CR Nation

On November 19, before a crowd of 20 College Republicans at Iowa State University, Dan Nealson and Matt Sexton announced their candidacy for IFCR Chair and Co-Chair.

Running on his experience, Mr. Nealson states he can lead IFCR through “these tough times,” claiming that he “understands the struggles facing the Iowa Federation of College Republicans.”

Mr. Nealson suggests that he has been involved at College Republican clubs at a community college, small private college and a large university. Mr. Nealson also currently serves as IFCR Treasurer.

Mr. Sexton is a freshman at the University of Northern-Iowa. According to the Facebook group, Mr. Sexton has served as chairman of Students for McCain on the UNI campus, a page for Iowa House Minority leader Christopher Rants, interned for Republican Party of Iowa, worked for several Des Moines area Iowa House races, and as president of Iowa’s Business Professionals of America.

Do Mr. Nealson and Mr. Sexton face any opposition? Current Chair, Greg Baker, and current Co-Chair, MacAllister Carver, are rumored to be graduating. As of this writing it seems that Mr. Nealson and Mr. Sexton are running unopposed with no reasonably likely candidates out there.

The rumor buzzing around the Hill this Turkey Day – among those that are there anyway – is that Hillary Clinton will be appointted Secretary of State and, this is the juicy part, Bill Clinton will be appointed to fill her Senate seat…gasp….

Interesting scenario. Apparently, politicos in New York are ticked off…

A piece by Jacob Ventura, former executive director of the Massachusetts College Republicans:

The United States of America is on course for a financial disaster that could cripple our federal government as early as 2027. Throughout our nation’s short history, we have encountered various threats to our national security and economic stability such as a foreign military invasion, full scale civil war, international terrorist attacks, two world wide wars and the Great Depression to name a few. Our country has consistently prevailed over many of these threats and we have shown the world the true strength of the American people. Unfortunately, our nation’s greatest threat is going unnoticed by mainstream America.

Our internal fiscal policies and total unfunded liabilities ($57,396,626,955,000.00 and increasing) coupled with the demographic glitch, the baby boom generation is paving the way for what will make the Great Depression look like child’s play. Massive entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are our largest spending programs. Because record numbers of baby boomers will soon be retiring, these entitlement programs will no longer be sustainable. Many of these programs are currently experiencing negative cash flows. We are making promises to our citizens that we will not be able to keep. We are spending more money than we generate, we are printing money out of thin air, and we are financing these expenditures on future generations. Each U.S. citizen’s share of our national debt is $188,000.00 and growing by the second.

Politicians often talk about putting an end to pork barrel spending and government waste. This only accounts for about 1% of our federal budget. They often talk about the financial burden our overextended military involvement has placed on our budget. Unfortunately, if we eliminated all waste, duplication and corruption from the federal government as well as the entire Defense budget, we are still on pace for a financial disaster. This is partially due to health care costs rising at double the rate of inflation in combination with the number of current workers supporting each retiree decreasing. Couple these spending programs with a massive trade and savings deficit and you have the makings of what is certain to be our nation’s greatest challenge at home and internationally.

David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General said, “I would argue that the greatest threat facing our nation isn’t some terrorist hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but our own fiscal irresponsibility.” Walker points to the collapse of the Roman Empire and sites one of the main reasons was due to internal fiscal irresponsibility.

If what Walker says is true, our country must quickly wake up and demand a new course of action from our elected officials. Both Republicans and Democrats, and liberals and conservatives must come together to pass bipartisan solutions and fundamental reforms that will ensure an equal or better living standard for our children and grandchildren. Politicians in Washington must finally face the people of America and tell them the truth: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are in jeopardy. We cannot simply ignore this issue any longer. The longer we wait to finally pass bold solutions, the sooner we are to a government that cannot afford to operate basic programs like national defense, homeland security and education. Washington needs to wake up. America needs to wake up.

Forgot in the post earlier to mention the fate of the constitutional amendments. In short, they all passed by wide margins. If the support was not unanimous, the opposition was at most one or two votes. The budget passed unanimously.

Also, I would like to recap what states chairs who attended the Vegas Board meeting. Going from west to east (as best I can), the state chairs in attendance were:

Cheyenne Steel, CA
Matt Wharton, AZ
Ed Cox, UT
Jim Bailey, NM
Datyon Headlee, NE
Lance Kennedy, TX
Rudy Perciful, LA
Jeremy Hagen, MO
Greg Baker, IA
Bethany Dorobiala, MN
Sol Grosskopf, WI
Meagan Szydlowski, IL
Jacob Simms, KY
Jared Anderson, TN
Chandler Harris, AL
Harout Samra, FL
Esther Clark, GA
Justin Zatkoff, MI
Jonathan Snyder, OH
Anthony Pugliese, PA
Emily Taylor, DE
Terance Grado, NJ
Jason Gould, CT
Brendan Boyle, RI
Alex Willette, ME

A few more need to be added to the list…

If I forgot anybody, please feel free to comment or send me an e-mail (crnation@gmail.com)

All CRNC national officers were in attendance.

But not those kind of pictures…

These pictures were taken Saturday night at the Michigan party hosted by Pete Vitale.