Freedom Line Blog

The Labor Department this morning reported that nonfarm payrolls fell by a seasonally adjusted 85,000 in December, bringing the total number of jobs lost in 2009 to a whopping 4.2 million.

As Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs Timothy Lee wrote this week in a commentary posted on CFIF’s website, “the latest economic data continue to suggest that our recovery is weaker than it otherwise should be, due to malignant federal policies.”

Lee points to a recently released survey  by the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), which makes his point:

According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), a tiny 7% of small businesses (which account for approximately 2/3 of new jobs) expect near-term expansion and the type of risk-taking necessary for sustained prosperity.  Further, only 8% of NFIB respondents expect near-term employment opportunities.  The same NFIB report also states that capital investment and expenditures have dropped to a 35-year low.”

The reason?  Lee writes:

According to the NFIB survey, businesses report that the current political climate stands high among the reasons for tepid recovery, even ahead of the ability to secure loans.  The survey goes on to cite ‘the level of uncertainty being created by government, the usual source of uncertainty for the economy.  The ‘turbulence’ created when Congress is in session is often debilitating, this year being one of the worst.’ …

“…The continuing onslaught of more government spending, borrowing and regulation will not bring the type of recovery that we should expect, but rather perpetuate an inhospitable economic climate.  When we return to time-tested policies that encourage private investment, risk-taking and hiring – less confiscation of wealth, greater protection of property rights and fewer oxygen-depleting regulations – is when sustainable, long-term growth will return.”

In other words, when it comes to job losses and the slow economic recovery, It’s Washington, Stupid!

Read Lee’s full commentary piece here.

This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out.  For those readers who don’t receive it in their e-mail inboxes or if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, below is a summary of its contents:

CFIF Staff:  The Transparency of the Presidential Lie
Lee:  Latest Data Suggests Obamanomics Continues to Stifle Rebound
Senik:  At Decade’s End
Batkins:  Freedom on the March in 2010?

Freedom Minute Video:  Come Bomb the Friendly Skies
Podcast:  Arctic Freeze Blanketing South Caused by Global Warming? – Interview with CEI founder Fred Smith
Jester’s Courtroom:  Take Me Out To The … Courtroom

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, sign up here.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its monthly budget review, and once again, the results are not pretty for taxpayers.

For the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2010 alone, CBO estimates a $390 billion budget deficit, or $56 billion more than the record shortfall last year.  This year is scheduled to be the largest budget deficit in history, but you wouldn’t know it the way Congress is spending.

The November and December results were actually worse than CBO had originally predicted.  The U.S. ended November with a $120 billion shortfall, or $5 billion more than original projections.  In December, CBO estimates a $92 billion deficit but that figure is likely to grow larger when the actual numbers are released next month.

The response from Congress and the White House?  Crickets.  It appears that accelerating our national debt and printing more money is still the raison d’être in our nation’s capital.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the Obama Administration’s response to Umar Abdulmutallab’s attempted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.

National Review Online – The Talented Senator Nelson
Washington Times – A New Conservative Party?
Politico – Unresolved Questions for 2010
The Hill – Pelosi Vows to Defend House Health Care Bill

San Francisco Chronicle – Mr. President, Bring in the Cameras
Charles Krauthammer – The Gitmo Obsession
Red State – Senator Nelson Says Everyone Will Get Kickbacks
WSJ Editorial – Medicare and the Mayo Clinic

Federal Debt: $12.286 trillion

With this week’s announcements that Democratic senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota won’t be seeking reelection in the fall, all eyes have turned to the U.S. Senate. With Republicans needing to gain only one seat on net to eradicate the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority, the stakes are high. And with an anti-incumbent mood running hot nationally, we should expect to see some shakeups.

A few predictions:

First, it’s all but certain that Democrats will lose the filibuster-proof majority. In the current political atmosphere, 60 senators is pretty close to an absolute ceiling for either party and the Democrats are not performing anywhere near well enough to sustain it.

Second, the Republicans will not pick up the 11 net seats needed to regain control of the Senate. There are 19 Democratic seats up in 2010, but by my count 7 are entirely out of play (Connecticut now that Chris Dodd is retiring, Evan Bayh in Indiana, Barbara Mikulski in Maryland, Chuck Schumer in New York, Ron Wyden in Oregon, Patrick Leahy in Vermont, and Patty Murray in Washington). Despite a late surge from the Republican candidate, it also seems likely that Democrat Martha Coakley will win the special election in Massachusetts to succeed Ted Kennedy.

