Where Is The RNC?

WHERE IS THE RNC?

Calling the Republican National Committee:
Hello, is anybody home? Hello!

By: Marvin L. Covault,
Lt. Gen. US Army, retired,
August 8, 2022

Have you looked at the RNC website lately? There is nothing there that is servicing a single Republican candidate for any office in 2022 and nothing looking forward to 2024; zero. What in the hell are they doing? There is no Republican platform to guide candidates who are on the stump today. What is on the website is only about 2016 and 2020. The only reference to 2022 and 2024 is this statement; “RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention.” Amazing, not one before-the-fact action by the RNC that could guide candidates in 2022 and 2024.

Thousands of Republican candidates across the nation are campaigning right now and the 2024 presidential wannabees are already posturing; publishing a book, visiting Iowa, New Hampshire, etc. Under these circumstances, one would expect the RNC to be front and center with a coherent message for every Republican candidate in the country to use. Not happening and no indication that they plan to do anything.

January 2022, President Biden, from the podium at a virtual Democratic National Committee grassroots event, questioned what Republicans “are for” and suggested that they “don’t stand for anything.” That statement, kicking off the 2022 election year, should have been a red-flag wake-up call at RNC headquarters. It should have perpetrated an all-hands-on-deck reaction. Nothing that I can find suggests they were anything other than asleep at the switch.

Memo to Ms. Ronna McDaniel, RNC Chairperson:
The RNC website is a disgrace to the Republican Party and not helpful to conservative candidates and voters. It’s full of boiler-plate fluff that has no value-added for any candidate. Only recently did you finally take down the 2016 platform and nothing has replaced it. Our candidates are out there talking about gas prices and inflation; that’s not enough. They need an entire array of issues laid out in a coherent way that they can use to enhance and focus their campaign presentations every day. Madam Chairwomen, here is what you need to do and it needs to be completed yesterday. A starter list of issues is provided later in the memo.

Immediately get out a memo to everyone in the RNC headquarters:
All hands-on-deck except emergency leave for the next 10 days. This is not an eight-to-five endeavor, we will work as long as it takes. We are going to provide a Point Paper to every Republican candidate in America on every subject the Republican Party is now or should be involved in and a lot of what we see the Democrats doing that is harmful to this nation.

The senior staff and I will meet in the conference room tomorrow at 7 a.m. We will spend however many hours it takes to complete the list of issues. Following that, the issue list will be distributed to teams of researchers/writers to prepare their first draft of their assigned Point Paper.

On day one, I will get the word out to every Republican candidate that Point Papers will be on the way in 10 days.

The objective is for every Point Paper to be one page but never more than two, no exceptions, font 12. Every Point Paper will begin with this sentence: The purpose of this Point Paper is to………

I will immediately communicate with some senior mentors (e.g., Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Alan Simpson) and ask that they quickly review and comment on the list of issues that we are for and against.

I and the senior staff will work from the conference room all day, every day to review Point Papers as they are available from the research/writer teams. Every paper will indicate at the top of page 1, which draft it is; first, second, etc., final.

Everything in a Point Paper must be fact-checked.

Every Point Paper will be written as if you are the candidate selling the issue to the constituents.

Every final-draft copy will immediately go out to the senior mentors.

Most of these Point Papers can be in first draft by close of business the first day.

Here is a starter list of issues that need to be transformed into Point Papers.

1. End state: The Founding Fathers envisioned a limited government, especially at the Federal level. But over time the bureaucracy in the Executive Branch has grown into a fourth branch of government with a life of its own and unintended power. We want a federal government that works for we-the-people and is not bent on controlling every aspect of our lives. RNC: expand on this with some examples of government over-reach to which voters can personally relate.

2. March 2021, the American Rescue Plan, $1.9 trillion: At that time every economic indicator told us the pandemic-riddled economy was on the way back and improving every day. Biden immediately initiated his (and Obama’s) tax-and-spend economic philosophy by sending a check to 90% of American households. It was completely unnecessary and is largely responsible for kick-starting the inflation we are experiencing today. RNC: fill out the details of this bill and what a disaster it has become for every American.

