Today, Obama returns Iowa, the state where young people catapulted him to the White House. He returns to a much different Iowa than four years ago. Today those same young people are finishing college and about to enter an Obama economy where nearly half of those under 30 cannot find a job. Four short years ago, young Iowans welcomed Senator Obama to the state with optimism, but today they welcome President Obama with cynicism and diminished opportunity.

Since his election, Iowa’s Governor Terry Branstad has taken the opposite path of the president. Soft on rhetoric and strong on results, our Republican Governor with our Republican controlled House boldly passed a balanced budget last year despite a billion dollar budget gap. Unlike Washington, Iowa’s government has responded to the millions of voices demanding our elected officials live up to their promises and confront our problems directly and honestly.

In contrast, President Obama has been largely successful in managing our nation’s decay while placing the blame on everyone else. Last night, whether by unattached ignorance or willful deception, Barack Obama failed to be honest with the American people by feeding them more empty campaign rhetoric rather than the facts they deserve.

President Obama failed to address the fact that the federal government’s debt is spiraling out of control, under his watch. On Inauguration Day 2009, America had been a country for nearly 233 years and amassed a total debt of $10.6 trillion; three short years later Obama has increased our debt to a staggering $15.2 trillion with no end in sight. Our President watches our debt climb $4.2 billion every day, $175 million every hour, and almost $3 million every minute. Do you truly believe America can endure four more years of such mismanagement?

President Obama failed to discuss the facts of entitlement reform. We cannot make an impact on reducing our debt without bringing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid into the 21st centruy. In just 15 short years, every cent of every tax dollar will be needed to solely fund these programs and interest on the debt. Without reform, these programs will fail. The president has ignored these facts at the chance to demean the previous administration and shrink the responsibility of the job he was hired to do.

President Obama failed to mention the fact that unemployment continues to remain well above 8%. Since Obama took office, America has lost 1.7 million jobs while the percentage of Americans with a job is the lowest in decades. Now, the same young people that turned out in droves for the president in 2008 are now forced to confront their outrageous student loans with even less of an opportunity of gainful employment. Putting Americans back to work is the most imperative ingredient to ensuring America’s future success, and our president continues to be unable, or incapable, of providing solutions.

President Obama spoke of “American-made energy” but failed to mention the fact that he singlehandedly canceled the congressionally approved Keystone XL Pipeline just days prior. In one stroke, President Obama turned his back on tens of thousands of ready-to-work Americans that the pipeline could have immediately employed while deliberately obstructing the will of the Congress. Our president prioritized the minority opinions of the far left, rather than create jobs and secure American energy independence. On top of this, Americans continue to feel the pain of Obama’s energy policies on a daily basis. On Inauguration day 2009, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $1.85; today it is $3.39 – an 83% increase in just three years.

President Obama also failed to note the fact that his third State of the Union marked exactly 1,000 days since the Senate passed a budget. In 2011, it was on the floor of the Democrat controlled Senate that the president’s own budget was unanimously rejected. Obama’s estimated budget deficit this year will once again run more than $1 trillion, further compounding the problems we face as a nation.

Four years ago as a candidate, Barack Obama benefited from making lofty promises without a demonstrable record to the contrary. Today however, his administration’s record stands diametrically opposed to the empty, prepared words he reads from his teleprompter.

The president has, quite simply, made a ad situation worse, and remains unapologetic in asking Americans to condone such degradation. To win reelection, the President must convince the American people to listen to his speeches, instead of watching his actions. He expects Americans to disavow the belief of American greatness while accepting a painful “new normal” of lost opportunity and potential. Our president requests both naivety and ignorance from the American people, and plans to reciprocate with four more years of the same.

The last three years have placed the state of our union in grave condition. Thankfully, Americans have the chance to right this course in November by demanding accountability and renouncing complacency.

Natalie Ginty
Chairwoman of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans

The Iowa Federation of College Republicans has made donating to Iowa’s troops a holiday tradition for the last five years with the firm belief that these annual acts of appreciation should always be ones of duty, and never self-aggrandizing. Yet, an ISU English Lecturer found the CR’s acts callous enough to insult and demean the efforts of Jeremy and Iowa’s CRs publicly in the Iowa State Daily on Monday.

Through his blatant disregard for our nation’s heroes overseas, Walker’s letter exemplifies the intimidation tactics used by the left to bully young conservatives out of any form of activism. Sadly, yet ever more predictably, this response comes from a state-employed educator at one of Iowa’s public universities. This past spring, Iowa College Republicans faced similar vitriol from a tenured Professor of Gender and Women Studies at the University of Iowa College Republicans who chose to use her position to hurl expletives at young conservatives on campus. Somewhere along the way, our learning institutions have sanctioned the authoritative ridiculing of inquisitive, conservative minds on campus, but to do so while lambasting our troops is truly a new low we cannot accept.