That leaves 11 possible pick-ups, but some of them are extremely remote prospects and the likelihood of all them coinciding is extremely low. The GOP’s strongest chances to swell its ranks are in North Dakota (where Governor John Hoeven is likely to become the next senator); Arkansas (where Blanche Lincoln’s dismal poll numbers show her being beat by any of four Republican challengers); Colorado (where appointed Senator Michael Bennet has proved to be a disappointment); and Nevada (where Harry Reid — elected as a moderate — seems likely to face a political death sentence for casting his lot with the likes of the DailyKos and MoveOn.org).

Republicans have fighting chances in several other races (Delaware, Illinois, and Pennsylvania) and a few other contests present outside pickup possibilities because of weakening incumbents or the possibility of viable challengers throwing their hats in the ring (California, Hawaii, New York, and Wisconsin).

However, the electoral math also has to factor in Republican losses. I don’t think there will be many. Some weak GOP incumbents in the south (David Vitter in Louisiana, Johnny Isakson in Georgia, Richard Burr in North Carolina) may have been in real danger under other circumstances, but the popular rage against Washington liberalism will probably insulate them this time around. Some of the seats the GOP is defending will be close, but the only one that currently looks to be on a trajectory for loss is Missouri, where Kit Bond is retiring and former House Minority Whip Roy Blunt — dogged by allegations of corruption — will likely be facing off against Robin Carnahan, the new face of a popular Democratic family in the Show-Me State. The upshot: look for Republican gains, but not enough to retake control of the chamber.

Finally, with Harry Reid’s loss looking more certain by the day (which would make him the second consecutive Democratic leader in the Senate to lose a popular election before losing his leadership position), 2011 should bring some interesting jockeying to head the Democratic Party in the Senate. Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois is nominally next in line for the position, but Durbin is gaffe-prone and perhaps identified too closely with President Obama’s Chicago machine. Expect a strong challenge from New York’s Chuck Schumer — and a more strategically sophisticated Democratic Party if he wins.

Just when you think the Obama Administration couldn’t get more nefarious, the president goes and signs an executive order that fundamentally weakens the U.S. Constitution.  Right around the time Senators were passing their version of health care “reform” the president rescinded parts of a Reagan-era executive order applying American law to Interpol agents working in the United States.  The parts rescinded required Interpol agents to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests and submit to search and seizure procedures.  Now, those requirements are no more.  Coupled with their pre-existing diplomatic immunity this means that a foreign law enforcement agency is now permitted to operate above and beyond American law while in the United States.  Did I mention that these agents are mostly Americans working in offices provided in the Justice Department?

Why would President Obama do such a thing?  The consensus in the blogosphere is that this move opens the door for prosecutions before the International Criminal Court (ICC), a global war crimes tribunal created by a treaty that the United States is not a party to.  If this is true, members of the previous White House team – including President Bush himself – may need to double check their home security systems and attorney speed dials.

You are forgiven if you didn’t hear or read California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “state of the state” address recently. The Governator’s halting speaking style and usual lack of substance typically attracts neither attention nor interest. But one section of his speech bears scrutiny. Buried towards the end he compared the change in state spending on prisons and higher education. Thirty years ago 10 percent of the budget went to colleges and universities while 3 percent went to prisons. Today, “almost 11 percent goes to prisons and only 7.5 percent goes to higher education.”

Okay, so Californians passed the three strikes law and reinstated the death penalty.  Now they are paying the costs of locking up serious criminals for the rest of their lives. But Schwarzenegger didn’t advocate for eliminating the laws that drive up incarceration rates. Instead, he did what almost every California politician does: call for a constitutional amendment. In this case, one that would require the state to spend more money on higher education than prisons. Presumably, this Austrian “economist” would be satisfied so long as higher education gets one dollar more than the prison system.

And yet the truly remarkable thing is that he then advocated for privatizing the prison system. Why; because privately run prisons would save “billions a year.” True, but why not apply the same logic to other side of the ledger and privatize state-funded education? If competition is good in the housing of California’s worst residents, why not in the education of its youngest and brightest? Imagine if instead of proposing yet another arbitrary budget constraint the governor had announced a plan to expand the logic of the higher education Cal-Grant program into a statewide K-12 voucher program. Or maybe he could announce a district wide sale of LAUSD to a charter school outfit like KIPP. After all, if the prison guard unions can be sacrificed for the good of the taxpayer, why not the teachers unions too?

Well, the Nanny State never tires at trying to run every aspect of our lives.  The San Francisco shopping bag ban appears to be making its ugly migration eastward.

Virginia and Maryland are now looking to follow the lead of other meddling jurisdictions as they consider a 5-cent tax on shopping bags.  This is not only an affront to individual liberty but also another pathetic attempt by government to raise a little extra cash.