3. November 2021, Biden signed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act. Everyone knows our infrastructure needs help but how much of the bill is actual infrastructure and how much is “pork”? The bill was 2700 pages long so it’s another piece of legislation that no one read and did not pass muster in Congressional Committee hearings. Additionally, Democrats claimed the bill would pay for itself without raising taxes. But the Congressional Budget Office concluded most of the pay-for provisions were false and ultimately the package would add $256 billion to the deficit. RNC: Fill out the details in a Point Paper.

4. July 2022, Biden signed into law the “CHIPS” Act, providing $52 billion in incentives for semiconductor production in the U.S. Fine, we need to reduce our reliance on foreign-made semiconductors. But what’s in the remainder of the $280 billion law? More pork that we will borrow money to pay for? More tax and spend? RNC: Fill out the details into a Point Paper.

5. We want the Secretary of Defense to get in his lane and stay there. Secretary Austin said, “The DOD will elevate the climate as a national security priority, integrating climate considerations into DOD’s policies, strategies, and partner engagements. The DOD will incorporate climate-risk assessments into wargaming, modeling, and simulation, and bolster mission resilience and deploy solutions that optimize capability, and reduce our carbon footprint.” Mr. Secretary, the only thing climate has to do with warfighting is to ensure our service members take weather into account when planning a combat mission. Military actions are always about “WET”, weather/enemy/terrain. RNC: fill out the details into a Point Paper.

6. In 2016 Hillary started the mass-name-calling routine with, “You know to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters (that would have been about 35 million Americans) into what I call the basket of deplorables, the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” Biden picked up on it in his 2020 campaign and as president, he has openly accused white Americans who support Trump policies as racist, white supremacists, and “an existential threat to our nation”. Those kinds of lies are ugly, ignorant, and unamerican. Of course, there are right-wing extremists in our nation but an intelligent person recognizes there are also left-wing extremists. Those thugs are not mainstream Republicans or Democrats that care about our country. They do not represent either party’s public policy positions. For a president to paint 70 million conservative Americans with that brush is demeaning. Every candidate should vigorously attack this kind of rhetoric and rightfully call out the Democrats and Democrat leaders for perpetuating that message.

7. The recession of 2008 was an Obama/Biden challenge. They attacked it with a Democrat-endorsed tax and spend offensive that resulted in the slowest economic recovery since World War II. After eight Obama/Biden years the GDP growth was declining in their final year in office. This is exactly the path Biden is following. It didn’t work for Obama and it won’t work now. RNC: expand on this point, it’s a powerful example of where we are and are headed.

8. Do a Point Paper of campaign one-liners that contrasts the Trump economic plan with the Biden plan: In 2017 Trump cut taxes on everyone. Labor participation rates went up. Median household income grew. Poverty rate among Black Americans fell below 20% for the first time. Unemployment rates for Black Americans went under 6% for the first time. Female employment set new record highs. From 2017 to 2019 wages for the bottom 10% of earners grew at more than double the rate they did during the Obama/Biden administration. In the two years following the Trump tax reductions, household incomes rose by more than they had in the previous eight Obama/Biden years combined. Every candidate should hammer these stats every day, the average voter does not know all of this.

9. Corporations don’t pay taxes, people pay taxes. Corporate tax is an additional element in the cost of producing a product just like the cost of raw materials, salaries, plant operations, marketing, etc. RNC, do a Point Paper on the debilitative impacts of raising corporate tax rates, another Obama/Biden debacle that Biden is bringing back. Trump lowered corporate tax rates and reversed the downward trend in business investment, companies could compete price-wise on the global market, corporate wages went up, bonuses went up, and 401(k) matching went up. Increased corporate taxes inevitably leads to lower wages and less hiring. Republicans are for keeping corporate taxes at the levels established by Trump.

