Needed: New Contract with America
The Republicans need a new "Contract with America". Gingrich and the Repubs rode that to victory in the Congress in 94 by gaining about 50 House seats and 9 in the Senate. As a result, we got balanced budgets and welfare reform. This was the contract.
On the first day of their majority in the House, the Republicans promised to bring up for vote, eight major reforms:
1. require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress;
2. select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
3. cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
4. limit the terms of all committee chairs;
5. ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
6. require committee meetings to be open to the public;
7. require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
8. guarantee an honest accounting of the Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.