and momentum when it is shown to work.
Instead, we must demand that the
Palestinians stamp out anti-Israel incitement and stop dragging their feet on fighting homegrown terrorism. And we also ought to insist that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan move the Arab world toward a normalization of relations with Israel.
Source: Young Guns, by Reps. Ryan, Cantor & McCarthy, p. 83-84
Sep 14, 2010
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