I write you today to encourage peace and unity within the Republican Party.  We have concluded a long and trying primary season.  It’s natural to feel some animosity towards your opponent and their supporters if you lost, but we must move forward.  It seemed like this primary election was more of a civil war between the fiscal and social conservative factions, but now we must reunite and face a new challenge from Roy Barnes in November.

We had two excellent candidates that fought hard to earn the votes of Georgians.  Karen Handel did a fantastic job as Georgia’s Secretary of State.  A major accomplishment was the implementation of the voter ID law and defense of it from attack by Roy Barnes and the Obama justice department.  Our nominee, Nathan Deal, represented our district well in Washington during his tenure as Congressman.  He took the values from North Georgia and applied them to legislation in Washington.  Nathan will apply those same principles as governor.

I believe that Nathan will be a strong, effective leader as the next governor of the great state of Georgia.  Now is the time to end our hostilities between each other and begin to rally behind our nominee.  Georgia deserves a governor with conservative principles to lead us into the future.  Nathan will be that governor.

Please join me in voting for Nathan Deal on November 2^nd.

Nathan A. Smith

Chairman,

Walker County Republican Party

I currently have DSL.  At one point my family had cable Internet access, but the quality of service had declined.  So we switched.  Now fiber is being installed in my neighborhood and will soon offer us another choice.  We have 5 options for Internet access: dial-up, DSL, cable, satellite, and now fiber.  Why do I say this?  It’s not to debate which medium is better, but it’s to highlight the point about choice.  We didn’t like the quality of one service, so we changed to another provider.  In a free market economy, you take your business elsewhere if you don’t like how that company is treating you or is providing poor service.  Unfortunately, many local governments allow only one cable company to service a municipality.  How would you fix this?  Simple, eliminate the restriction on how many cable companies (or other Internet providers) there can be in a given location.

It’s easy to give something over to the government and say “regulate it”, but it’s hard to get it back.  The Internet has been a harbor of free speech to people world-wide.  Government regulation in the name of “net neutrality” would end up not being neutral.

1.  Devise a plan to transition power from the federal government to the states and to the people.  We didn’t get here over night and we can’t fix it overnight.  We must come up with a workable plan to present to the American people how we will do it.  We can’t arrive at our end goal unless we have a plan.

2.  Propose 2 amendments to the US Constitution: one will mandate a balanced federal budget and the other will grant the president a line-item veto.  It’s like peanut butter and jelly.  One compliments the other.  The state of Georgia’s constitution mandates that the General Assembly pass a balanced budget.  Why should the federal government be exempt from such a requirement?  A line-item veto will help make that possible.  It will allow the president to strike out any spending that gets stuffed into important bills.  It’s a good way of cutting out pork without killing a bill.

3.  Setup a path to deactivate and dismantle the federal Department of Education.  This is something that the federal government should get out of immediately.  No Child Left Behind has been a horrible piece of legislation.  Let’s return power to the parents and let the teachers teach kids what they need to be taught.

4.  Cut taxes for ALL businesses. President Obama doesn’t realize that all businesses produce jobs.  The federal tax rate for businesses is anywhere from 25 to 39 percent.  That’s 1/4 to 2/5ths of earnings being paid to the federal government.  How many jobs could be created with that?  How much capital could they buy?  It’s all a matter of opportunity costs, Mr. President.  If you want businesses to stay in the US and produce, the we must not punish them for being here.

5.  Energy independence starts with use of our natural resources. We have been blessed by God with many natural resources, but there are many folks who lobby against the reasonable use of them.  In order to produce more affordable energy, we must tap into our natural resources.  Nuclear power (the cleanest form of energy) must also be included in the energy portfolio of energy producers.

These are not earth-shattering ideas.  I think a reasonable person would be agreeable to most of these ideas….and it’s not an all-inclusive list!  If you have an idea, post it!  The more people we have involved, the more ideas we have, and the better we can craft those ideas.

We must assemble a list of specific objectives we hope to accomplish and a plan on how to arrive there.  Once the GOP takes back the House and Senate, we must put our plan into place and stick to our principles.  We owe it to the citizenry.

The voters of Massachusetts told the national Democratic party that they did not want a bigger federal government.  The ideals of conservatism struck a chord with the voters in the bluest of blue states.  This is exciting.  This shows that Americans are not buying into the socialist garbage that Obama and his cronies are trying to sell to the American people.  Although it was an epic and historic win for Republicans, we should not become complacent with this win.  It’s an encouragement, but I believe we still have some mending to do with the American people as a Party.

We are exactly 6 months away from the general primary (July 20) here in Georgia.  We must continue to ask tough questions and find the best Republican candidates to put on the ballot in November.  Our monthly Walker GOP meetings are booked with various state-wide and Congressional candidates.  I encourage you (whether you’re a Walker resident or not) to attend our meetings on the third Tuesday of every month so you can learn about who is running for office.  Our next meeting will be on February 16th.  I look forward to seeing you there!