U.S. senators Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today attended the opening of the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center in Columbus, Ga.

“Today is a proud day for the men and women of the infantry and our nation,” said Chambliss, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The National Infantry Museum will provide a vivid reminder of the sense of duty, bravery, and honor our service members and Infantrymen have demonstrated throughout military history. I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in the opening of this museum, which will give our infantrymen and women their due.”

“It is a privilege to attend today’s grand opening of the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center,” said Isakson, a member of the Senate Veterans’’ Affairs Committee. “The infantry deserves an appropriate place to showcase its rich history, and I’m pleased we now have this remarkable facility to make people aware of the immense sacrifices its soldiers have made for our nation.”

Last fall, Chambliss and Isakson were instrumental in passing legislation, the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center Commemorative Coin Act, which authorized 350,000 silver coins to be issued in 2012 to honor soldiers and commemorate the construction of the National Infantry Museum. Money raised through the sale of the coins will go toward establishing an endowment to support the maintenance of the new museum.

The new National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center at Patriot Park is a state-of-the-art facility constructed to tell the story of America’s infantry. For more information, please visit www.nationalinfantrymuseum.com.

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. today announced he will host a statewide First-Time Homebuyer’s Forum on Saturday, June 27, 2009. The workshop will be held at the Busbee Center at Gwinnett Technical College in Lawrenceville, Ga., from 10 a.m. until noon.

The forum is an opportunity for first-time homebuyers to hear from professionals on best practices for first-time homebuyers, federal and state tax incentives, how to choose a Realtor, and general information on the home purchasing process. Presenting organizations will include the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, the Georgia Association of Realtors and the Mortgage Bankers Association of Georgia. Representatives from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Atlanta Board of Realtors and Gwinnett County also will be available to speak with attendees.

“I am honored to be able to offer this excellent opportunity to first-time homebuyers from across Georgia,” said Isakson. “As a Realtor myself for many years, I’m well aware of the value of a knowledgeable buyer. Information is power in home buying and negotiating. I encourage anyone interested in meeting with professionals in the field to participate.”

All persons who are interested in attending must make a reservation online at rsvp@isakson.senate.gov, or by contacting Isakson’s office at (770) 661-0999. All persons who wish to attend must do so by the registration deadline on Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 5 p.m.

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today urged caution in rushing to pass a flawed health care reform plan that will cost more than $1 trillion, will put the federal government in an unfair competition with private health insurers and managed care providers, and will place a massive financial burden on Georgia and other states to pay for a proposed expansion of Medicaid.

The health care legislation, which was crafted by Senate Democrats, is being considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Isakson is a member of the committee.

“I recognize the frustrations many Americans have with the current cost and delivery of health care. We do want to reduce cost, we do want to improve quality and we do want to improve accessibility. I am as committed to that as anyone,” Isakson said. “However, I am not going to stand for a simple solution to a very difficult problem. This country cannot afford to get this wrong, because if we do, we won’t have another big issue to debate because we won’t have a country.”

The HELP Committee is currently considering health care reform legislation that includes a government-run plan that would compete with private insurers. During an executive session of the committee to debate the legislation, Isakson argued that a government-run plan will decrease choice and quality, because it would be difficult for private entities to compete with the government that regulates them and taxes them and that is exempt from having to pay taxes.

A preliminary report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the legislation currently being considered by the committee would cost at least $1 trillion. However, many sections of the bill, including a proposed expansion of Medicaid, are missing and therefore could not be included in the cost estimate. The CBO report also estimated the legislation would cause 23 million Americans to lose their current health care coverage, including 15 million individuals who are currently covered by employer-sponsored plans.

Isakson also criticized the proposed expansion of Medicaid, which would allow individuals who earn up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level to be eligible for full Medicaid benefits. Currently, Medicaid is available only to those who earn up to 100 percent of the poverty level, so the Democrats’ plan represents a 50 percent increase. When Medicaid was originally created in 1968, Georgia’s total Medicaid spending was nearly $7.7 million, or 1 percent of all state spending. In 2008, Georgia’s total Medicaid spending was over $2.4 billion, or 12 percent of all state spending. This proposal would cost Georgia and other states billions of additional dollars to meet the 50 percent increase to their required share of Medicaid costs.

