Freedom Line Blog

Here’s some more deservedly bad news for the Energy Department bureaucrats that brought us at least 12 multi-million dollar loser loans like the $535 million sinkhole known as Solyndra — a damning indictment from the Government Accountability Office summarized by The Hill:

The Government Accountability Office, in a new report, said it took Energy Department staff more than three months to provide data on the status of its loan guarantee applications.

“Because it took months to assemble the information required for our review, it is also clear that the [Energy Department’s loan office] could not be conducting timely oversight of the program,” the report says.

With typical understatement, the GAO also concluded that the Energy Department’s failed accounting for billions in taxpayer money “is not consistent with one of the fundamental concepts of internal control”.  Sounds like it’s time for Congress to exercise some external control to get things back to normal.

Philip K. Howard, author of Life Without Lawyers, has a thought-provoking essay in the Atlantic about how to repeal old laws in order to make room for new policies that will unleash American ingenuity and discretion:

Fixing what ails America is impossible, indeed illegal, without a legal spring cleaning. The goal is not mainly to “deregulate” but to restate programs in light of current needs and priorities.

As a practical matter, this requires Congress to authorize special commissions to make proposals, area by area. Using the base closing commission model, these proposals would be submitted to Congress for an up or down vote.

Going forward, Congress should incorporate sunset provisions in all laws with budgetary impact. The goal is not to end good programs but to impose a discipline that is essential for a functioning democracy that must constantly make tough tradeoffs.

Howard’s point about including sunset clauses into all new laws with budgetary impact would be a HUGE step in the right direction.  In Texas government, where I once worked as a legislative staff member, every state agency is subject to elimination pending the outcome of a once-a-decade review.

Each session the legislature is given the option to continue, modify, or eliminate state agencies falling within a policy area (e.g. all agencies having jurisdiction over education).  In practice, very few agencies are eliminated completely, but the many are consolidated and streamlined.  In every case, legislators get a chance to think through issues like whether the agency is meeting its mission; if not, why not; and if so, is there a better way?

There’s a case to be made that reforms that do little more than add to the existing body of law are, in practice, de-forms of public policy.  We don’t need more laws; we need less of the ones we have, and better versions of those.

Today, the United States Senate voted 56-42 in favor of building the Keystone XL pipeline terminated by President Barack Obama in January.  But unfortunately, since this is the U.S. Senate, losing 56-42 is actually a win for the Democratic Senate Leadership whipping votes in opposition, since the proposed law needed 60 votes in order to pass.

Sure, there’s reason to bemoan the artificially high number of yes votes needed to get legislation passed – or judicial nominees confirmed – but there is a silver lining here for conservatives.  Every Republican Senator present voted for the pro-Keystone bill, and the two that were absent, John Thune (SD) and Mark Kirk (IL), would have been yes votes.  That puts the real tally at 58-42.

But wait?  Are there 58 Republicans in the U.S. Senate?  No, 11 Senate Democrats also voted for passage.  That means that the replacement of only two ‘no’ Democrats with ‘yes’ Republicans in this year’s election would get the necessary 60 votes.  Of course, conservatives should go after as many seats as possible since at least a few of the Democrats that voted for the pipeline probably did so knowing the bill would fail, and used the vote to shield themselves from a political challenge in November.

In the meantime, Republicans in Congress should press ahead with another vote to make Keystone XL approval a 50 vote simple majority, instead of the 60 vote supermajority.  Whichever of the 11 Democrats balk can rightly be seen as using today’s vote for electoral window-dressing.

H/T: Politico

Politico explains why if Democrats win control of Congress in 2012 it won’t be with President Barack Obama’s help:

[Obama campaign leaders Jim] Messina and [David] Plouffe told the two Hill leaders that there would be no cash transfers to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from OFA or the DNC, at least not before Election Day, the sources said.

…

Hill Democrats won’t be seeing much of Obama at their own fundraisers this year, either. Obama has offered to do one money event each for the DCCC and DSCC. OFA officials suggested Vice President Joe Biden do two fundraisers for each campaign committee. Obama will instead send out an email and fundraising letter solicitations for both committees.

Nor, for that matter, have Obama or Biden committed to do events for individual Democratic lawmakers. That’s true even though 23 Democrat-held Senate seats are up for grabs in a competitive battle for control of that chamber. And no fundraisers have been scheduled yet for House and Senate Democrats with Cabinet officials, usually a staple of an election-year calendar for incumbent presidents looking to boost their party’s prospects.

No surprise here since the President is just a typical liberal: a spendthrift with other people’s money but a miser with his own.

Tomorrow voters in Ohio’s new 9th congressional district will decide whether America will get another two years of the Dennis Kucinich experience.  Pitted against fellow Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur, Kucinich has raised nearly twice as much money ($406k) as Kaptur ($204k) since the start of the year, but is trailing with one important constituency – other Democratic members of Congress.

From Roll Call:

Earlier this week, Rep. David Price’s (D-N.C.) re-election committee and [Senate Majority Whip Dick] Durbin’s Prairie political action committee each donated $1,000 to Kaptur. The Congresswoman also received a $1,000 check from Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s (D-Conn.) campaign at the start of this year, according to online fundraising records. Both Price and DeLauro serve with Kaptur on the Appropriations Committee. Durbin, also an appropriator, was first elected to the House in 1982, the same year as Kaptur.

Earlier in the redistricting process Kucinich flirted with running in a newly created seat in Washington State, though much like his ill-fated presidential campaigns, the groundswell of support Kucinich needed to move states never materialized.

Thankfully for politicos, the winner of the member vs. member tussle tomorrow won’t fade into obscurity since the likely Republican nominee will be Sam Wurzelbacher, aka, “Joe the Plumber” from the 2008 presidential campaign.

Only in Ohio.

Newsweek’s Robert Samuelson on what the MSM’s conventional wisdom may be missing with all its Obama-the-invincible chatter:

All in all, the conventional wisdom seems compelling. As a card-carrying member of the mainstream media — a group that creates and sustains the conventional wisdom — I’m inclined to accept it. And yet there’s one conspicuous gap in the-election-is-already-over story: the polls. While the Republicans have been destroying each other and embarrassing themselves, the polls for a general election should have shown a collapse in Republican support. They haven’t — at least so far.

Go to Real Clear Politics (www.realclearpolitics.com) for the latest figures. The average of the polls it follows shows (for the period from Feb. 10 to Feb. 29) Obama beating Romney by 4.6 percentage points (49 percent to 44.4 percent). Obama’s margin of victory over Santorum is slightly larger (49.3 percent to 44.2 percent).

…

So it’s a puzzle. Logic and most evidence suggest the election is over. But the polls seem to dissent. Could it be that the real story is that Obama’s not a shoo-in even when he should be?

Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation makes a compelling argument in a Fox News op-ed that conservatives in Congress must adopt a more confrontational posture in resisting President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional, non-recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:

There is also no evidence that the House or Senate will take any of the other actions available, such as cutting the NLRB’s budget or passing legislation banning any federal funds from being used to enforce any orders or regulations issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until the president voids his unconstitutional appointments. The House needs to do more than just hold hearings to enforce its constitutional decision not to consent to a Senate recess.

As for the Senate, it operates almost entirely on “unanimous consent.”

Moreover:

It would take only one senator standing up for constitutional principles and the rule of law to get the ball rolling and shame his colleagues into joining him to fight the president’s tyrannical actions.

He could hold up all of the president’s nominations and bring the Senate to a standstill through quorum calls and continuous objections to unanimous consent motions.

Challenging the President’s lawless attempts to fill powerful regulatory agencies with liberal ideologues should be a no-brainer for any Republican in Congress.  That none of von Spakovsky’s straight-forward recommendations is gaining traction shows that some GOP Members of Congress haven’t learned the Tea Party lesson yet – either defend the Constitution early and often or get ready for a primary challenge.

Fred Barnes has a terrific column in today’s Wall Street Journal explaining the origin, structure and philosophy of Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform proposal.  The most intriguing paragraph explains how Ryan’s reform ideas went from minority alternative to majority consensus in just two years.

But House passage alone was a milestone. When Mr. Ryan first proposed premium support in 2008, 14 House Republicans signed on as co-sponsors. But when his budget cleared the House in 2011—with Medicare reform its most controversial provision—only four of the 241 Republicans voted against it. Of the 87 GOP freshmen, only one voted no. In the Senate, all but five of the 47 Republicans declined to back Mr. Ryan’s plan.