10. RNC: do a Point Paper on the Democrat’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (being considered by the House as I write this): Democrats are saying it will reduce the deficit by $300 billion. Despite the ridiculous title, the Inflation Reduction Act is nothing more than another tax-and-spend tactic that will only serve to exacerbate current inflation issues. Here are some specifics according to the Wall Street Journal, 4 August:
 It will hurt Americans in every tax bracket. More than half the new taxes would be on those making less than $400,000.
 It is a far-reaching tax on manufacturing that could be devastating.
 It will make the U.S. less competitive and drive more jobs overseas.
 It will discourage new investment and create negative economic growth. An estimated 25% of the impact on corporations will fall on employees and lower wages. About 30% of the corporate tax will fall on consumers.
 It will decrease gross domestic product by an estimated $68 billion with over 200,000 jobs lost. The U.S. tried this in 1986. It didn’t work and was repealed in 1989.
Candidates need to tell the voters that this is the kind of debilitating nonsensical thinking they will get from the Democrats.

11. RNC: Do a point paper on the debilitating effects of government over-regulation. Here are some starter facts: The Obama/Biden administration added 20,642 new regulations. Just during 2015 new regulations imposed over $22 billion in regulatory costs. During the Trump administration, the ratio of regulations deleted to regulations gained was 3.2 to 1. The Trump administration reported eliminating $198.6 billion in overall regulatory costs. It should be noted that a key to becoming energy independent under Trump, was the rollback of stifling energy production regulations. With gas prices soaring to $5+ a gallon, many of us have been asking why can’t we just go back to whatever we were doing in 2019. Here is the beginning of the answer and candidates across the nation should be explaining this every day. Biden has blamed the increase in gas prices on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He knows that is a lie and he also knows the truth about why gas across the nation went to $5 a gallon. In his first 16 months in office, his administration and Congressional Democrats have initiated over 100 actions (executive orders, policy decisions, new regulations) deliberately designed to make it harder and more expensive to produce energy in America. Thirty-two of these anti-energy proclamations were enacted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Republicans are for energy deregulation back to the 2019 norm for regaining energy independence and for stopping the export of our strategic oil reserves.

12. Republicans are for open debate in public and Congress on critical issues. Here are some reasons it is not taking place. Instead of engaging in legitimate debates based on the merits of each side’s position, Progressives tend to shut down the exchange of ideas by too often simply asserting that, for example, “securing our border is racist, the 2nd amendment is racist, prosecuting crime is racist, cutting taxes is racist, school choice is racist, voter ID is racist, math is racist” and the list goes on and on. Whenever they do not agree with a position, they characterize that position as racist. Not very intelligent. The irony of all this is that from the end of the Civil War in 1865 for the next 99 years the Democrat Party was the party of segregation which is, next to slavery, the most damning and demeaning of all actions against Black Americans.

13. Biden and the Democrats have created what they believe is a cute new campaign tactic by referring to conservatives as “MAGA Extremists.” Here is the proper response to that nonsense. Yes, says the candidate as the opening to a campaign speech, I am a MAGA Extremist, there are about 70 million of us, and here is some of what we are extremely interested in:
 Energy independence,
 year-to-year economic growth,
 lower taxes for everyone,
 employing more women and Black Americans than any time in history,
 support for Israel,
 no nuclear weapons for Iran,
 shutting down North Korea’s missile and nuclear testing,
 secure borders,
 best-qualified leaders for Executive Branch Departments,
 each NATO country paying their share,
 deregulating the federal government,
 support to small businesses,
 lower corporate taxes,
 states’ rights,
 criminals in prison,
 support for police,
 if you can work and there are jobs available, get one.
If all that is “MAGA extremism”, sign me up. Republican candidates should begin to campaign on being a MAGA extremist and throw that thought right back in Biden’s face.

Note to Chairwoman McDaniel: There is a new book, May 2022, Fix the Systems, Transform America. The book intends to define national issues in detail and then present a workable solution for each. The subjects are education, race relations, illegal immigration, voter fraud, size and scope of the Executive Branch, deficit spending, a dysfunctional Congress, term limits, universal service, and world peace. The point to be made is that Fix the Systems can be an excellent reference for your research/writer teams who are working Point Papers on these subjects. BTW, Ms. McDaniel, I sent you a copy of the book a couple of months ago.

