Freedom Line Blog

In a stinging op-ed published yesterday in the LA Times, CFIF senior fellow Troy Senik focuses the blame for California’s failing public education system squarely where it belongs: the California Teachers Association (”CTA”).  Senik writes:

California’s education tailspin has been blamed on class sizes, on the property tax restrictions enforced by Proposition 13, on an influx of Spanish-speaking students. But no portrait of the schools’ downfall would be complete without mention of the California Teachers Assn., or CTA, arguably the state’s most powerful union and a political behemoth that has blocked meaningful education reform, protected failing and even criminal educators, and pushed for pay raises and benefits that have reached unsustainable levels.

Senik goes on to explain how the CTA is using its “fat bank account fed by mandatory dues that can run to more than $1,000 per member” to maintain and build its political dominance in the state.  In the past decade alone, Senik notes, “the CTA had spent more than $210 million…on political campaigning — more than any other donor in the state.”

Fortunately, there are signs of hope to help counter the CTA’s political stranglehold that has enabled it to prop up its own interests over that of students: Parents are starting to revolt against the union’s orthodoxy.  And  “unlike elected officials, parents are hard for the union to demonize.”

Read the entire piece here.

When it comes to highlighting federal inanity, Holman Jenkins hits a home run with his take in a Wall Street Journal article on the current FCC’s bureaucratic approach to the wireless industry.

As Jenkins describes the situation, “Like food rotting on a dock, only politics and policy prevents spectrum from getting where it’s needed.”

Jenkins goes on to articulate the point by aptly noting that wireless companies are “being starved of spectrum [their] customers would willingly pay for because of an archaic government allocation system in which economic logic does not penetrate.”

So why care?  Primarily because the wireless industry’s massive investment involved in developing spectrum for the public’s use is one of the few unmitigated bright spots in the US economy. Wireless carriers delivered approximately $27 billion in investment in U.S. mobile networks last year alone.  And continued wireless investment holds the potential to revolutionize our nation’s educational system, healthcare and so much more.

In employment terms, a Deloitte study last fall pegged 4G wireless investment as creating between 371,000 and 771,000 new jobs.  That includes the teams that deploy new cell towers, engineers and software developers, among others.

But the government’s dithering threatens to sideline billions in new investment that would otherwise be pumped into the economy and drive these benefits for consumers.

What’s especially ironic about the delays is that Obama’s FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has repeatedly sounded the alarm about the “looming spectrum crisis” that threatens “continued innovation in broadband wireless.”  Similar acknowledgements continually have been made directly from the White House.  Yet, when it comes to spectrum policy, the FCC and the Obama Administration have been driven by politics and ideology instead of sound economics and logic — a mindset that not only exacerbates the spectrum problem, but threatens (if not stops cold) private investment to deal with the problem.

Indeed, when wireless providers seek to overcome government obstacles to spectrum and move to address the crunch on their respective networks, they are met with hostility.  Jenkins points to the two obvious examples:

To meet demand of its customers for more and more bandwidth, AT&T laid out $39 billion for T-Mobile, a retreating, second-rank player, only to have the proposal nixed by Washington after many months of torture.

Verizon has been undergoing months of torture over its proposal to buy, for $3.9 billion, several blocks of spectrum sitting idle in the hands of cable TV companies.

That, coupled with the FCC’s counterproductive obsession with putting use conditions on auctioned spectrum to the point of rendering it less desirable or frankly, economically unfeasible, is only making the spectrum problem worse.

Everyone, including the FCC and the Obama Administration, agrees that the spectrum crunch must be resolved… and fast.  “The solution,” as Jenkins points out, “is to permit any spectrum that’s immediately deployable to be immediately deployed by those who can make use of it.”  And it must be deployed without burdensome government conditions and discriminatory bidder qualifications to ensure its most efficient use.

