Freedom Line Blog

Alongside numerous other conservative and libertarian organizations, CFIF has repeatedly voiced concerns regarding an effort underway in Congress to “privatize” our nation’s air traffic control system (H.R. 2997, the “21st Century AIRR Act”), which doesn’t appear to constitute true privatization at all.  In fact, it may actually make the situation worse.

Among other concerns, the proposed legislation would:

–  Increase the power air traffic controllers’ unions by not only maintaining current centralized monopoly power over air traffic control, but actually expanding their authority over such matters as personnel changes, salary caps and mandatory retirement age (currently 56, compared to 65 for pilots), thus explaining unions’ support for the bill;

–  Increase the federal budget deficit by $20 billion between now and 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO);

–  Upend U.S. Department of Defense practices.  According to the Defense Department, “The establishment of a new entity separate from the FA raises serious concerns regarding the disposition of certain unique National Defense procedures, programs and policy,” adding that, “it is significant to note that the DoD relies on FAA ‘command and control’ capabilities in the execution of the national defense mission”;

–  Create an air traffic control entity that would possess authority to impose new taxes and user fees without Congressional oversight, meaning higher costs for American consumers, which is far from the sort of market competition that true ‘privatization’ would offer.

And now, the concerns have grown.  As noted by The Hill, according to the Congressional Research Service, the proposal would trigger automatic cuts from other programs due to its impact in raising the deficit, including Medicare, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Fund and the Military Retirement Fund, among others:

A memo from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), released Monday by Democratic Reps. Peter DeFazio (Ore.) and Rick Larsen (Wash.), found that legislation to hand over the country’s air navigation system to a private entity would trigger budget sequestration, which automatically cuts some mandatory spending programs if a piece of legislation exceeds certain budget caps.

In the case of the air traffic control (ATC) spinoff plan, it would result in across-the-board spending cuts of $49 billion over the next 10 years.  That would include cuts to Medicare, the Military Retirement Fund, the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Flood Insurance Fund and other critical programs, DeFazio and Larsen warned.”

As stated by our friends at the American Conservative Union Foundation, we “would gladly stand in support of true policy efforts to privatize our air traffic control system that better reflect the ideals of privatization – those that align with a more robust free market and exhibit a true transfer of power from public to private hands.”

Until all of these defects are resolved, however, Congress mustn’t act in a way that would make matters worse.

We’ve often highlighted the direct statistical relationship between economic freedom and prosperity, but typically the comparison is between countries.  Courtesy of Adam Millsap of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, however, we can visualize the same freedom/prosperity relationship among individual U.S. states.

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More Freedom, More Growth

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To paraphrase Dr. John Lott, more freedom, more growth.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

John Lott, our favorite economist at least in the arena of criminology and Second Amendment scholarship, cogently summarizes the actual, real-world, data-based sociological effect of “gun control” laws:

While gun bans (either a ban on all guns or on all handguns) have been imposed in many places, every time guns have been banned, murder rates have gone up.

One would think that one time, just out of simple randomness, murder rates would have gone down or at least stayed the same.  Yet in every single case for which we have crime data both before and after the ban, murder rates have gone up, often by huge amounts.”

It’s almost as if more guns mean less crime.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Whatever one’s opinion of Donald Trump, his tweets or his legislative accomplishments to date, he has unmistakably achieved great progress on the issue perhaps foremost among his supporters’ minds.  Along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky), whose efforts began while Barack Obama was still president after Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing, Trump is already reshaping the nation’s judicial branch, as The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel details:

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Mr. Trump has now nominated nearly 60 judges, filling more vacancies than Barack Obama did in his entire first year.  There are another 160 court openings, allowing Mr. Trump to flip or further consolidate conservative majorities on the circuit courts that have the final say on 99% of federal legal disputes.  This project is the work of Mr. Trump, White House Counsel Don McGahn and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Every new president cares about the judiciary, but no administration in memory has approached appointments with more purpose than this team.”

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In this week’s Liberty Update, we shatter three noxious myths that underlie Second Amendment restrictionists’ agenda.  This helpful map illustrates one of them: their claim that the prevalence of firearms in the U.S. has resulted in a a high murder rate compared with the rest of the world.

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Gun Controllers' Myth Shattered

Leftists constantly claim to support higher taxes, but then whine the loudest when they can put their money where their collective mouth is.

Under President Trump’s proposed framework, taxpayers in blue high-tax states would lose the writeoff for high state and local taxes that they currently enjoy.  No wonder Chuck Schumer hates the idea of tax reform so much:

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Blue State Tax Writeoffs

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