14. Biden and the Democrats have been exercising a great tactic for spending trillions of dollars on pork and debilitating laws. They do it by putting together legislation that is literally thousands of pages long, that no one voting on it has read and that has not been vetted by open debate in Congressional Committees.

RNC, do a Point Paper on this kind of legislation and provide some good examples for candidates to use to explain why this is so destructive, e.g., one good example was amnesty for all illegal aliens hidden in the multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better bill. Here is another Democrat gem; paying couples who make $299,999. a year a Child Tax Credit, aka buying votes. The point is We The People should know exactly what issues are being considered in any particular bill before Congress. With the current level of Congressional dysfunction, we are clueless about the details. “The devil is in the details.” RNC: For more details, see Chapter 5, Fix the Systems, Transform America.

15. Republican candidates should agree the world needs to reduce carbon emissions. But, explain that the Biden/Democrats’ obsession with electronic vehicles (EV) does not compute; do the math. To be effective the world, not just the U.S., needs about a billion EVs of the 1.446 billion total. To build one EV battery requires 250 tons of earth materials (lithium and rare metals). Mining, transporting 250 tons of stuff, processing it, and building an EV battery produces massive amounts of carbon to the point that an EV battery does not become a net reducer of carbon for several years then it must be replaced with a billion new batteries. One more problem is that China controls about 80% of the known supply of lithium. How do you think that is going to work out? Secondly, we will need massive new worldwide sources of electricity (demand is estimated to increase by 50% by 2050) to recharge a billion EV batteries every day or so. Again, the carbon footprint is massive with billions of tons of iron and concrete to build “carbon-free” wind turbines and solar panels that, oh-by-the-way are mostly produced in, you guessed it, China. Candidates need to get this information out to the voters. Yes, we need to reduce carbon and create more electricity so let’s begin some dialogue on expanding the use of natural gas, quickly building a lot more nuclear power plants, and a full court press on fusion research. And let’s stop using our hard-earned tax money to pay thousands of dollars in tax credits to the rich folks who can afford to buy a Tesla. Do the math.

16. Have you noticed lately that all the Democrat bills in Congress raise taxes and go on to claim it will increase federal revenue? Again, they have their economics exactly backward. The Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act increased follow-on tax revenue because tax cuts cause economic growth, lower unemployment, and rising wages. Why is that so difficult to understand? RNC, flesh out the numbers to go along with this subject; this needs to be shared by all candidates with the voters.

17. Education is a national disgrace: Every year, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the U.S.; that’s a student every 26 seconds, 7,000 every school day. In the U.S. high school dropouts commit about 75% of the crimes. About 25% of high school freshmen fail to graduate from high school on time. Almost 2,000 high schools across the U.S. graduate less than 60% of their students. Hundreds of thousands of students are routinely tested across the U.S. Here are the results:
Reading Comprehension, percent NOT proficient,
grade 4, 59%,
grade 8, 66%,
grade 12, 76%.

Math, percent NOT proficient,
grade 4, 65%,
grade 8, 66%,
grade 12, 63%.

For decades the Democrats’ solution has been to throw hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of bureaucrats at the problem and it just keeps getting worse. RNC: In building your Point Paper you can research the detailed look at a solution to all of this mess, Chapter one Fix the Systems, Transform America. It will work and it’s free.

18. “The border is secure.” BS! For Biden and the Democrats to purposely place our national security at risk is perhaps the most egregious action taken by a president with support from Congress against all Americans in our history. RNC, get a line of facts together for every candidate to use; 2022, the number of known illegals processed, estimates of numbers of illegals entered but not processed, numbers of unaccompanied minors, amount of drugs seized, amount of drugs estimated crossing into the U.S., data on terrorists, gang members, criminals, the cost to taxpayers. Republican position: walls are a deterrent, they work. Finish the wall. There is a simple solution that will voluntarily shut down illegal immigration, see chapter 2, Fix the Systems, Transform America.

19. Critical race theory is not fact, it is a theory and not a valid one. The result of teaching CRT is greater divisiveness. There are better ways to vastly improve race relations in America. See chapter 1, Fix the Systems, Transform America.

20. Republicans are fed up with boys competing in girls’ sports and the voters should be also. RNC: Need a Point Paper with a few brief horror stories to emphasize the fallacy of this nonsense.

21. Kim Jong Un is a dangerous and unpredictable nut case, and, since Trump departed, he has aggressively resumed long-range missile and nuclear testing. Trump met with him one-on-one three times and shut him down. RNC: Republicans need to jump on this one and embarrass the hell out of Democrats for putting this issue in their too-hard box. We must do something before it is too late.

22. Infrastructure: Republicans need to sound off about the desperate need for a pure infrastructure bill that is not full of fluff and pork. Sure, roads and bridges need repair but there needs to be some prioritization. The West in general and California, in particular, are about out of water. It has been more than 40 years since California last opened a major new reservoir. Nuclear power is safe and clean but because of bureaucrats, environmental fanatics, and legal actions, it takes 20-30 years to build one. RNC: Find some other critical, do-it-now projects our candidates can talk about.

23. Blame, blame, blame. Republicans need to get fired up over the complete absence of accountability by our government leaders. RNC: Need a Point Paper on this subject with lots of examples since January 2021. We need to get voters fired up over the Democrat blame game.

24. Green New Deal: RNC: Republicans need a few short hard-hitting stories about the Greens’ nonsensical approach to problem-solving. For example, the Keystone pipeline would safely and with no carbon footprint deliver about 850,000 barrels of oil per day and Biden killed it within hours of being sworn in. That oil has to move somehow so let’s use truck tankers; 4,357 of them that will burn 1,951,064 gallons of carbon-belching diesel fuel per day. It’s a simple math problem.

25. The Latin American Cartels have declared war on the U.S., are making billions of dollars, and operating unopposed. The Cartels have been the enemy of several Latin American countries for decades so it should not be difficult to cut a secret deal with them to allow the U.S. to operate secretly with small teams inside their borders. Then give the mission to JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command, leave them alone, and let them take out the leaders and headquarters in one big secret operation. Republicans should declare war on the Cartels during their campaigning.

26. The Republicans should come out strong and united on the subject of Woke nonsense in the military. Wokism does not fit with a warfighting culture, our allies and enemies will see it as a weakness (because it is) and what deterrent strength we have remaining will be compromised. RNC: We need to get the Republican candidates fired up on this issue before it is too late.

27. RNC: Do a Point Paper on Republicans’ support for Israel, our most valued ally and friend in the Middle East for decades. It was a month before Biden reached out to the Israeli leader after the inauguration.

28. Law and order: RNC: do a Point Paper on law and order beginning with exactly what our Vice President thinks about lawlessness. The looting, burning, assaults on innocents, and police causing loss of life over the summer of 2020 were led by leftwing extremists, Antifa, and the radical elements of Black Lives Matter. Camilla Harris was a national leader in the movement to instantly provide bail money to the criminals so they could get back on the street to join the crimewave; she tweeted, “If you’re able to chip in now the @MNFreedonFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” Later on, in the summer Harris is quoted as saying, “This is a movement, I’m telling you, everyone beware, protestors are not going to stop before election day in November and they’re not going to stop after election day, they should not. We should not.”

After pointing out what Republicans are up against (RE the above paragraph on VP Harris) here are some recommendations for Republicans that need to become part of the Republican agenda, such as: Start at the top by firing the Director of the FBI and find someone who is focused on law and order and could give a damn about politics; a director who will clean out the upper echelons of the FBI and restructure the culture of the organization. After reorienting the FBI, do the same thing to the Department of Justice. Law enforcement across the U.S. needs to believe the nation’s top cops in the FBI and Justice Department have their act together.

29. RNC: Do a Point Paper calling out the Democrats for pushing for an expansion of the Supreme Court expressly to pack the court with left-wing justices. Purely for political gain, the Democrats want to challenge the 250-year concept of separate-but-equal branches of government.