After weathering some resistance in the beginning:

Premium support is now Republican orthodoxy. But absent a GOP landslide this fall, that’s not sufficient to win congressional approval. Besides, entitlements are best enacted on a bipartisan basis. Otherwise, they may wind up like ObamaCare—unpopular, under legal challenge, and the target of endless partisan attacks.

Barnes is right that entitlement reform is best enacted on a bipartisan basis, but there’s every indication that a conservative victory this year that keeps the House and wins the Senate, supplemented with smart liberal support from the likes of Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and others, would certainly be considered bipartisan.

According to Barnes, a handful of Democrats in the Senate and House have told Ryan they are willing to go public with their support for Medicare reform after the 2012 elections.  Momentum is building for real reform of the largest deficit driver in the federal budget.  This should be a motivator for every fiscal conservative to make this election the year Ryan’s reforms become law so America can get its finances in order.

From The Blaze:

According to the Office of Management and Budget, a mere 1 percent of NASA’s portable devices and laptops have been encrypted this year.

“Until NASA fully implements an Agency-wide data encryption solution, sensitive data on its mobile computing and portable data storage devices will remain at high risk for loss or theft,” [NASA Inspector General Paul] Martin said.

This wouldn’t be a big deal except that:

An unencrypted NASA laptop computer complete with command codes to control the International Space Station was stolen last year, according to congressional testimony by NASA’s inspector general.

In a statement given to a House committee on the security challenges facing NASA, Paul K. Martin said the computer was actually not an isolated incident but was in fact one of 48 taken between April 2009 and April 2011.

But who cares about cyber security so long as the Obama Administration is making sure “dominantly Muslim nations… feel good about their historic contribution to science… and math and engineering”?

Politico notes that “The rules pit the real race for Michigan at the district, not statewide level.”  Here’s what that means:

Michigan awards its 30 delegates based on the new congressional district lines drawn in 2012 redistricting, with two delegates given to the candidate who wins each of 14 districts. Two additional delegates are allocated based on the statewide popular vote.

Thus, the winner of the state’s popular vote may not be the same candidate who wins a majority of the state’s delegates.

The takeaway is to be wary of statewide exit polls that declare a “winner” since what really matters in terms of GOP convention delegates is who won a majority of new congressional districts.

After Tim’s excellent column explaining how President Barack Obama explicitly failed to live up to his promise to “cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term” the New York Times published today another damning indictment of America’s worst CEO.  In it, the Times faults the President for failing to exhibit any kind of leadership with the Bowles-Simpson deficit plan:

But the downsides for Mr. Obama have become clear. His partisan turn undercuts a central promise of his 2008 campaign, to rise above the rancor. And by neither embracing Bowles-Simpson nor explaining his objections and quickly offering an alternative, Mr. Obama arguably failed to show leadership on perhaps the country’s biggest problem. This month, in a New York Times/CBS News poll, 59 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of the deficit.

As if California’s public employee unions didn’t have enough advantages with compulsory dues, a bought-and-paid-for Democratic legislature, and a deep blue citizenry, Steven Greenhut has identified yet another mechanism being used to extract more money from taxpayers:

In San Diego, unions are fearful of a new pension reform measure referred to by supporters as Comprehensive Pension Reform, or CPR, that has qualified for the June 2012 ballot. Instead of simply gearing up to fight this political battle, the unions petitioned one of those ridiculous commissions that most Californians have never even heard of, the Public Employment Relations Board, which is unfriendly turf for taxpayers. The union said placing the initiative on the ballot amounted to an unfair labor practice, and PERB called for an injunction to stop the election until it could complete its sham proceedings.

In essence, the unions and this unelected board insist that the people of San Diego have no right to vote on pension reform. This is just the latest reminder of the totalitarian ethics of a public-sector union movement that doesn’t care about anything other than protecting its benefits.

