Recipe for a Successful 2011

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Recipe for a Successful 2011
        
The year 2011 brings in a host of opportunities and challenges to America. 
Will we accelerate toward economic insolvency by continuing the policies that 
have created this crisis, or will a new Congress elected on the energy of the 
Tea Party movement find the courage to change course?

With the new Republican majority in the House I will have the opportunity as 
a subcommittee chairman to take a careful look at our domestic monetary 
policy. I am excited by the prospect of real oversight of the Federal 
Reserve, but I also hope to focus on the important ways in which our foreign 
policy and monetary policy are related. Just last week the Financial Times 
reported that the limited oversight of the Federal Reserve allowed by the 
passage of a watered-down version of my Audit the Fed bill revealed that 
approximately 55 percent of the loans made available under the largest 
Federal Reserve bailout program, the Term Auction Facility, went to foreign 
banks! This is but one example of the real cost to Americans of maintaining 
its empire overseas, and it cries out for more transparency and oversight.

This is why it is key for us to understand that our foreign policy and 
current economic crisis go hand in hand. Some have promised to lead us back 
to fiscal responsibility while asserting that any reduction in our foreign 
and military spending is off the table. They would like us to believe that we 
should not only continue spending as much on the military as the rest of the 
world combined, but they actually call for an even more aggressive US policy 
abroad. They believe we should continue to bomb Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, 
and elsewhere; that we must impose even more crippling sanctions on countries 
like Iran while moving steadily on to yet another Middle East war that is not 
in our interest. They represent the failed policies of the past and they 
would like to lead us down a dead-end street. We must resist the temptation 
of their neo-con inspired scare-mongering. 

There will be much work for us to do in the next year and in the next 
Congress. We need look no further than the grossly unconstitutional and 
immoral policies of the Transportation Security Administration – demanding 
that we either be irradiated or fondled to travel in our own country – to see 
that those who would deprive us of our civil liberties on the empty promise 
of full security will not be giving up easily. We must continue standing up 
to them and we must not compromise. We must not allow the out-of-control 
Department of Homeland Security to impose an East German-like police state in 
the US, where neighbors are encouraged by big brother or big sister to inform 
on their neighbors. We must not accept that government authorities should 
hector us via television screens as we go about our private lives like we are 
living in Orwell’s 1984. 

I am optimistic that the incoming Members of Congress understand the 
importance of what they have been entrusted with by the American people. But 
I do hope that those who elected them will watch their actions -- and their 
votes in Congress – carefully. An early indication will be the upcoming vote 
on re-authorization of the anti-American PATRIOT Act. Defeat once and for all 
of this police-state legislation will be a great way to start 2011 and the 
112th Congress.  We must move ahead with confidence. Our numbers are 
growing.  Happy New Year!

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