Llano Tea Party

The Llano Tea Party is committed to providing information so that voters may make informed decisions in the voting booth.

Who We Are:

The Llano Tea Party is a grassroots group of ordinary American citizens from Llano County, Texas. Our goal is to restore government “of the people, by the people and for the people’ at the federal, state and local levels.

• We are peaceful, patriotic and polite individuals who will be silent no more.
• We are outraged that our Congress is spending our future generations hopelessly into debt while we face job losses and financial hardships.
• We see America spiraling into socialism and we “pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” that this must not happen. (Excerpts from The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.)
• We are not a political party; we are non-partisan. If you agree with who we are, our mission and our core beliefs, you are welcome.

Mission:

• To restrict governmental functions to the original intent of the Constitution.
• To locate and mobilize patriots who will be “silent no more” and awaken those who are still silent.
• To educate citizens about the Constitution and our founder’s vision of freedom.
• To organize a grassroots movement that will engage in the local, state and national issues and elections of 2010 and beyond.
• To implement the “Contract from America.” www.contractfromamerica.org

Core Beliefs:

• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…” (Excerpts from The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.)
• We believe that the Bill of Rights describes inherent God given rights and not rights “granted’ by the government.
• The federal government must be reduced to the functions listed in its enumerate powers and agencies not so authorized must be eliminated. Fiscal responsibility must be restored by drastically reducing spending, reducing taxes, by balancing the budget and paying off the national debt.
• Individual responsibility and self-reliance must replace dependence on the government.
• Free enterprise built the greatest economies and freed more people from poverty than any other system the world has known. It must be reinvigorated by reducing taxes and regulations and allowing free trade – this will make American businesses competitive internationally and increase employment at home.
• All levels of government must exercise the power of eminent domain as described in the Constitution.
• We must return to our traditional values. American is a Christian nation founded on Biblical principles. Parents have the right to raise and teach their children without interference from the government.

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LLANO TEA PARTY MEMBERSHIP ACCEPTANCE:

I understand that by signing below I accept membership in the Llano Tea Party and will abide by the Llano Tea Party Charter.

Name (print): ____________________ Signature: ___________________________

Address: _______________________  City: ____________ State: ____ ZIP:______

Phone: ________________________

Email address: ___________________________________

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The Contract from America

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty

Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.

Limited Government

The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.

Economic Freedom

The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

1. Protect the Constitution

Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.

2. Reject Cap & Trade

Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.

3. Demand a Balanced Budget

Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform

Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution.

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington

Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning.

6. End Runaway Government Spending

Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care

Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries.

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy

Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs.

9. Stop the Pork

Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.

10. Stop the Tax Hikes

Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011.

www.contractfromamerica.org