Just days before the pivotal Michigan and Arizona GOP primaries, Rick Santorum lapsed back into long-winded Senator mode when delivering a major speech on his first 100 days as President.  Although the speech contained plenty of red meat for conservatives – e.g. repealing Obamacare, cutting spending and regulations, and allowing states to means-test welfare programs – Fox News reports a big mistake:

Santorum’s speech went past 9 p.m., limiting local news organizations’ ability to highlight his 100-day agenda.

This isn’t the kind of mishap one wants when running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney.

I’ve written previously about former Texas Solicitor General and U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz.  He’s a towering legal intellect and a conservative’s conservative.  His Cuban heritage and up-by-the-bootstraps story from son of immigrants to Princeton and Harvard Law are legendary.  His ill-chosen words about Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) are not.

In an interview with the Dallas Morning News reported by Roll Call, Cruz said he was “not going to prejudge” the upcoming Senate GOP leadership race where Cornyn is running for GOP whip, one step below party leader.  Based on his comments, Cruz seems to be saying that if he becomes Texas’ next U.S. Senator he might vote for someone besides Cornyn if the opponent is more of a constitutional conservative.

That’s all well and good, and Cruz’s scenario may even come to pass, but the first-time campaigner made a rookie mistake by refusing to support his fellow Texas Republican in what amounts to little more than deference to a party elder.  After all, as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee Cornyn has his hands on millions of dollars in fundraising that he could use to either hurt or help Cruz in the latter’s current primary battle.

So far, Cornyn has honored his pledge to stay neutral in the primary.  Chances are he’ll keep that pledge, but Cruz’s unforced error makes it more likely that Cornyn would be fine if David Dewhurst, Cruz’s primary opponent and sitting Lieutenant Governor, frames Cruz’s comments as a signal he can’t be both a conservative and a Republican at the same time.

By contrast, Florida’s Marco Rubio isn’t having that problem.  Without sacrificing any of his conservative bona fides Rubio has managed to win the confidence of party elders and is no doubt on the vice presidential short list of every remaining Republican presidential candidate.  Cruz needs to take a page from Rubio’s playbook because Texas – and America – needs as many constitutional conservatives as we can get in the U.S. Senate.

My column this week explains how WWII wage ceilings and a compliant Congress teamed up to create employer-based health insurance, a market distorting phenomenon the reduces take-home pay while increasing both health care spending and widespread dissatisfaction with the results.  (When was the last time you heard anybody happy about the cost or care in an HMO?)

Of course, one of the reasons this problem is allowed to persist is the lack of a motivated constituency to change the status quo.  That may be changing thanks to the Great Recession.

According to Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc., between 2007 to 2011 there has been a steady rise in the numbers of independent contractors in industries like real estate, financial services and natural resource extraction.

More recently EMSI showed how self-employed money management consultants are adapting very well to the new economic landscape. “The surprising thing to note is the huge growth that took place in the three money management occupations – personal financial advisors, securities/commodities/financial services sales agents, and financial analysts.”  Many of these jobs are classified as non-covered, i.e. independent contractors who service clients rather than employees who work for employers (and thus get benefits).

The rise of the independent contractor makes perfect financial sense for a business looking to shred costs while maintaining quality in services and products.  The legal profession is being transformed by a switch to contract-based work for attorneys while other white collar jobs like money management are following the same route.

It is very likely that this type of vendor-client relationship will come to redefine the work life of many Americans who in a previous era may have counted on a brick-and-mortar institution to cover everything from an expense account to health care benefits.  But if millions of American workers are to be recast as intellectual entrepreneurs, the federal tax incentive to exempt employer-based health insurance but not insurance purchased by individuals or families has to change.

As I explain in my column, the Heritage Foundation has an easy fix to this problem.  From my column:

In Saving the American Dream, a team of Heritage experts propose transforming the existing exemption into a “uniform, nonrefundable federal tax credit” to assist individuals and families purchase health insurance.  The annual net value of the tax credit would be $2,000 for an individual and $3,500 for a couple or family.  The credit could be used “either to offset the cost of coverage offered through the workplace or to buy insurance outside the workplace.  For most middle-income working families, the value of the credit is similar to the tax relief that they receive for health insurance today.”

Law always lags behind reality, but if a presidential candidate wants to make an easy reform that will remove a huge disincentive to become an intellectual entrepreneur, adopting the Heritage Foundation’s health insurance tax credit would be a huge step in the right direction.

