Phil Kerpen

In 2009 we saw a continuation of the unprecedented threats to economic freedom that emerged late in 2008--never-ending bailouts, unconstrained growth of government spending, enormous Fed money creation, and a crippling debt burden for our children and grandchildren.

We also, however, saw the emergence of a mass-based resistance that promises to restore fiscal sanity to our country, standing up to the big spenders in both political parties and saying that enough is enough. The grassroots uprising at tea parties and town halls and rallies gives me confidence that our democratic system will work and will right the fiscal ship.

I was honored to play a part in it this year. My organization, Americans for Prosperity (where I will be a vice president effective January 1), emerged as a huge force for fiscal responsibility, growing to well over 900,000 activists and establishing a strong footprint in 22 states.

Here are my 2009 highlights:

1. Got Married!
This was the clear highlight of the year and trumped everything on the professional side. Joanna and I had a storybook wedding and we even managed to get away on honeymoon for a week in the middle of the crazy summer. Our New York Times wedding announcement is here (http://bit.ly/8RgJXD). We bought a house and are settling in nicely in Chevy Chase, DC.

2. Exposed Van Jones and the Green Jobs Scam.
I helped expose now-former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, leading to his resignation. My July 9, 2009 appearance on FOX & Friends (http://www.philkerpen.com/?q=node/265) was the first segment on the network about Jones and my research was featured frequently on the Glenn Beck show, where I was a guest five times on Jones, the Apollo Alliance, and green jobs issues. My chart of the green jobs apparatus is here (http://bit.ly/5Tx6A0) and my complete write-up of the affair is available here (http://www.philkerpen.com/?q=node/289). My paper on the Apollo Alliance was published by the Capital Research Center and is available here (http://bit.ly/Eo5GO).

3. Stopped Cap-and-Trade.
Early in the year AFP successfully mobilized opposition to including cap-and-trade in reconciliation instructions that would have allowed it to be passed in the Senate with only 50 votes. We prevailed with a convincing 67 votes including 21 Democrats opposing reconciliation. For the House vote on Waxman-Markey we set up an information clearinghouse on the AFP web site and kept it a constantly-updated whip count while generating thousands of targeted phone calls. The vote, despite an 80-seat majority, was down to the wire, and our aggressive action afterward to hold yes voters accountable resulted in some House members backing away from their votes. I kept everyone apprised of the goings on minute-by-minute on my Twitter page (http://twitter.com/kerpen).
We have recently launched an aggressive paid television campaign (see the ad here: http://www.SayNoCapAndTrade.com/) in key target states to keep the pressure on and sustain momentum into 2010. Many key Senate Democrats are now publicly opposed to taking up the issue this year.

4. Exposed Susan Crawford and a Washington Takeover of the Internet.
I helped exposed now-former Internet Czar Susan Crawford, and efforts she helped advance to set us on a path to government ownership and control of the Internet and the entire media system. Our original research on the many connections between influential left-wing interest groups, the Federal Communications Commission, and the White House broke through into the mainstream, including a week-long series on the Glenn Beck show. Some clips are available here (http://www.philkerpen.com/?q=node/304) and here (http://www.philkerpen.com/?q=node/305). With the FCC comment period on their proposed rules set to close in just a couple of weeks, watch for new information on this from me on the www.InternetFreedomCoalition.org web site. We will be making a major push for public comments starting next week, and this will be an important area of concern over the next year.

5. Stalled a Washington Health Care Takeover.
As a public voice of AFP's Patients First project (http://www.joinpatientsfirst.com/) I have spent much of the year warning of the implications of a Washington takeover of health care, whether of the socialized model relying on the so-called public option, or the corporatist model in which socialized costs are paired with privatized profits under a regime of government-forced private insurance purchases. Indeed these are the two approaches that have been passed by the House and Senate, respectively. As I warned in this piece (http://www.philkerpen.com/?q=node/281) and this speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB0wP0iH6ig) back in August, these approaches are both big mistakes and we should pursue the third way of health care freedom. My Twitter followers (http://twitter.com/kerpen) helped me become the 13th most re-tweeted person on all of Twitter during the Senate health care debate, according to www.ReTweetRank.com. While it looks like we may ultimately lose this fight, the fact that it is still going on is testimony to the power of grassroots activism and portends serious political consequences for Democrats if they do insist on pushing it through in either form.

6. Helped Repeal the Death Tax.
One huge collateral benefit of the health care fight being drawn out is that the Democrats failed to achieve their goal of permanently keeping the death tax, which they passed in the House but did not take up in the Senate. As I wrote here (http://www.philkerpen.com/?q=node/311) this hated tax primarily benefits the special interests in the life insurance industry who have huge Washington clout, so this was a surprising victory in a year of unprecedented special-interest giveaways. It was also the sole tax cut victory of the year. Unfortunately the tax is scheduled to come back in 2011, and Democrats are likely to try to bring it back sooner, so this will be an important 2010 fight. While the claim by the left that my true motivation for fighting the health care takeover was to run out the clock on the death tax (see: http://bit.ly/6NEyMd) was completely false, it was a very nice bonus.

Overall in 2009 I authored 64 columns and op-eds (many on FoxNews.com's FOX Forum, where I am now a columnist - http://www.foxnews.com/contributor/phil-kerpen/index.html), did 337 talk radio interviews, had about 140 clips in print (including the Washington Post above the fold on page 1 and the Associated Press), 2,222 blog hits, 47 appearances on national television (including 13 appearances on Fox News and 10 on CNBC), and nine appearances on international television (including SkyNews, the BBC, and Canal Plus). My daily KerpenCast two-minute update (http://kerpen.hipcast.com/rss/kerpencast.xml) started earlier this year now has about 1,500 daily listeners.

Of course I was attacked by the left every step of the way, everywhere including the Center for American Progress (http://bit.ly/5wJo99), the Rachel Maddow Show ( http://bit.ly/83CFV1 -- she was flat wrong, by the way), the Daily Show (http://bit.ly/51q6je), AlterNet (http://bit.ly/8yZmhN), and Huffington Post (http://bit.ly/75ITcv). Nice to know they're paying attention.

Hope everyone else had a great and productive 2009, and that 2010 will be a wonderful year for all of us and for American prosperity!

Yours truly,
Phil Kerpen