Freedom Line Blog

In a letter addressed to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, the Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) this week led a coalition of a half dozen prominent free-market organizations urging opposition to any legislation that grants Puerto Rico “Super Chapter 9” status. 

“‘Super Chapter 9’ would give Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla a free pass to violate Puerto Rico’s constitution, but would do nothing to bring about meaningful fiscal reform,” the letter reads.

“It is our hope that Congress will instead take the lead on this tough issue by urging the Garcia Padilla Administration to implement real fiscal reform and uphold the constitution before any consideration of restructuring the non-constitutional debt,” the letter continues.  “If necessary, Congress has the legal authority to consider measures such as a federal control board to oversee financial reform.  When, and only when, reform is enacted, Congress can then consider a process that encourages an orderly restructuring of Puerto Rico’s debts that respects the constitutionally-protected bonds and the rule of law.”

In addition to CFIF, the letter was signed by the leaders of Frontiers of Freedom, Hispanic Leadership Fund,  Institute for Liberty, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers Protection Alliance.   

Read the letter by clicking here (PDF).

As Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambles to put together the pieces on his economy-busting health care “reform” bill, the Senate Finance Committee today began  hearings on that other job-killing legislation… Cap-and-Trade.

The Committee’s Ranking Member, Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), rightly used some of the time he had for opening remarks to remind his colleagues that unlike the Environment and Public Works Committee, which is controlled by some of the Senate’s most liberal members and which passed its version of a Cap-and-Trade energy tax last week, the Finance Committee’s job is to focus on the economic impact and costs of the legislation.

According to Roll Call, Grassley stated:

This committee’s expertise is in the costs and economic impacts of new taxes. It therefore has the relevant expertise for evaluating the costs associated with climate change legislation. An honest cost-benefit assessment requires that we first stop trying to sell this policy as if it will have no cost for Americans and accept the basic economic principle that there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

Acknowledging Grassley’s remarks, Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana) said:

While we must always be mindful of the cost of legislation, that’s particularly true in today’s economy. Our unemployment rate remains far too high. And we must be diligent to create jobs, including in the energy sector.”

Considering the federal government’s own estimates warn that the legislation would cost the U.S. economy far more jobs than it may create, wouldn’t the most diligent thing be for Baucus to scrap the idea of a Cap-and-Trade energy tax altogether?