From John Stossel’s blog:

What would happen if you planned your family’s budget the way the politicians plan theirs? I showed people this chart:

Everyone agreed that this would be a ridiculous household budget.

But that’s the federal budget, if you just add 8 zeroes!

An editorial by Investor’s Business Daily highlights why the Obama campaign’s crowing about a nascent economic recovery is hiding the real pain American workers are feeling:

Even worse for an administration straining to make the case that it deserves to be around for another four years is the real unemployment rate. It’s not 8.3%, but closer to 15%, a figure that reflects those who “would like to work but have not searched for a job in the past four weeks as well as those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work,” says the CBO.

Another White House problem comes from this in the CBO report: “The share of unemployed people looking for work for more than six months — referred to as the long-term unemployed — topped 40% in December 2009 for the first time since 1948, when such data began to be collected; it has remained above that level ever since.”

Voters aren’t stupid.  If the eventual Republican nominee can make a compelling argument linking Obama’s policies to the decline in jobs, he’ll win.  If not, we’ll have nearly an entire decade of lost opportunities.

Back in December I wrote a column defending a Medicare reform proposal outlined by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).  Unlike Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” budget resolution that passed the House in 2011, Ryan-Wyden retains traditional Medicare.  However, like Ryan’s original reform, Ryan-Wyden introduces private sector competition by allowing seniors to use vouchers to select the plan – public or private – that they want, with any savings from a less expensive plan landing in the seniors’ pocket.

At the time, Ryan-Wyden was reported as an idea by two policy wonks with no discernable political support on Capitol Hill.  That changed this week when Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) introduced a bill that substantially mirrors Ryan-Wyden’s Medicare-plus-competition proposal.  Although both pairings are so far quiet on the similarities between their plans, this is a good first step toward getting a common conceptual framework around an idea that increases competition.

Not that you’d know any this from reading Think Progress’ headline announcing the Coburn-Burr plan as “Two Republican Senators Try to Walk Back Paul Ryan’s Medicare Privatization Plan.”  Indeed, one has to read halfway into the article to discover that Coburn-Burr “is very similar to the bipartisan framework outlined by Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) last year and adds little to the Medicare reform debate.”

To Think Progress’ way of thinking there is little news value when two conservative Republican Senators introduce an almost identical reform plan to one announced by a liberal Democratic colleague and the most influential Republican Congressman.  Almost everyone else knows better.  With support growing for Ryan’s Medicare 2.0 reform, expect to see more movement Ryan’s way as the year rolls on.

Consider Andrew Malcolm’s take on what casino magnate and Gingrich Super PAC funder Sheldon Adelson is really up to with his new $10 million bet on Newt:

…Gingrich and Santorum are splitting the same crowd. And this benefits Romney, who has his own money and national operation carefully-constructed over years.

So, in this case, the adage about following the money would steer you in the wrong direction. The potential $21 million is really a bank shot for Adelson, going to help Gingrich prevent Santorum from beating Romney.

We’ll see if it works. But pretty clever.

Recall that Adelson was previously reported to have told Romney’s camp that if Mitt won the GOP nomination, Adelson would be even more generous than he was to Newt.  Maybe the $10 million is a down payment on that promise.

It’s been a bad week for Office of Management and Budget Director Jeff Zients, the man tasked with defending President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget proposal.

In testimony before the House Budget Committee Zients told Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) that the penalty for not complying with ObamaCare’s mandate to buy health insurance is not a tax increase.  (Subscription wall.)  In response, Rep. Garrett said, “Okay.  I just want to be clear on that because that’s not the argument the Administration is making before the Supreme Court.”

Before the Senate Budget Committee Zients was even more out-of-touch.  Under questioning from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Zients claimed that Obama’s 2013 budget contained spending cuts – a distortion Sessions would not tolerate:

Mr. Zients, there are no spending cuts in this budget. This budget increases spending. Surely you know that. It increases taxes. So to say you cut $2.50 in spending for every dollar in tax increase is beyond the pale.

So too is the entire shell game about ‘deficit reduction’ when what liberals like Obama really mean is tax increases to pay for spending increases.  If the President won’t admit it at least his budget director will be made to.