Speaker John Boehner, Leader Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Minority Whip John Cornyn United States Capitol Washington, DC 20215

November 27, 2012

Speaker Boehner, Leader McConnell, Majority Leader Cantor, and Minority Whip Cornyn,

The 2012 election is over and now is the time to focus on delivering on the promises you made to the country during the campaign.

With the so-called “fiscal cliff” rapidly approaching, both sides are making opening gambits and the talk so far is alarming. You led the Republican Party for two years claiming emphatically that the tax increase on “the wealthy” that Barack Obama is determined to enact is really a devastating tax hike on small business owners that would kill jobs and decimate any kind of economic recovery. Now conservatives see daily stories asserting that the GOP agrees with the President that “revenues are on the table” and GOP elite are all over the airwaves asking if the Tea Party will care if “a few multi-millionaires pay more in taxes.” That talk is only embolding liberals to demand even higher taxes. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and others are openly calling for a return to taxing Americans in the top rate at 91 percent. Yes that’s ludicrous, but liberals feel comfortable making such outlandish proposals because they feel you are weak enough that you will continue to surrender to evermore higher taxes having capitulated once already. They will never be satisfied. You know that.

Conservatives have one question to ask: If you now claim a tax increase on small business is the correct course of action, were you lying all along when you claimed this tax increase would decimate the economy? Because if you were not lying, you will now be willing participants in the destruction of American jobs in a time of economic crisis. This is the question you must answer, given the posturing of many Republicans in the immediate aftermath of the election.

However, if the GOP wakes up and decides that the principles they fought for during the campaign were more than empty political posturing, there is another option. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report which makes clear that if the fiscal cliff is ignored, once again punting the ball away, federal public debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – currently at a 60-year high of 70 percent – would skyrocket to a catastrophic 90 percent. The CBO report provides options for reforming the biggest drivers of our long term debt – entitlements – and to no one’s surprise two of the biggest steps that Congress can take toward getting our fiscal house in order are: repealing ObamaCare’s gigantic insurance subsidies and repealing the individual mandate. According to the CBO, repealing ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies would save $150 billion in 2020 alone. Similarly, repealing the individual mandate would save $40 billion in 2020 alone.

If the GOP is really serious about doing something about out-of-control spending and about honoring their commitments to the American people, then here is the path to follow. It’s a path laid out by independent experts which reins in spending, prevents us from going over the fiscal cliff, and undoes the largest federal power-grab in American history. It’s what you promised the American people.

Either Republicans are serious about honoring their commitments, in which case they will accomplish this through the power of the purse, or Republicans are not serious about their promises, and will ignore the solution. Either/or, no other options. No more excuses, no more rhetoric. No more meaningless half measures. Take the correct course and America will thank you for saving us from the coming disaster, or take the wrong course and co-own the disaster while being exposed as fraudulent to your constituents.

Sincerely,

L. Brent Bozell III Chairman, ForAmerica