30. Voter fraud does exist and it shouldn’t. For example, a couple of years ago in California, it was determined that 1.5 million individuals were registered to vote even though they no longer were eligible. So, what happened to the 1.5 million ballots mailed to them? In North Carolina, 2018 the 9th Congressional District race was overturned because of vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots. In New Jersey, a candidate bribed voters with $50 payments for mail-in ballots. Virginia, an investigation found 592 examples where registrants were simultaneously registered in another state. There are about 11,600 dead people on Virginia’s voter rolls, all of whom would have received mail-in ballots. In New Mexico a Public Interest Legal Foundation found more than 3000 individuals registered multiple times. And so it goes across America. Pathetic and unnecessary.

Voter fraud takes many forms: It begins with grossly inaccurate voter registration data and then there is ballot stuffing, voter impersonation, fraud by election officials, and absentee ballot fraud. There is an easy fix for every type of voter fraud; Voter ID. From the president on down to rank-and-file members, Democrats call voter ID “racist”; an insanely ignorant conclusion. Congress has passed a bill into law that says if you want to board a domestic air flight beginning May 3, 2023, you must have a “Real ID” card. You get it at the state DMV site and to do so you must prove U.S. citizenship, local address, etc. None of the Democrats have called that requirement racist. We can/should use the same procedure for a Voter ID card. The card data would instantly become the voter registration rolls, 100% accurate and automatically updated whenever your Voter ID is renewed simultaneously with your driver’s license. When you go to vote the Voter ID card is used just like a credit card; the data is extracted and printed out. Only this time, the printed paper becomes a personal ballot with all of your data on it. A voting machine will never accept it twice and will not accept it if it does not agree with the Voter Registration Rolls. Mail-out/mail-in ballots will be produced accurately from the Voter Registration Rolls. One eligible voter, one valid ballot counted once. Voter ID can also be used to solve the problem of hundreds of millions of dollars being “contributed” during the campaign season to buy votes. Voter ID is not racist and it solves all of the current voter fraud problems. Republicans across the country should be campaigning on this issue. For more details, see Chapter 3, Fix the Systems, Transform America.

31. Universal Service for every 18-year-old American: This is a program that has been talked about for years but I have never seen anyone lay out a complete concept of operations for accomplishing that mission. It would be a huge, complex operation but the combined short- and long-term benefits to the nation are incalculable. The Republican Party and RNC should put Universal Service to America (USA) high on their list of issues they are for and willing to execute. See Chapter 7, Fix the Systems, Transform America.

32. Shame on all of us for still having to deal with racial discrimination 157 years after the Civil War. We, but especially the Democrats, have tried to work the issue from the top (federal government) down with trillions of dollars in “assistance”. It has not worked and will not work going forward. Discrimination can be wiped out of our culture but we have to begin by recognizing some facts and properly defining the problem before we search for a solution. Fact, babies are not born bigoted, disrespectful, or hateful. Second fact, youngsters learn to be bigoted, disrespectful and/or hateful at home, at school, on the playground, on the streets, or, in some cases, in church. Having properly defined the problem, what is the solution? We simply have to change what they learn and we can do that by working from the bottom up starting with every 5-year-old kindergartener in America. It is a program that can work and it’s free. See Chapter one, Fix the Systems, Transform America.

BOTTOM LINE:
Here, in part (emphasis added), is the RNC mission statement: “We are engaged in a national effort to fight for our proven agenda, take our message to every American, grow the party, promote election integrity and elect Republicans up and down the ballot.” How are they doing in 2022 with fulfilling their obligations? You fill in the blanks, C, D, or F?

Postscript: Fix the Systems, Transform America is a self-published book. I’m not interested in selling a bunch of books, but I sure as hell am interested in doing what I can to help save this nation. If you, the reader, agree, please contact your Congressional Delegation and ask them to put some pressure on the RNC to help out the 2022 Republican candidates. I would ask you to simply send an email directly to the RNC but that is not possible anymore. No surprise, they apparently don’t want to hear from We The People.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.