Isakson believes the key to health care reform is stimulating competition in a market-based system that will encourage private health insurers and managed care providers to compete for business and make health insurance more affordable for consumers. Isakson also believes Congress should look carefully into proposals that will increase coverage of preventative and wellness care, which will help control the cost of managing chronic disease and drive down the cost of treating largely preventable conditions.

Isakson is a co-sponsor of S.1099, Patients’ Choice Act of 2009, which seeks to strengthen the relationship between the patient and the doctor by using choice and competition rather than rationing and restrictions to contain costs and ensure affordable health care for all Americans.

Oxendine, Barnes Top Picks For Governor

Quote from Team Ox:

“While it remains early in the campaign, Team Oxendine notes that John Oxendine continues to lead in every independent poll and leads the undecided category – the first time a Republican candidate has done so with the current field,” said campaign manager Kathryn Ballou.

“We are proud that John Oxendine continues to earn the support of Republicans across Georgia. With Governor Barnes entrance into the race, Georgia Republicans understand that our Party must support the candidate who can win in November of 2010. These numbers indicate John Oxendine is that candidate,” said Ballou.

Press Release by Team Ox:

I am proud to endorse HR 1207 The Federal Reserve Transparency Act by Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX).

I encourage all Georgia conservatives to contact our Congressional delegation and urge them to support this important reform legislation which will transform the way Washington D.C. does business.


Since 1913, the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation?

Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of oversight and auditing of the Federal Reserve and Congressman Paul is doing an outstanding job on this important matter.


As Congressman Paul points out, the Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments but the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight?

I agree with Congressman Paul. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. The taxpayers deserve transparency in government and HR 1207 shines the light on the Federal Reserve.

Introduces Legislation to Expand Tax Credit for Homebuyers, Cites Endorsement by Business Roundtable

Drawing on more than three decades of experience in the real estate industry, U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today introduced legislation to invigorate housing demand and to boost the economy by expanding the first-time homebuyer tax credit passed by Congress earlier year.

“The first-time homebuyer tax credit has made a difference. First-time home buyers used it and the market stabilized, but we don’t have a recession in first-time home buyers. We have a recession in the move-up market,” Isakson said. “One of the biggest problems facing the American people today is an illiquid housing market, a decline in their equity, a decline in their net worth and a depression in the housing market that we are obligated to correct if we possibly can.”

Specifically, Isakson’s legislation would increase the maximum amount of the credit from $8,000 to $15,000 and expand the current tax credit so that it applies to any buyer of any home, not just first-time buyers. The legislation also would eliminate the income caps of $75,000 for an individual and $150,000 for a couple under the current tax credit so that there is no income limit for eligibility. Finally, the amendment would extend the tax credit for one year from date of enactment and would still allow homebuyers to claim the credit on their 2009 tax return for purchases made in 2010.

“The man who is transferred from Missouri to Georgia can’t sell his house in Missouri, can’t come to Georgia and can’t take the transfer. His employer can’t afford to buy the house and hold it for him because of the proliferation of inventory that is owned,” Isakson said. “Today, in the United States, one in two sales made every day is a short sale or a foreclosure. That is an unhealthy market, and it is continuing to precipitate a downward spiral in values, loss of equity by the American people and a protracted, difficult economic time for our country.”

Isakson immediately picked up a bipartisan group of co-sponsors for his legislation, including Senators Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Jim Bunning, R-Ky., Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., John Ensign, R-Nev., Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, James Risch, R-Idaho, and David Vitter, R-La.

In addition, the National Association of Realtors and the Housing Working Group of Business Roundtable today endorsed Isakson’s efforts to expand the current homebuyer tax credit as part of recommendations to help return stability and growth to the U.S. housing market.

In announcing its endorsement of the expansion of the homebuyer tax credit as well as other recommendations to boost the housing market, Richard A. Smith, President and CEO of Realogy Corporation and Chair of Business Roundtable’s Housing Working Group, said, “We recognize the earlier efforts made by the Administration and Congress, but strongly recommend taking additional steps to jumpstart the lagging housing market in order to stimulate a broader economic recovery. If the housing market is not corrected or stabilized, the tide of the recession is not likely to reverse in the near term, and the slide in the economy overall will continue. We believe targeted, demand-side solutions – such as the ones Business Roundtable is recommending today – will provide a critical next step for a housing recovery that will help create jobs and boost the economy as a whole.”