What’s most disturbing about this scheme to tax “paper or plastic” is that most grocery stores in the area already incentivize recycling.  Local stores like Giant, Whole Foods (run by a libertarian who eschews most state involvement) and Harris Teeter already offer 5-cent discounts (per bag) for customers who bring in their own.

Politicians can’t complain that the market hasn’t taken the lead because most private companies are already ahead of career politicians on the issue.

Delegate Alfred Carr of Montgomery County, Maryland opined, “We need to do this as a region.”  Really?   Your state is mired in recession, most private companies already promote recycling and you believe a new tax on plastic bags is a pressing issue?  Your state has the fourth highest tax burden in the nation and you think that increasing that burden will help your constituents?

As former Chief Justice John Marshall famously stated, “[T]he power to tax involves the power to destroy.”  Perhaps we should tax running for reelection.  Stopping career politicians like Mr. Carr from regulating our shopping habits would surely be a greater advancement for society than a marginal reduction in plastic bag consumption.  After all, reducing the number of career politicians is always a worthy cause.

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

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

The arrival of 2010 ushers in yet another federal election.  This year, every seat in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate is up for grabs.

A new study from the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies demonstrates that President Obama’s approval rating could determine the fate of his strong Democratic majorities in Congress.

Public Opinion studied midterm election results and presidential job approval numbers from 1962 to 2006.  The results aren’t too surprising, but they are nevertheless discouraging for the current party in power.

Even a strong approval mark of 60% has only historically garnered the president’s party one seat in the House.  For example, President Ronald Reagan had a 63% approval rating in 1986, but Republicans still managed to lose five seats in Congress that year.

An average approval rating of 50% to 59% historically results in an average loss of 12 seats.  President Obama’s current approval rating is 50%.

If his approval rating dips below 50%, he may be welcoming Speaker John Boehner in 2011.  When the president’s approval rating falls below the Mendoza Line (50%) for politicians, his party loses an average of 41 seats, or one more than Republicans currently need to take back the lower chamber.

Generally, a president’s popularity and tenure in Congress are inexorably linked.  When November arrives, President Obama will learn that lesson anew.

Stay tuned for more coverage by CFIF on the 2010 elections.

Washington Post – Dust Settling from Democratic Departures
NY Times – Democrats Wary after Senate Retirements
Palm Beach Post – Crist Shoots Down Re-election Rumors
Chicago Tribune – Democrats a Step Ahead of Voters

Debra Saunders – Schwarzenegger — What Might Have Been
WSJ Editorial – H&R Blockheads
The Hill – Pelosi Hints at January Health Care Vote
Politico – Democratic Majorities Safe, for Now

Federal Debt: $12.282 trillion

It wasn’t long ago when the Obama White House was singing the praises of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  After all, Schwarzenegger was one of very few Republicans in the country to throw his support behind ObamaCare.  

Now, however, the Governator isn’t mincing words in withdrawing that support. 

In his State of the State Address before a joint session of the California Legislature earlier today, Schwarzenegger accurately called the health care bill “a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes.”  Below are some highlights from the speech:

Congress is about to pile billions more onto California with the new health care bill.

“While I enthusiastically support health care reform, it is not reform to push more costs onto states that are already struggling while other states get sweetheart deals.

“Health care reform, which started as noble and needed legislation, has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes.

“You’ve heard of the bridge to nowhere.  This is health care to nowhere.

“California’s congressional delegation should either vote against this bill that is a disaster for California or get in there and fight for the same sweetheart deal Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. He got the corn; we got the husk.”

Is Governor Schwarzenegger’s about face on health care reform a prelude to what’s to come in the final stretch of this debate. For the sake of the nation, we can only hope.

In 1994, North Korea placated the Clinton Administration by agreeing to discontinue its nuclear program.

Jimmy Carter trumpeted this supposed achievement of peaceful negotiation.  Bill Clinton sang its praises.

Since that date, of course, we have endured the “Groundhog Day” style cycle of North Korean troublemaking, hollow admonitions from the “community of nations,” more “peaceful negotiations,” and ultimately successful North Korean nuclear blasts.

In other words, as conservatives and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton have often pointed out to an unwelcoming mainstream media, the popular process of toothless negotiations with incorrigible rogues was again proven pointless.

But chilling news from the Korean peninsula suggests that it was even more dangerously naive than we realized.  According to South Korea’s foreign minister, North Korea resumed its nuclear program almost as soon as it agreed to the 1994 accord.  In other words, Kim Jong Il never intended to respect his obligations, and made dupes out of Carter, Clinton and liberal non-confrontationalists.  Instead, it was all merely another maneuver in his endless game of squeezing largess out of all-too-willing negotiators, a process that continues today with both North Korea and Iran.

It all puts Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize in a different light, doesn’t it?

