Mr Steele,

I don't know if you will read this or one of your staff or if it just gets deleted if there is no credit card number attached, but let me explain why I will not be donating to the RNC yet.  I want a party that is committed, Mr Steele, to ending the political grab bag of local goodies to score political points.  I do not yet see that from my Republican representatives.  I want a party that when it regains power of the purse in 2010, 2012, or beyond, will recognize that tax money is not a lottery prize to be divvied up between districts, but is to be used for national necessities, and that this country will never be right until it employs sound fiscal policy.  I read that between 30 and 40 percent of the earmarks in this budget were put into place by Republicans who loudly protested the budget while stuffing it with their own pet projects.  I want to know that the party I support will make a principled stand against using federal money for local projects.

I believe Mr. Steele that the federal budget is not a place for social engineering, local projects, or artificially supporting the foolish businesses, banks, individuals, and agencies that extended too far beyond their means and made foolish decisions.  I am speaking as a person who has lost a home to foreclosure.  I too made a foolish decision.  I expect to now rent for years with ruined credit until I save up a minimum of 20-30% and show myself worthy of another chance. I am not asking for a bailout.  I do not deserve one, and neither does the bank who lent to me with no money down and a 60 percent loan to income ratio.  They were foolish and so was I.  The American dream is not everything when you ask for it, its working towards your dream, enduring setbacks and patiently building towards a future while you wisely manage your resources.  I had to lose a home to realize that, and if banks and others are allowed the pain of failure, they too will learn the lesson it teaches.

Building is a lot harder though when my retirement has lost over 30% of its value and when my pay has been frozen for 3 years amd may be cut to keep our company (a private school, I teach science), afloat.....good thing I do not retire for another 32 years (If I retire at 70). 

The point Mr Steele, is that this Republican Party does not yet represent me.  I want three things from the party before I will contribute to it again:

1) I want a committment to fight the War on Terror with all resources available.  I was an Arabic Linguist in the Navy from 1996 to 2002, Iran, Syria and even Saudi Arabia, these are not our friends.  The President sets foreign policy, and your party has limited control or sayso over his decisions, but I need the party that represents me to stand firmly as a friend of Israel, for reform in tyrannical governments, and most of all against every nation who supports or sponsors terrorism and its perpetrators.  If our President decides to engage Syria and accept their unacceptable interference in Iraq and Lebanon, I want to hear Republicans voicing dissent.  If our President accepts a Nuclear Iran, I want to hear Republicans howling against it, demanding that we do whatever we can to stop them.  If Iraq dissolves into chaos and Obama continues to withdraw our troops from their hard fought victory, I want Republicans to demand we stay and complete the mission.

2) I want Republicans to demand energy independence, not the phony calls for carbon offsets, solar and wind and other pipe dreams, but true energy policy....the 35 nuclear plants McCain called for, drilling oil shale, and anywhere we can in our own nation, feasible green sources, but not unrealistic and infeasible pipe dreams we hear the left calling for.  They do not want energy independence, they want to reduce us to a third world country for a fake environmental utopia.

3)  I want Republicans to commit to fiscal responsibility.  To protest if not block every piece of legislation that calls for spending beyond National Defense, Infrastructure, and Energy Production.  No more interference in the field of health care, no more pointless and expensive farm subsidies, no local earmarks, no sham socialist lite posturing.

4) I want new Republican faces, war veterans, business owners, intelligent members of the faceless masses challenging for every house seat in 2010.  Not retreads from failed campaigns of the past, not pseudoRepublicans like Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter, real fresh new faces from among our 300million citizens ready to challenge for what was meant after all to be the chamber of the common man. 

You, Mr Steele, as chairman of the party, convince your members to meet these criteria, and I will support you with whatever means I can afford.  Continue to play politics as usual, and I will not be sending a dime.

Sincerely,

Wil Keepers

Yuba City, California 

I have not had time to post much, and I have not visited the other blogs here in months, but I hope to add something every so often like this letter.