In other words, the FCC and Obama Administration must set aside politics and ideology, stop trying to pick winners and losers in an effort to shape some utopian vision of perfect competition in an already ultra-competitive market and allocate more spectrum for consumer use… now.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) this morning is releasing the House GOP budget proposal.  Ryan previews his budget in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal here, and outlines the “choice of two futures” — the status quo of more debt and greater decline vs. a path to prosperity that includes less debt, lower taxes and inidividual opportunity — in the web video posted below.

Newsmax.com reports:

The gross costs of the national healthcare law rammed through Congress by President Barack Obama will reach an estimated $1.76 trillion over 10 years – nearly twice the amount originally projected.

The figure, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed on Wednesday, is bound to cause embarrassment to the administration as it comes just as debate on ‘Obamacare’ is starting to heat up again, two weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Truth be told, nearly everyone already knew that the cost estimates used to sell ObamaCare to the American people were part of the White House shell game to get it passed.  That much is understood by both supporters and opponents of ObamaCare.  What is embarrassing is the administration’s response to the latest CBO estimate.

‘The bottom line is clear: the Affordable Care Act will reduce our deficit, control health costs and make health care more affordable,’ Jeanne Lambrew, deputy director of the White House office of Health Reform, wrote on the White House blog.

Remember, this is the same White House trying to convince you that algae is the answer to rising gas prices.

For the past three years, those of us who eat, sleep and breathe the principles of limited government and free enterprise have been banging our heads against the wall because of the devastating and rampant overreach of executive departments and agencies in the Obama Administration.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)… the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)… the Department of Justice (DOJ)… Enough said.

But perhaps there has been no agency more guilty of abusing its power and imposing its regulatory overreach than the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  After all, it is the FCC that unilaterally – by a 3-2 party-line vote – imposed so-called “Net Neutrality” regulations against a bipartisan majority in Congress, a unanimous federal court of appeals and 2-1 public opinion.  It is the FCC that, despite acknowledging a national spectrum crisis as more and more consumers use smart phones and tablet computers, continually works to block any and all productive efforts to relieve said crisis.

So it was refreshing to read earlier today that AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson is calling out the FCC’s overreach, charging that the Commission is “intent on picking winners and losers rather than letting these markets work.” 

For too long the FCC has interfered with the free market, which has created an unlevel playing field that unfairly props up politically-favored companies less likely to invest their own capital in new job-creating and economy-enhancing infrastructure at the expense of others that will. 

And, that’s precisely why Congress must act, not only to refrain from granting the FCC’s request for additional flexibility on spectrum auction authority, but also to tighten the reins on the FCC in order to prevent it from further skewing the wireless market. 

Instead of permitting the FCC to, by definition, pick “winners and losers” in the wireless marketplace by unfairly limiting and excluding certain companies from participating in spectrum auctions, Congress must pass legislation that that will facilitate the proper and fair functioning of spectrum auctions that are open to all willing buyers. 

That the FCC thinks otherwise, coupled with its recent history of abusive regulatory overreach, should spark a long overdue and serious discussion about clearly defining its proper authority once and for all.

CFIF Senior Fellow Quin Hillyer on Sunday appeared on Fox News  to discuss the extremely ideological and partisan hiring practices for career positions within the Obama Justice Department and the mainstream media’s virtual silence (read: hypocrisy) on the issue. 

In interviews with Fox News’ Shannon Bream (first on the America’s News Headquarters program, then during an extended discussion on Fox News’ Power Play), Hillyer recounted how the media, especially The New York Times and Washington Post,  relentlessly pursued allegations of conservative hiring practices in President George W. Bush’s Justice Department as an earth-shattering scandal, despite the fact that the Civil Rights Division of Bush’s DOJ  hired as many as two dozen known liberals for career positions.  But now, as Hillyer wrote in a piece on the issue several weeks ago, “Neither they nor any other establishment news organ seems the slightest bit perturbed now that, thanks to Pajamas Media, it is abundantly clear that the Obama Justice Department’s liberal hiring is far more politicized than anything the Bushies even dreamed of.”