College Republicans will proudly defend those that defend us and will never apologize for supporting the brave American heroes of our military. Most of us involved with this project personally know someone deployed – they are our family, friends and neighbors. We miss them dearly and pray for their safe return. While some may deride our attempt to increase our soldier’s comfort overseas, we sincerely wish there was a way to provide them with more, as they truly deserve.

As Republicans, we believe in initiative, and that it is our duty to help. Rather than ignorantly place our charitable responsibility to nameless government agencies, we choose to individually help with our own time and money to ensure our resources are not diluted. This claim was statistically verified by researcher Arthur C. Brooks in his book, “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” Brooks found that although liberal families incomes average 6% higher than conservative families, it was the latter group that, on average, gave 30% more to charity, in addition to more of their blood and their time.

Regardless of whether it is an election year or not, the members of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans work tirelessly to make their voices heard as they participate in the functions of our democracy we hold dear. A democracy, I remind you, that was given to us on the blood, sweat and sacrifice of our nation’s military members and their families.

Just mere hours after our packages were shipped to Iowa’s waiting troops, IFCR received a Facebook comment from a formerly deployed soldier so eloquent in its brevity,, “You have no idea how much these packages cheer us up when we’re over there.”

Somehow, this sentiment will always mean more to IFCR than any imbecilic, long-winded rant that shamelessly compares a discharged veteran to an aborted fetus.

Regardless of whether the author includes the word “eleemosynary”.

Thank you, TIR, for the continued support. Merry Christmas and May God bless each and every one of our soldiers and their families,

Natalie Ginty
Chair – Iowa Federation of College Republicans

Originally posted in The Iowa Republican on December 6, 2011

Des Moines, IA – The expression, “As Iowa goes, so goes the nation,” has been put to the test this Republican primary season. With Florida and South Carolina each moving their primaries up, and New Hampshire yet to decide on a date for their traditionally early season contest, the Iowa Republican party leadership worked overtime to ensure the state maintained its first-in-the-nation status. Meanwhile, on the campus of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Natalie Ginty is heading up a political ground game urging fellow students to join the effort to unseat President Obama in 2012.

Speaking by phone from Iowa City, the Chair of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans (IFCR) discussed the role of political parties on college campuses, the field of candidates seeking the Republican nomination, and offered a tip to any Republican who is listening: a strong Republican candidate with a strategy to curb unemployment could sway many of the same people who voted for Barack Obama last time around.

“All those students who were sold on hope and change back in 2008 are now looking toward graduation and the likelihood of not having a job after college,” said the Iowa City native.
“People aren’t likely to be as sold on him (President Obama) this time.”

With thousands of members spread across 17 chapters statewide, the IFCR serves as an effective mobilization force. Taking their cues primarily from the State Central Committee, the group provides grassroots support to advance Republican causes and candidates and has produced noteworthy leaders over the years. Current Iowa Governor Terry Branstad once served as a chapter chair at the University of Iowa, and on a national level, Karl Rove was once the chairman of the College Republican National Committee.

Ginty said she personally is still undecided about whom she will vote for in the upcoming caucuses and seems equally unsure about who will ultimately get the party’s nomination.

“I think it’s up in the air, at this point,” said the 21-year-old biochemistry major, who caucused for Mitt Romney in 2008.

“Governor Perry and Governor Romney seem to be leading at this point but whoever it is will be a good option and will have the full support of the party.”

While asserting that college Republicans today are likely less conservative on social issues than their parents or even college Republican predecessors, Ginty said the current crop of students’ strong stance on economic issues more than makes up for it. In September, Alex Schriver, the Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, penned the economy focused editorial titled, “Obama has let my generation down,” in which the author complains that President Obama “has buried millennials beneath a mountain of debt.”

Ginty, meanwhile, noted that that her own UI chapter will be heading to the state’s 18th Senate District over the next few weeks to canvass in support of Republican candidate Cindy Golding, in advance of the a November 8 Special Election. In September, Democratic Senator Swati Dandekar resigned her Senate seat, opening the door to what most expect to be a well-funded and contentious district race.

