Voice For Liberty

Tag: American Majority

  • Summit to provide training in activism

    Next Friday and Saturday (May 7 and 8) American Majority is holding a Post-Party Summit in Kansas City. These events are being held around the country to help organize and train activists and candidates who want to work for individual freedom through limited government and the free market.

    American Majority is a national non-profit, non-partisan political training institute whose mission is to train and equip a national network of leaders. The Kansas City summit is sponsored by organizations in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri.

    In an email conversation I had with Beka Romm, who is Executive Director of American Majority’s Kansas office, she told how important it is to take action, and to learn how to become active:

    The summit is designed to follow the tea parties with in-depth training to give activists and candidates the practical tools they need to implement freedom. If we’re to turn our nation around, it will require the local tea parties and 9.12 groups to focus on such things as identifying and training new leaders for state and local office, and then supporting them with money and grassroots work such as door-to-door and phone banking.

    It will require hard-wiring and micro-targeting precincts. It will require citizen journalists providing greater transparency for government and elected officials. It will require a far more robust presence online, with Facebook, Twitter, wikis and blogs. In the intensive training that we’ll offer, individuals can choose the training topics that interest them most from national trainers such as Ned Ryun and local experts including Earl Glynn.

    She added that the cost of the event is $50 (pre-registered), and that includes all meals (both Friday and Saturday), training, and materials.

    Just a few days ago 400 citizens gathered in Topeka for the Kansas Defending the American Dream Summit 2010, produced by Americans for Prosperity-Kansas. This American Majority event is a way for interested citizens like those who attended the AFP summit to learn how to become activists.

    To learn more about the event and register, click on summit.americanmajority.org.

  • Organizing for a free America summits

    American Majority is a national non-profit, non-partisan political training institute whose mission is to train and equip a national network of leaders committed to individual freedom through limited government and the free market. To support this goal, American Majority is offering a number of post party summits across the country. The goal of these summits, according to American Majority, is to “highlight and emphasize real tools that an organization, campaign, and individual activist can implement immediately.”

    American Majority also says: “It is not enough to stand on the sideline and it is not enough to protest — conservatives must learn how to implement freedom and liberty on the ground in their communities. With the right tools and training, conservative activists can be successful in taking their community back to the principles of limited government, individual freedom and the free market.”

    For those in Kansas, the closest event is on Friday and Saturday May 7 and 8, at the Embassy Suites KC – International Airport in Kansas City, Missouri. The cost for the event is reasonable, as is the special hotel rate.

    To learn more about the event and register, click on summit.americanmajority.org.

  • Detroit, corporate welfare and Wichita’s future

    The following op-ed from Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s Alan Cobb appeared in today’s Wichita Eagle (the unedited version is below).

    I agree with Cobb. Wichita definitely has a problem with its economic development strategies. Instead of low taxes that will benefit everyone, the Wichita city council and Wichita city hall bureaucrats insist on dishing out subsidies to companies nearly every week. I’ve shared my ideas with the council in testimony like Wichita universal tax exemption could propel growth and articles like Wichita’s economic development strategy: rent seeking.

    Still, there are some council members who, along with Mayor Carl Brewer and some city staff, feel city the doesn’t have enough “tools in the toolbox” for shoveling incentives on companies for economic development purposes.

    Recently The Eagle printed an article by Molly McMillin, a well-respected aviation and business reporter.

    The question asked throughout the article is one that Wichita leaders and citizens have been asking for some time: What can we do to prevent Wichita from falling into the hole that is Detroit?

    A simple answer is to continue throwing money and other goodies to keep the aviation companies. A better answer is we need to get rid of the notion that our elected officials and others have so much forethought to know what will or won’t be successful in 20 or 50 years. They don’t.

    Detroit became the modern tragedy it is, not just because of global competition, poor products or poor management at the Big Three. Other sectors of the Michigan economy weren’t there to pick up the slack, when the auto industry floundered. Michigan put too much focus on the auto industry, to the detriment of the overall business and economic climate.

    While state and local government poured incentives into the Big Three’s trough, the marginal costs of doing business for everyone else crept up.

    It‘s the classic example of the seen vs. the unseen. We see the new factory Pontiac builds. We don’t see the businesses that reduce their size, close or just move. The irony is we will still see the Pontiac factory after it is closed and boarded up.

    For each tax dollar given to the auto industry, one is taken one away from entrepreneurs trying to create the next GM, Ford, Google or Apple. This may not be too bad the first time or the second time, but over years and decades, the results can be significant. The “next big thing” will be created in a state with a better tax and regulatory climate.

    Cessna, Spirit, Boeing, Learjet and Beechcraft are all great companies that produce great products known throughout the world. Kansans and Wichitans are rightly proud.

    Who can predict with any certainty they’ll be in Wichita or even in business in 10 or 30 years? I hope so, and I think they will, but I am not willing to bet Wichita’s future on it.

    We shouldn’t give other individual companies state or local funded goodies, either.

    Lower the tax rates for everyone. After all, the tax breaks and other prizes handed out are recognition that the cost of doing business in a particular are is too high.

    The Kansas Division of Legislative Post Audit last year reported we spent billions of dollars in “economic development” with literally nothing to show for it. Our lawmakers aren’t very good at picking winners and losers.

    When Wichita’s aircraft leaders were asked about Detroit, there was a golden opportunity to ask other business leaders in Kansas and Wichita that same question.

    It is just as likely and maybe more so, that they will determine if Wichita goes the way of Detroit — or does not.

  • What will you do after the tea party?

    Across the nation, people are planning tea party protests next Wednesday April 15. These protests are sure to attract many people and garner media coverage. At the Wichita tea party we expect hundreds to attend.

    That’s fine for that one day. But to create change in our country, there must be sustained activism. That’s hard to do. It requires a variety of things, one of which is knowing what to do.

    That’s where groups like American Majority can help. This group — national in scope with a strong and active presence in Kansas — provides training for candidates and activists. I’ve been to some of their training events, and they do a great job.

    American Majority has started a web site specifically for after-tea party outreach. At this site, you can sign up and indicate your areas of interest. This will get you involved with a group that can help build on the enthusiasm generated by events like the tea party protests.

    American Majority’s site is AfterTheTeaParty.com.

    Candidate recruitment and campaign training is vitally important. In Wichita, we just had a disastrous election for both city and school board offices. There were a few good candidates. But we need more good people who understand the blessings of liberty, free markets, and limited government to run for office. We need to learn how to run effective campaigns to support these people. These are a few of the very important things we need to do to bring about change.

    Don’t let the enthusiasm generated by the tea parties die out. Make sure you sign up for AfterTheTeaParty.com or another group. I’ll report on other worthwhile groups soon.