Just how flagrant are the hiring practices in Obama’s DOJ?  As Hillyer wrote last month:

Now Pajamas Media has analyzed the hiring in five – count them, five – different sections of DoJ. So far, those five sections in the Civil Rights Division have hired 70 lawyers. According to Pajamas, every single one – every single one, every single one, every single one – has boasted a resume full of ideologically leftist connections.

These people were members of groups like ‘Queer Resistance Front,’ ‘Intersex Society of North America,’ and of course People for the American Way.  Their published essays focused on issues such as ‘Genital Normalizing Surgery on Intersexed Infants’ and on arguing that providing material support for terrorism isn’t a war crime.  They, or those promoted, have histories of extracurricular activities that include getting arrested at a World Bank protest, going on a hunger strike while chaining oneself to an oak tree and doing advocacy work for ‘the rights of incarcerated native Hawaiians to dance the hula and perform Hawaiian chants and rituals in privately owned prisons in Arizona.’ A large number of them have donated significant campaign funds to Barack Obama, and some to other liberal candidates.

Not a single one has a single affiliation with any group seen as right of center. Actually, according to Pajamas, none is even apolitical. Instead, all are definitively liberal.

Hillyer goes on to point out that the issue isn’t merely a political matter, but one that has real-world policy consequences. 

Watch the FoxNews.com Power Play interview here. 

Watch the the America’s News Headquarters interview, care of our friends at Media Research Center, here.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:

Lee:  LightSquared Imbroglio – “Fast and Furious” Doesn’t Just Describe One Obama Administration Scandal Anymore
Senik:  Debt Ceiling Defense Cuts Are Ticking Time Bomb for American National Security
Hillyer:  Keller, NYT: Blinkered Obama Love
Ellis:  Corporate Jet Tax Will Kill Manufacturing Jobs

Freedom Minute Video:  Government Stupidity! Where’s the App for That?
Podcast:  Interview with Professor John Yoo: “Confronting Terror”
Jester’s Courtroom:  Unkempt Lawn Grows Lawsuit

Editorial Cartoons:  Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz:  Question of the Week
Notable Quotes:  Quotes of the Week

If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.

In a major speech last night at the Reagan Library, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) spoke with clarity about “the proper role of government.”

Saying that the United States must always aspire to compassion and prosperity, Rubio argued that an ever-expanding federal government will doom the nation to failure.   “Americans in the 20th century built here the richest most prosperous nation in the history of the world. And yet today we have built for ourselves a government that not even the richest and most prosperous nation on the face of the earth can fund or afford to pay for.”

At a time when high-sounding but often empty shoot-from-the-hip sound bites dominate the national dialogue, the understanding and vision with which the Florida Senator spoke is a breath of fresh air.

Watch the must-see speech below.

C.J. Ciaramella of The Daily Caller reports: 

The Securities and Exchange Commission gave up its leasing authority yesterday and could face a Justice Department probe in light of a $550 million leasing scandal.

At a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee meeting yesterday, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro ceded the agency’s leasing authority and admitted it had made a “terrible mistake” when it put taxpayers on the hook for a half-billion dollar lease for office space it didn’t need.

And this is the same government that now wants to increase taxes as part of a “deal” to raise the debt ceiling?

In a newly released video, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan discusses why Congress must reform Medicare in order to save it and the dangers of doing nothing.

In a statement that accompanied the video, Rep. Ryan said:

We can no longer let politicians in Washington deny the danger to Medicare – the danger is all too real, and the health of our nation’s seniors is far too important. We have to save Medicare to avoid disruptions in benefits for current seniors, and to strengthen the program for future generations. House Republicans have put forward a plan to do just that. Democratic leaders in Congress have failed to produce a plan – it has been 755 days since Senate Democrats even passed a budget. Meanwhile, the President’s plan would empower a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats to cut Medicare for current seniors, while failing to save the program for future retirees.

