| Robert, We hope you saw Steve Elliott's important message from this past weekend (below). We are asking every Grassfire team member to read this message all the way to the end. America is at a critical crossroads and we fear the politicians in Washington, D.C., are once again shrinking back from the task at hand. If you already read and responded, please use these tools to share this message with at least 21 friends:
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Thanks! For life, liberty, and limited government, Grassfire + + + + +
(Original message) FROM THE DESK OF: STEVE ELLIOTT Robert, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are on the verge of yet another SPENDING SCAM that just might close the door on any possibility IN OUR LIFETIMES of seeing runaway government spending stopped. America is on the fast track to bankruptcy. That's the simple math. $36 trillion in debt. $2 trillion annual deficits. Paying the interest on the national debt is now the largest single item in the federal budget. And there is no end in sight. + + Grim Reaper is knocking... If our political leaders were to be honest with us, they might say that the Grim Reaper of Runaway Spending is now knocking on the door. Look at this headline from earlier in the week: 
That's $514 BILLION in debt from one quarter of the year, a pace of $2.056 BILLION in debt this year. Which brings me to the current scam... + + Lions and Tigers and... Medicaid! Oh my! A group of House conservatives wrote a letter to Speaker Johnson this week calling on the Speaker to uphold the framework of the "ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL" passed by the House earlier this year. They wrote the letter because it is clear that Republicans are already backtracking from their "framework." That's why you're hearing all the stories about spending "cuts" causing "millions" to lose Medicaid healthcare coverage. As a result, everyone all the way up to the White House is afraid of losing the next election because they cut healthcare to poor people. What they're not telling you is that the current Medicaid system is bankrupt, fraudulent and no longer focused on serving the most vulnerable. Obamacare greatly expanded Medicaid and made millions of able-bodied, working age Americans eligible for the health handout. Even worse -- Medicaid's federal reimbursement to the states now FAVORS payouts for able-bodied coverage over payouts for the truly needy. It's insanity. So those who are defending the current Medicaid system are actually DEFENDING OBAMACARE! As Rep. Chip Roy tweeted: "For years, Republicans have campaigned on ending the disastrous policies of Obamacare. Now is the time to deliver. Without meaningful reform, Medicaid will bankrupt this country." Sensing weakness, every special interest is now taking pot shots at the budget framework. This week, a group of GOP House members from New York drew a hard line in saying that a 300% increase in the state tax exemption was not enough and they would vote against the bill. It's insanity. Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper draws ever closer. + + Fake Cuts and Baseline Budgeting Now allow me to peel back the onion even more... There are no actual cuts. You heard me right. No cuts. That's because of Congress' dirty little accounting trick called "baseline budgeting." Baseline budgeting says the "baseline" for government spending for NEXT year is the spending for THIS year PLUS inflation PLUS population growth. Translation: if your federal department got $10 billion this year and inflation is 6% and population growth is 2%, the "baseline" of your budget for next year is $10.812 billion. In real dollars that's an 8% INCREASE in spending, but it doesn't count as an increase. It's your new baseline. If you get anything less that $10.812 billion, it is classified as a SPENDING CUT! So if Congress "only" approves $10.5 billion (a 5% increase), Congress will report that as a "cut" of $312 MILLION (only if my family and your family could "cut" spending the same way!). To make matters worse, the Deep State and the liberal media will scream that the "cut" will kill old people! That's what's happening in D.C. right now. They are fake-cutting while the Deep State screams that Republicans are killing people. Page two of the letter from 32 House conservatives lets the cat out of the bag that there are no real spending cuts: "A $2 trillion reduction in spending may sound substantial. However, it equals only 2.3 percent of projected federal outlays over the next decade and only reduces the rate of growth in spending. Even with those savings, annual spending is expected to grow from $7 trillion to $10 trillion over the next 10 years, and debt will exceed $50 trillion by 2035." (emphasis added) (From now on, Republicans should always put words like "reduction" and "savings" and "cuts" in quotes, to clarify that these are all fake-cuts.) So here's where we are. A Republican Congress with the most conservative President in our lifetimes may not even be able to fake-cut government spending. + + A sensible solution.. Sen. Ron Johnson has a sensible plan that actually would put America back on a sound fiscal path. Sen. Johnson's plan returns our government to the "baseline" of pre-pandemic spending. The truth is, that horrible COVID GREAT SHUTDOWN put us on a fast track to the Grim Reaper of government debt. Government spending exploded and never returned to pre-pandemic levels. Simply using the pre-pandemic 2019 spending level as the "baseline" (adjusted for inflation and population growth) would cut the deficit in half and get us on a path of fiscal sanity (read about Sen. Johnson's plan here and here). At the very least, Congress must do what the framework established and "cut" $2 trillion as the House conservatives letter stipulates. Anything less and the Grim Reaper of runaway spending will be knocking down our door. So what can you do? I'm writing this knowing that the only hope is for patriots to rise up and demand that our representatives actually cut government spending. + + It would take a tsunami of grassroots action. If you've read this far, then YOU are part of the answer! The House is holding critical meetings right now and decisions will be made early next week. Here are four things you can do today. 1. Sign our REAL SPENDING CUTS petition. If we can get to 25,000 signers, we'll send the petition to Speaker Johnson. 2. Fax House GOP leaders now and demand REAL SPENDING CUTS, not fake cuts (we've discounted this 50% to encourage more action). 3. Call your Senators and Rep and say "STOP THE SPENDING SCAM-- I DEMAND REAL CUTS!": 202-224-3121. 4. Share this message with at least 21 friends today by simply forwarding this email to 21 friends, or making one post on Facebook or X(Twitter). If even 20% of the Grassfire team did this, we could reach over ONE MILLION people with this critical message today! I'm not sure this is a proverbial political "hill" any of us want to die on, but it is a "hill" that our country WILL die on unless the debt trajetory changes. I can't bear any more to think about the burden I'm saddling my future grandchildren with. The Grim Reaper of debt will end America as we know it. But there is hope. And that hope is found in patriots like you. For life, liberty and limited government, Steve Elliott, Grassfire 
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