A Victory for the Laffer Curve, a Defeat for England’s Economy
A new study from the Adam Smith Institute in the United Kingdom provides overwhelming evidence that class-warfare tax policy is grossly misguided and self-destructive. The authors examine the likely impact of the 10-percentage point increase in the top income tax rate, which was imposed as an election-year stunt by former Gordon Brown and then kept [...]
‘Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?’
Ronald Reagan’s poignant question to then President Jimmy Carter during a debate in 1980 clinched the presidential election. Carter presided over one of the worst economies. The economy had tanked and inflation had skyrocketed. Additionally, Iranian radicals had held 52 Americans hostage for almost a year. But that’s nothing compared to our nation’s economic malaise [...]
House Republicans Follow Through With School Choice, While Democrats Protect Unions
It’s budget time again. And Democrats are once again taking down and dusting off all their human shields and straw people, in order to convince those Americans, who are still unable to think for themselves, that they will die if the government doesn’t provide them with every form of aid from the day of their [...]
Hatch-Lee Balanced Budget Amendment Is a Win for America
On Mar. 31, Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee introduced a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) to make it a constitutional requirement for Washington, D.C., to end our deficit spending and culture of debt. And our national grassroots organization, Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment, is working with them to compel lawmakers to approve this change to [...]
GOP Leadership to Freshman: We’ll Stop Paying You if You Shut Down the Government
The Kabuki theater that is the debate over the federal budget took a weird turn this afternoon. The GOP-led House of Representatives passed HR 1255, the “Government Shutdown Prevention Act.” The measure is largely symbolic…it states that if the Democrat-led Senate and President Obama don’t act on $61 billion in cuts passed earlier this year [...]
The Attack on Libya Crossed a Very Bright Constitutional Line
When the President ordered the attack on Libya without Congressional authorization, he crossed a very bright Constitutional line that he himself recognized in 2007 when he told the Boston Globe “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual [...]
AARP’s Billion Dollar ObamaCare Windfall
Ever since the passage of ObamaCare, I’ve been perplexed by a lingering question: Why did AARP so aggressively lobby for passage of the law? After all, the plan was built on $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Even in Washington, half a trillion dollars is still a ton of money. Medicare is sacrosanct among America’s [...]
Budget Battle Update: It’s About Preparing for the Inevitable Fight, not Forcing a Shutdown
According to news reports, Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to reach any sort of budget agreement before April 8, when a short-term spending bill for the current fiscal year expires.
Barring some new development, this could mean a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government.
This makes both sides very nervous. Democrats don’t want the spending [...]
House Republicans Siding With Union Bosses?
It’s been established that when the Obama administration can’t get part of its agenda legislated; they simply turn around and push it through the web-like bureaucracy at their disposal. Last year’s failed pro-union legislation was no exception; when ‘card check’ met a dead end in Congress, obscure government agencies like the National Mediation Board [...]
Higher-order Bullying: Challenge the Rulers, Risk Your Children?
The national campaign against bullying and hate may be in the news, but it’s nowhere in evidence as an American university wreaks revenge, not just on a dissenter who ran for Congress—but on his children, and on a brave professor who blew the whistle.
Michelle Obama may deplore playground name-calling, humiliation, and taunting. But she says [...]
Free and Fair Elections: True The Vote Style
I am here in sunny Houston, Texas attending the opening night of the True The Vote Summit and what a time it has been. We heard some inspiring speeches for this sold out event, saw some interesting attendees, and met an awful lot of great folks.
It has been thrilling to see several hundred handpicked Tea [...]
What Are Republicans Thinking?!?
I posted yesterday at International Liberty about the stunning political incompetence of Republican Senators, who reportedly are willing to give Obama an increase in the debt limit in exchange for a vote (yes, just a vote) on a balanced budget amendment.
As I explained, there is no way they can get the necessary two-thirds support to [...]
Hey, Let’s Tax People for the Miles They Drive
From The Hill:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.
The report discussed the [...]
Union v House Republican Showdown Scheduled for Next Week
Ever since Obama was sworn in, obscure federal agencies have been churning out pro-labor, anti-worker rulemakings in an attempt to reverse declining unionization numbers. Indicative of this unionization through regulation strategy is the National Mediation Board’s (NMB) minority rule decision promulgated in 2009.
Bachmann Will Form Presidential Exploratory Committee
From CNN Politics:
CNN has exclusively learned that Rep. Michele Bachmann will form a presidential exploratory committee. The Minnesota Republican plans to file papers for the committee in early June, with an announcement likely around that same time.
But a source close to the congresswoman said that Bachmann could form the exploratory committee even earlier than June [...]
Republicans Shouldn’t Take Tea Party for Granted
The Tea Party movement is loyal to the Constitution, not the Republican Party!
Letter to President Obama Regarding Libya
March 23, 2011
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
I have read your letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate dated March 21, 2011 concerning your order that United States Armed Forces attack the nation of Libya. You cite the authority of [...]
EPA Is Now Using Taxpayer Dollars to Pay Lung Association to Attack Republicans
Your tax dollars at work…
The EPA is now paying the American Lung Association to attack Republicans
The ALA put up four billboards like this one near Rep. Fred Upton’s office in Michigan. Upton is the House Energy and Commerce Chairman. (PlowShareGroup)
The Environmental Protection Agency is paying the American Lung Association to run attack ads [...]
Remembering the Day America Was Ignored
One year ago today President Barack Obama signed into law government controlled health care. It was a punch in the gut to a majority of Americans who had passionately pleaded that this legislation be thrown in the dumpster. How many times did millions of people travel to Washington D.C., call and email our congressman, or [...]
AT&T’s T-Mobile Acquisition Should Not Be Exploited to Force Net Neutrality
As you may have read, just the other day AT&T announced its intended purchase of T-Mobile for $39 billion. With the move, AT&T will be the largest mobile carrier in the nation, serving about 130 million Americans.
Many factors likely hastened the acquisition. Chief among them is the lack of spectrum and related infrastructure for AT&T [...]
Stimulus Disconnect: White House (Again) Calls it a Success, yet There are 7 Million Fewer Jobs for Americans
THEN (January 2009)
“Without stimulus” there would be about 134 million jobs in the U.S. by late 2010:
Source: Administration’s January 2009 Romer/Bernstein Report.
NOW (March 2011)
Without stimulus, there would have been 127 million jobs in the…
Are Republicans Winning the Budget Battle but Losing the Budget War?
Among advocates of limited government, there is growing unease about the fiscal fight in Washington.
This is not because anything bad has happened. Indeed, Democrats thus far have been acquiescing – at least on a temporary basis – to conservative demands for $61 billion of spending cuts over the rest of the current fiscal year. This [...]
Claire McCaskill’s Tax Problems Go far Beyond ‘AirClaire’
So, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill ‘forgot’ to pay property taxes on her private jet. (There are at least three things wrong with that sentence.) But, her ‘oversight’ in ‘forgetting’ about a $300,000 tax bill is just the latest example of her pattern of tax problems and obfuscation. The document below details a multi-decade pattern of [...]
Rep. Phil Gingrey Challenges National Mediation Board’s Anti-Democratic Rule Changes
Just keep voting until you get the desired results and we will change the rules along the way to help advance policy changes that could not pass through Congress.
This is the message the National Mediation Board (NMB) has transmitted on behalf of Team Obama to union bosses who lost ground in the private sector. Only [...]
Obama Gets a ‘Failing Grade’ on Transparency
I hope you’ll take a moment to read my testimony as I ran through a “greatest hits” of Obama administration stonewalling over the last two years. But here are a few key excerpts: