An Economic Bill of Rights

The next phase for the Tea Parties? Stephen Hayward, NRO, "Reagan's Unfinished Agenda":

Throughout his presidency Reagan argued repeatedly for a balanced-budget amendment, and also for an amendment granting the president a line-item veto. But, starting in 1987, Reagan offered a more comprehensive package he called the “Economic Bill of Rights.” In addition to the balanced-budget and line-item veto amendments, Reagan proposed three additional amendments that would impose a federal spending limit, require a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate for any tax increases, and prohibit wage and price controls.

Add an anti-earmark provision and look at term limits again and you've got a good argument to bring to the American people. 

More along these lines, Michael Barone, "GOP should run against the power of the center": 

So I think Republicans today should be less interested in moving toward the center and more interested in running against the center. Here I mean a different "center" -- not a midpoint on an opinion spectrum, but rather the centralized government institutions being created and strengthened every day. This is a center that is taking over functions fulfilled in a decentralized way by private individuals, firms and markets.

This center includes the Treasury, with its $700 billion of TARP funds voted last fall to purchase toxic assets from financial institutions and used instead to quasi-nationalize banks and preserve union benefits for employees and retirees of bankrupt auto companies. It includes the Federal Reserve, which has been vastly increasing the money supply. It includes a federal government whose $787 billion economic stimulus has so far failed to lower the unemployment rate from where the government projected it would be without the stimulus package.

In the trenches. Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry: 

As the Japanese proverb goes, an inch ahead is darkness.

That said, it is clear that pocketbook concerns are going to remain the bread and butter of politics for some time to come. Republicans should focus on easing the cost of living for middle-class families; they should vigorously advocate reforms to address practical anxieties about the health-care system; they should connect their cultural agenda — particularly their emphasis on the importance of marriage — to economic aspiration; they should think hard about mundane quality-of-life issues such as traffic; and they should tap into the populism of the moment by championing democratic accountability.

Some small progress in Blue Illinois. 

Final footnote, a refrain: 
I love this comment on the CNN embarrassment:

How should those of us who attend Tea Parties respond to "reporting" like CNN's Susan Roesgen?

Susan Roesgen to Citizen: Don't you realize that you're eligible for a $400 tax cut!?!?

Citizen: OK, let me illustrate how I feel about that. Say I'm a Politician. Susan, I'm going to GIVE you a $400 gift! Aren't I wonderful? All I need from you is to borrow your credit card...[hold out hand for card]

CNN: You want to use MY credit card to buy ME a gift?

Citizen: Along with a few other things; just $6000 or so. I'm a politician; I have NEEDS --- EXPENSIVE needs.

CNN: $6000!?!

Citizen: This year's budget will borrow $1.85 TRILLION -- that's over $6000 for every man, woman & child in America. But we're getting a $400 "tax cut". You seem to think that's a great deal.

And that's just this year's budget. As ol James Traficant used to say on the House floor, beam me up Scotty.

Related posts: States Assert Sovereignty, Ethical Populism & the Chicago School, The Virtues of Character and Markets, Pirates of the Potomac, Tea Party: Us vs. the Elite, Stuff your Astroturf, Tax Day Tea Party Chicago