A Republican win in this district will tie the Senate at 25-25, ending a Democrat majority in Iowa, and creating the possibilty that a Republican led marriage ban will pass a vote in the Senate. According to the website of One Iowa, the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, Golding supports putting the existing marriage law up for statewide popular vote. Her opponent, Democrat Liz Mathis, has said that she supports the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of marriage equality for gay and lesbian Iowans.

In the presidential race, social conservatives, particularly in Iowa, remain divided among several candidates.

“Our club is really varied in terms of the personal positions of our members,” said Ginty. “We have people who support Ron Paul, the Tea Party, as well as people who would like to have seen a candidate like (Mike) Huckabee run,” referring to the former Governor of Arkansas, and winner of the 2008 Iowa Caucus.

Ginty disputed the suggestion that there is a pecking order in the Republican Party which favors candidates with strong name recognition amongst conservative insiders and lengthy government resumes.

“I don’t think so,” Ginty replied, pointing out that the Republican field includes a woman (Rep. Michele Bachmann), an African-American (businessman Herman Cain), and an openly gay candidate (political consultant Fred Karger).

Ginty, who attended the Iowa Straw Poll this summer, confessed to suffering from a case of debate fatigue and said the frequency of primary season debates might be preventing candidates from developing a clear campaign platform or a strategic plan to turn the country around.

“I’m happy that the group is pretty well established, now that Perry has gotten a few opportunities to participate,” she said. “But at a certain point, it just gets a little repetitive.”

Responding to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s announcement that he would not seek the Republican nomination, Ginty blamed the media for “stringing the story along,” after he consistently said he had no intention to run. One week after making headlines for his first announcement, he made another, announcing his decision to endorse former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

“I would’ve loved to have seen Christie run,” she said. “But I can respect a governor with just two or three years’ worth of experience admitting that he’s not ready,”

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s recent announcement that she too would stay out of the fray didn’t suprise her.

“She’s a capitalist,” Ginty declared. “She’s making a lot of money right now, reaching a lot of people with her particular message,” referring to the revenue generated by the former Alaska governor’s extensive schedule of speaking engagements and her previous work as a contributing pundit for Fox News.

“It’s clearly not as influential as being president, but there is still a lot of influence there.”

Commenting on others candidates in the race, she described former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as the “ideas man of the party,” even describing his campaign as the “most professional and organized” of the entire field.

Ginty may find more than a few dissenters on that one. The overhauled Gingrich campaign, which has seen a slight jump in the polls this fall, was in disarray as recently as June following a mass exodus of senior staff, and still finds itself far behind in terms of fundraising.

“I agree with his stance that we need to cut spending and focus on raising revenue,” she said. “The more jobs we can create, the more income tax we’ll generate.”

But Ginty, like Gingrich, is no stranger to playing the role of contrarian. Last spring, she appeared on two Fox News programs hosted by Greta Van Susteren and Glenn Beck after a political firestorm erupted on campus during a College Republicans-organized event known as “Conservative Coming Out Week.”

The week-long event encouraging students to feel comfortable expressing their political views publicly included a “Red vs. Blue” kick ball game (cancelled by the College Democrats) and a “Red vs Blue” blood drive co-sponsored by the College Democrats There was a screening of the film “Journeys with George,” as well as an “Animal Rights barbecue,” and another event which, according to the invitation, urged students to “pick up a doctor’s note to miss class for [being] ‘sick of stress’, just like the Wisconsin public employees during the union protests.”
As was reported last spring in various media outlets, the initial, university approved “coming out” invitation which was sent to all university email accounts prompted a vulgar response from University of Iowa Anthropology and Gender Studies Professor Ellen Lewin.

Lewin’s three word reply which read, “F— YOU, REPUBLICANS,” provoked a “campus-wide debate on civil discourse,” according to Des Moines Register reporter Jens Krogstad.

Professor Lewin later explained that her email was a product of “inflamed political passions”, particularly because of the organizer’s use of a term closely associated with gay people who acknowledge their sexuality to family and friends.

“The goal of ‘Conservative Coming Out Week’ was for Republicans to be honest with their community to who they are: Republicans,” wrote Ginty in an April 23 letter published on Federation’s website. “I believe we accomplished that.”

Amidst the controversy, the UI College Democrats elected to take a neutral position on the week’s itinerary of events.

Nate Fiala, the President of the UI Democrats, said the College Republican’s “coming out” campaign rhetoric was offensive to some members of the Iowa City community, but maintains that he and Ginty share a good relationship and commonly will contact one another about issues and ways to encourage informative bipartisan discourse and inter-party cooperation on campus.