“This video lays out the clear choice our nation faces on Medicare: Will Medicare become a program in which a board of bureaucrats manages its bankruptcy by denying care to seniors? Or will leaders work together to save and strengthen Medicare by empowering seniors to choose health care plans that work best for them, with less support for the wealthy and more help for the poor and the sick?  House Republicans have advanced solutions to save Medicare. Instead of working with us, the leaders of the Democratic Party have opted to play politics with the health security of America’s seniors.”

Standard and Poor’s spooked markets and sent news rooms scrambling today with its decision to downgrade the long-term outlook for the U.S.’s credit rating to “negative” from ”stable.”  In a statement released this morning, the ratings agency wrote:

Because the U.S. has, relative to its ‘AAA’ peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.

We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013; if an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation is not begun by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns.

The White House swiftly responded, calling the decision a “political judgment” with which it disagrees. 

Really?  The national debt is more than $14 trillion and climbing.  The federal government borrows more than 40 cents for every dollar it spends.  Entitlement spending is spiraling out of control.  And last week, the federal government was within minutes of shutting down because President Obama and Congressional leaders were haggling over what ended up being a paltry few hundred million dollars in spending cuts from this year’s projected $1.65 trillion deficit. 

While the credit outlook downgrade is being reported as a surprise, it shouldn’t surprise anyone. All S&P has done is acknowledge the obvious.  Let’s hope President Obama and Congressional leaders get serious about doing the same.

In the must-watch video below, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan lays out his 2012 budget proposal and the consequences should Congress fail to act now to restore the nation’s  fiscal sanity.

Today,  Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and the House Republican majority are introducing their much-anticipated 2012 budget plan.  The bold proposal – “The Path to Prosperity” – is refreshingly comprehensive in addressing the nation’s debt crisis and promoting economic prosperity.  According to Congressman Ryan:

For starters, it cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president’s budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt. Our proposal brings federal spending to below 20% of gross domestic product (GDP), consistent with the postwar average, and reduces deficits by $4.4 trillion.

A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritage’s analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.

Furthermore, Ryan’s budget cuts taxes and strengthens to the social safety net with commonsense reforms to Medicare and Medicaid and by advancing the discussion to sure up Social Security for future generations.

Simply put, the proposal is a real and comprehensive solution to a grave spending and debt crisis that threatens America’s future.  Failure to act to right the nation’s fiscal ship, and now, is no longer an option.  The Path to Prosperity budget deserves serious consideration, not the partisan politics as usual that has already begun.

Read more details on Ryan’s budget plan here.  For the complete plan, click here (.pdf).

Less than 24 hours after the release of undercover video showing National Public Radio (NPR) senior executive Ron Schiller slamming the Tea Party movement as “seriously, seriously racist people” and “scary,” and proclaiming the organization would be better off without federal funding, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation) this morning announced her resignation.

As Politico.com reports the story:

Vivian Schiller, the chief executive of NPR, resigned Wednesday in the aftermath of controversial comments from a fundraising executive and as congressional Republicans push to end federal funding for public radio.

“The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years,” board chairman Dave Edwards said in a statement. “I recognize the magnitude of this news and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community.” …

David Folkenflik, NPR’s media reporter, said on air Wednesday morning that sources had indicated to him that Schiller had been forced out by the board.

In related news, President Obama’s FY 2011 budget proposal calls for more than $450 million in taxpayer funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service.  In response to a question today about whether it was time for taxpayers to stop subsidizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made it clear that the president stands by the funding request.  “They are worthwhile and important priorities as our budget makes clear,” stated Carney.

As the congressional standoff over budget cuts heats up in Washington D.C., both Republicans and Democrats are seemingly scrambling to reach a compromise to avoid a government shutdown.  But is compromise what the American people want?