Isakson has pushed hard for a non-repayable tax credit for homebuyers because he knows that it will work. In the mid-1970s, America faced a similar housing crisis when a period of easy credit and loose underwriting flooded the market with new construction. Interest rates rose, the economy slowed and America was left with a three-year supply of vacant homes. Congress responded by passing a $2,000 tax credit for anyone purchasing a new home for their principal residence. Isakson, who was in the real estate industry in Atlanta at the time, says the results were clear and swift as home values stabilized, housing inventory dropped and the market recovered.

Isakson spent more than three decades in the real estate business, beginning his business career in 1967 when he opened the first Cobb County, Ga., office of a small, family-owned real estate business, Northside Realty. Isakson later served as president of Northside for 20 years, presiding over the company’s growth into the largest independent residential real estate brokerage company in the Southeast and one of the largest in America.

The brave men and women, and their families, who serve the people of Georgia in law enforcement sacrifice much for our public and private good; we owe it to them to provide them an environment in which they can win!

As the son of a veteran law enforcement officer, I understand the hardships faced daily by our officers and their families. When I am elected Governor of Georgia, I will immediately set about to remedy these problems.

Local and state law enforcement in Georgia are under attack in an attempt to undermine their effectiveness and autonomy.

Among the problems plaguing these defenders of our liberty at home are:

1. Under-funding of our Georgia State Patrol, Department of Corrections, and Georgia Bureau of Investigation. This under-funding results in a greater problem of under-manpower needed to fulfill the appointed tasks of each of these state law enforcement agencies, which further leads to a decline in morale of the remaining officers and a much lower retention rate of highly-trained officers (which equals more wasted tax dollars), in addition to the problem of having to obtain “federal” assistance for state law enforcement issues.
2. Attempt to “federalize” all local and state law enforcement. With the advent of FEMA and Homeland Security at the federal level, there has been an increased effort to have our local and state law enforcement subjugated to the control and dictates of these outside entities, sometimes at the extortionary threat of having our own tax dollars with-held from our counties and state agencies if they do not accept a subservient role to federal agencies and mandates.
3. Federal intrusion into the Constitutional jurisdictions of local and state law enforcement. At a time when our people, as well as our Republic in general, is in danger of direct attacks upon our liberties from the federal government, it is a primary role of local sheriffs to safeguard their citizens from such encroachments. The past twenty years has demonstrated numerous examples of federal police agencies encroaching upon or bypassing the highest Constitutional officer in each county (the sheriff), with many of those occasions ending in disaster and, sometimes, loss of life.
4. Lack of waivers for law enforcement officers serving overseas in the National Guard. The creation of the “National Guard” was for the purpose of eliminating the historic “State Guard,” which was always under the direct control of state governments – something resisted by the federal government because of the tendency of many states to not accept unconstitutional federal mandates. The supposed purpose of the National Guard, however, is for the domestic protection of Georgia; the role of the National Guard in overseas military action is a fairly recent invention of the end of the twentieth century, when our military forces began to be stretched thin by “police” actions around the globe. Today, many of our local and state law enforcement officers who serve in Georgia’s National Guard units are being deployed overseas, leaving even more unfilled vacancies in our legitimate law enforcement agencies than before. While it is one matter for these willing officers to serve in the Guard for domestic purposes of law enforcement within Georgia, it is quite another matter to allow the federal government to demand that they be sent overseas as “backup” to the standing military.
5. Federal programs which entice local and state law enforcement officers to travel overseas as part of “private” law enforcement teams. Private contractors who provide “police” teams to overseas governments and corporations have, for whatever reason, been allowed to entice much-needed local and state law enforcement officers away to distant lands with the lure of “non-taxable” income. This has, along with the other issues mentioned above, accounted for even greater losses within the ranks of our important local and state law enforcement agencies.
6. Failure to enforce sentences for convicted criminals. This practice alone has demoralized our local and state law enforcement and presented them with an ever-growing criminal element with which to deal on a daily basis.
7. The staggering illegal alien population has flooded Georgia with foreign-born criminals who have been allowed to steal into our state amidst their fellow travelers. Illegal aliens now comprise an alarming and increasing percentage of gangs and criminals at large AND are being housed in over-crowded, under-manned detention facilities across Georgia. Even our dedicated and hard-working law enforcement officers can not keep pace with this growing problem, which threatens to break the already-strained system in place.

In conclusion, our local and state law enforcement officers are under very blatant attacks upon their efficiency to perform their duties and upon their autonomy as the Constitutional defenders of personal liberty for Georgians.

It would seem that there are those who, using the old Hegelian Dialectic, have set our officers up for failure. Whether it is due to a lack of concern for our officers or due to a desire to create the “need” for a growing federalized police state, those elected officials who are not actively pursuing immediate remedies to the above-stated problems encountered by our brave officers EVERY DAY should be voted out of office and sent packing. And those candidates who do not join me in taking this stand should not be considered worthy of your support in the upcoming elections in 2010.

For Georgia First,

Ray McBerry,

Republican Candidate for Governor 2010

Georgia’s Next Governor- Feat or Fiasco?

We have come to a dangerous place in American politics. The fallacy of “most electable” has been a media and marketing ploy to prop undesirable candidates up and garner support from an otherwise conservative populace. What happened nationally with McCain can very possibly happen in Georgia with Oxendine. Should the establishment Republican party perceive Oxendine as most electable, and set him up against Roy Barnes, we can anticipate a Democrat for Governor.

Under Obama, the advance of socialism has been rapid and appalling. The only way to reclaim the country is state by state. And the only way to reclaim the sovereignty of the state is by raising up for Governor a man who firmly attests to, believes in, and resolves to uphold the absolute right of state government to interpose on behalf of the life and liberty of the people. That man is Ray McBerry.

The Ray McBerry campaign is an onward march of optimism and hope. Ray believes in the people of Georgia, believes that Georgians are best able to care for themselves and their families, believes that Georgians own their lives and liberty, and believes that Georgians own their local governments on the county and state level.

The duties of civil government are restricted through our foundational documents the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. These important parameters for responsible moral government do not provide for the rights of the people, but instead limit the government from infringing upon the natural rights of the people.

All of the problems facing our state come down to the basic premise: do we own ourselves, or are we owned?

The fruit of our labors should be ours, yet we labor 6 months out of every year to cover the increasing and devastating burden of taxation. Property tax and income tax demonstrate a presumption by government that it owns our wealth and owns the fruit of our labor. This presumption will stop under Ray McBerry.

The top-heavy bureaucracy of Georgia state government seeks to regulate and license every area of our lives and every area of the private business sector. This presumes that civil government bequeaths to the populace the privileges of existing within our state and building a way of life and way of making provision for our families. This presumption will stop under Ray McBerry.

With our nation in rapid decline, it is imperative that we rise up with a message of hope and confidence that rings true to the basic premise that we own ourselves and our property, that life and liberty are God given, and that the only duty of moral government is to protect individual life and liberty.

We must assert ourselves for the protection of Georgians. We must put into office Ray McBerry. A governor who recognizes as he wields the power of his office, appoints judges and important government positions, and influences the legislature, that his duty is to serve the individual life and liberty of each and every Georgian.

Jenny Hodges

Campaign Director, Ray McBerry 2010

Also Prohibits Treasury from Spending More TARP Funds to Bailout Automakers


U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., today announced that he is co-sponsoring legislation to require the Treasury Department to distribute to individual taxpayers all its stock in General Motors (GM) and Chrysler within one year following the companies’ emergence from bankruptcy proceedings.


“I believe it was obvious back in December 2008 that a structured bankruptcy was the correct path for GM and Chrysler to restructure their debt and contracts. By giving these companies taxpayer funds from TARP, the administration only delayed the inevitable, but worse created a situation where the government became a part owner of private business,” Isakson said. “This common-sense legislation I am co-sponsoring would get the government out of the American auto business and put this stock back in the hands of the American people.”


The Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer Act, introduced by U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., would require Treasury to distribute its common stock holdings in both companies evenly to every American who paid taxes on April 15.


The legislation also would prohibit the Treasury from using any more TARP funds to bailout GM or Chrysler and would require that the Secretary of the Treasury and his designee have a fiduciary responsibility to the American taxpayer to maximize the return on that investment as long as the government holds stock in the companies.

Quick observation….It seems as though Team Ox is running full steam ahead with their online political strategy. I’m getting more and more content from them recently.

I’m just wondering when the other GOP candidates will flip the switch and start sending out press releases, agendas, newsletters and such. I will gladly post their content asap. So keep checking for your favorite candidate’s news and announcements.

How active will the 120Politics blog be in 6 months or even next June, a mere month before the primaries?

Should be interesting.