As top Democrats debate health care reform “behind closed doors,” it’s important to recall President Obama’s repeated promises for a more open and transparent government.

Hat tip to Breitbart.tv for the video below.

This week has been awash in Democratic retirements.  In just two days, senior Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) have announced that they won’t be facing voters this November.

In addition, Governor Bill Ritter (D-CO) announced his retirement after just one term in Denver.

All three politicians had uphill reelection prospects and polls now show Republicans with a 44% to 35% advantage in the Generic Congressional Ballot.

For taxpayers and free trade advocates, Dorgan’s retirement comes as a welcome surprise.  He was one of the loudest and most obnoxious free trade opponents in the Senate and even authored the book “Take this Job and Ship It,” a screed against free trade and competition.

Thankfully, the book’s Amazon sales rank is a lowly 143,535, so few will miss his writing or his voting record.

The Hill – Senator Dorgan Announces Retirement
The Hill – Senator Dodd to Retire
Politico – President Obama Starts 2010 with 50% Approval
WSJ Editorial – The Tom DeLay Democrats

Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Don’t Let Detroit be Our Future
Newt Gingrich – Obama’s Profoundly Wrong Policies
Washington Examiner – Dems Negotiate ObamaCare in Secret
Washington Times – Senator Nelson’s Broken Promises

Federal Debt: $12.278 trillion

Much has been made about the secret sweetheart deal Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) struck with Senate leaders in exchange for his “Yea” vote on ObamaCare. 

The deal, known as the “Cornhusker Kickback,” permanently exempts Nebraska – and only Nebraska – from paying for expanded Medicaid mandates called for in the Senate-passed “reform” bill.  In other words, taxpayers in all other states will be stuck paying the tab for Nebraska’s expanded Medicaid rolls if that provision survives final passage.

But is the “Cornhusker Kickback” constitutional?

On December 30, thirteen state attorneys general sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calling the provision “constitutionally flawed” and threatening legal action unless the provision is dropped from the health care bill. 

The attorneys general wrote:

The undersigned state attorneys general, in response to numerous inquiries, write to express our grave concern with the Senate version of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (‘H.R. 3590’). The current iteration of the bill contains a provision that affords special treatment to the state of Nebraska under the federal Medicaid program. We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed. As chief legal officers of our states we are contemplating a legal challenge to this provision and we ask you to take action to render this challenge unnecessary by striking that provision.

It has been reported that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson’s vote, for H.R. 3590, was secured only after striking a deal that the federal government would bear the cost of newly eligible Nebraska Medicaid enrollees. In marked contrast all other states would not be similarly treated, and instead would be required to allocate substantial sums, potentially totaling billions of dollars, to accommodate H.R. 3590’s new Medicaid mandates. In addition to violating the most basic and universally held notions of what is fair and just, we also believe this provision of H.R. 3590 is inconsistent with protections afforded by the United States Constitution against arbitrary legislation. …

According to a lengthy report by CNSNews.com, “The Dec. 30 letter was drafted by South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and gained the signatures of 12 other Republicans. Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is the only Democrat, so far, to express support for the possible litigation.”

Read the letter is its entirety here (.pdf).

From the Sunshine State today comes news that Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer (one of the closest allies of moderate Governor — and U.S. Senate aspirant — Charlie Crist) is resigning from his post. The chairman came under fire from the right for his unsubtle support of Crist against the more conservative former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio in the Republican senate primary, as well as for being a bit of a spendthrift.

The delicious irony is that Greer — a man who had been justifying his every action on the basis of creating a “big tent” party — chose to leave office with a scorched earth message:

Greer said his opponents want to “burn the house down and destroy the Republican Party.”

“I am not a purist,” he said in describing his vision for the party. “I have never been a purist. I believe that our party stands for principles and values and that anyone who has an interest in our party should be able to participate.”

Greer’s beauty pageant eloquence aside, these statements are an intellectual schematic of political breakdown. If your party “stands for principles and values,” then you can’t strengthen it by attempting to marginalize those who take those principles and values most seriously. Too many GOP moderates seem to think that creating a big tent means pushing conservatives out of the back end. They’re going to have to learn how to be partners and not adversaries in the future. If they don’t, expect to see more centrists dethroned ala Jim Greer.

In response to the attempted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day, President Obama is set to release a new wave of airport security measures.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has responded somewhat by giving pat-downs to travelers from Yemen, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and 11 other countries that are havens for terrorist activity.

Of course, the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, was already in a U.S. database of 550,000 suspected terrorists, but that did not subject him to additional scrutiny under current law.  No word yet on whether the President’s new proposals will change this practice.

Read more of CFIF on Homeland Security and Terrorism.