According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, 58% of likely voters “would rather have a partial shutdown of the federal government than keep its spending at current levels. “  A mere 33% would prefer Congress agree to maintain last year’s spending level in order to avoid a government shutdown.

Broken out by party affiliation, Rasmussen found that:

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats prefer avoiding a shutdown by going with current spending levels. But 80% of Republicans — and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party — think a shutdown is a better option until the two sides can agree on spending cuts.

Read the complete top-line survey results here.

In response to questioning from Senator Jeff Sessions during a Budget Committee hearing yesterday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted President Obama’s proposed budget creates an “excessively high interest burden” that is “unsustainable.”

The president’s proposal would add $13 trillion in new gross debt and would increase interest payments on the national debt to $844 billion annually by 2021.

Earlier this week, InsideHealthPolicy.com reported:

Republican aides on Capitol Hill are circulating sections of an independent audit that found significant shortcomings in HHS’ financial management — including noncompliance with federal laws and a $3 billion difference between the department’s own balance sheet and records maintained by the Treasury Department. HHS acknowledged “material weaknesses” in its financial management systems and said some of those issues will be worked out as the department implements a new reporting system this year.

Below are some of the specifics, care of Senator Tom Coburn:

HHS Is Not In Compliance With Federal Financial Management Law. According to the HHS Inspector General’s review of Ernst & Young’s financial audit of HHS, “HHS’s financial management systems are not compliant with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996.”

Nearly $2 Billion Taxpayer Dollars Are Stuck in Limbo. “As of September 30, 2010, the audit identified approximately 102,500 transactions totaling an approximate $1.8 billion that were more than 2 year s old without activity.”

Nearly $800 Million Dollars “Could Not Be Explained” Differing Between HHS’ Records and Treasury Department Records. “Based on our review and discussions with management, we noted differences of $794 million that could not be explained.”

Some Processes and Procedural Manuals Have Not Been Updated Since the 1980s. “HHS’s formalized policies and procedures are out of date and may be inconsistent with actual processes taking place….For example, we noted that certain policies and procedures, including certain accrual processes, had not been updated since the mid-1980s.”

Current HHS Personnel Need Training To “Complete Their Day-to-Day Responsibilities.” “Further, we noted additional training on the financial systems was needed to enable HHS personnel in their ability to access needed information from the system to complete their day-to-day responsibilities – including the preparation of reconciliations, research of differences noted, and the ability to identify and clear older “stale” transactions dating back several years.”

America, meet the federal department charged with implementing and managing the most significant provisions of the monstrosity known as ObamaCare.

Senator Mitch McConnell today announced that he will try to force a Senate vote on a measure to fully repeal ObamaCare as early as this week. 

Specifically, The Hill is reporting that the Republican Leader plans to offer the repeal measure as an amendment to the to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, which is currently being debated on the Senate floor.  McConnell could offer the amendment, which is anticipated to be identical the the repeal bill that recently passed in the House of Representatives with bipartisan support, as early as this afternoon.  A procedural vote on the amendment is expected to occur shortly thereafter. 

Call your Senators right now and urge them to vote “YES” on Senator McConnell’s amendment to repeal ObamaCare.  Find your Senators and their phone numbers here.

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed H.R. 2, legislation to fully repeal ObamaCare, by a vote of 245-189.  Three Democrats — Representatives Mike Ross (AR), Mike McIntyre (NC) and Dan Boren (OK) – joined with all Republicans in support of the repeal measure.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released today:

The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country’s debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America’s international standing and push up borrowing costs…

Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.

But other than curtailing foreign aid and tax collection, which is supported by 73 percent and 65 percent of respondents respectively, the public is split on exactly what federal spending to cut.  And on the issue of entitlements (Social Security and Medicare specifically), which are by far the greatest contributors to the nation’s mounting debt, a large majority of Americans are seemingly saying “hands off,” according to the survey.

The U.S. National Debt is fast approaching the nation’s $14.3 trillion statutory borrowing  limit set by Congress back in February.