This fall, the Daily Iowan agreed to run a twice-monthly University of Iowa Democrat/Republican exchange in which both sides will answer one prompt. Round one of the series focused on jobs. The Republican plan ran on September 8. A day later, the Democrats presented their response.

“We have a great relationship,” Fiala said, agreeing that he and his campus counterpart share a healthier relationship than President Obama and House Speaker Boehner.

Fiala, on the other hand, does not share Ginty’s belief that Republicans will eventually identify a candidate who can beat President Obama in the general election.

“We have already tapped into the grassroots campaign style that worked in 2008,” said Fiala.
“We’ve also established a fact sheet the lays out very clearly to voters what the President has accomplished, and the ways in which he has helped students, their families, and friends.”

In addition to noting what he considers to be the president’s accomplishments, which included the health care reform law, the stimulus package, and the recently signed the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (DADT) Repeal Bill, Fiala said the major hurdle Republicans face is not with Obama but, instead, within their own party.

“The Republicans have two leading candidates who each have significant electability problems,” Fiala said of Mitt Romney and Governor Perry.

“Romney is feared by Republicans, and Perry is feared by Americans.”

Iowa Republican leaders have tentatively agreed to hold the Iowa Caucus on January 3.

Originally posted on the Huffington Post on October 11, 2011

Labor Day has come and gone, football is back, the weather is cooler and college students are returning to campus. For many of those students, though, the excitement that should come with the start of a new school year has given way to anxiety over what comes next.

This is President Obama’s legacy and this is what college students, and all young adults, must work to change in 2012.

In 2008, Obama won the millennial demographic — 18- to 29-year-olds — by a stunning 66-to-32 percent margin. But by any measure, young adults are worse off today than they were prior to his election.

Unemployment is perhaps the most glaring problem facing millennials. While the recession has been difficult for everyone, workers aged 16-24 have been hit disproportionately hard. Though young adults represent a mere 13.5 percent of the workforce, they account for 26.4 percent of all unemployed workers. And since workers’ first jobs are crucial training grounds and resume-builders, growing unemployment among young adults will have long-lasting consequences on millennials’ skills and earning power.

Moreover, President Obama has buried millennials beneath a mountain of debt. Even if we set aside costly and ill-conceived policy “one-offs” such as the $787 billion stimulus package, the president has consistently defended the indefensible — the ever-rising level of baseline federal spending. The rising tide of federal spending will ultimately necessitate massive tax hikes, which my generation will bear.

But don’t take it from me. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s recently released Long-Term Budget Outlook lays out two possible long-term budget scenarios. Under the so-called “extended baseline scenario,” which assumes that current laws remain unchanged, revenues (that is to say, taxes) would soar to 23 percent of GDP, well above the 18 percent post-World War II average, while the federal debt would reach 84 percent of GDP by 2035, more than double what it was just three years ago.

Under the more plausible “alternative fiscal scenario,” the debt-to-GDP ratio would soar to nearly 190 percent of GDP by 2035, a level that the CBO can only describe as “unsustainable.”

This is the future a second Obama term would relegate us to: reduced prosperity and opportunity and increased taxes and debt.

Despite the grim path they have walked us down, many liberals are attempting to woo millennial voters with promises eerily reminiscent of the ones we heard in 2008. “The 2012 election provides millennials with the opportunity to take control of this debate, pick up where they left off in 2008, and place the country firmly on a path aligned with their own liberal, Democratic beliefs,” write Michael Hais and Morley Winograd in The Huffington Post.

To hear these authors (neither of whom is a millennial) tell it, the 2012 election is about “competing visions” for America — one a hopeful vision in which the federal government plays “a central role in guiding the economy and providing opportunity,” the other dominated by pessimistic “doomsayers and doubters of America’s future.”

But what is “hopeful” about staying on an economic and fiscal course that is so clearly headed towards failure? What is so “pessimistic” about putting forth positive reforms to ensure that our social institutions aren’t destroyed by debt?

To be sure, all of us, Republicans and Democrats, share in our hearts a vision for this world. But Republicans’ hope doesn’t lie in present institutions, it lies in a future in which young adults, unshackled from the weight of Washington, can actually achieve what our social compact has promised for generations: the American dream.

So Mr. Hais and Mr. Winograd were right to say that millennials have the opportunity to take control of this debate. The question should be, given what we know about liberals’ backward-looking vision, do we really want to pick up where we left off in 2008? With the past three years as our guide, it is safe to say that the Democratic Party is no longer the party of hope and change.

Alex Schriver is the national chairman of the College Republican National Committee.

Originally published on The Daily Caller on 09.13.11.

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