Freedom Line Blog

Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning didn’t mince words in warning Senate Republicans that if they don’t get behind “health care reform” soon the Dems will use a procedural maneuver to pass it on their own. 

If we can’t work this out to do something within the committee structure, then we’ll be forced to do reconciliation.”

Reid has threatened to use budget reconciliation — a procedural move that requires a simple majority vote for passage rather than the traditional 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass most bills —  before, but some have warned that such a move could backfire.  The Majority Leader’s “bipartisanship, we don’t need no stinking bipartisanship” moment this morning, however, made it clear that public opposition be damned, Reid is prepared to ram Obama’s government-run health care experiment down the throats of the American people no matter what it takes.

Given Reid’s anemic job approval ratings in Nevada, it appears he’s thinking he’s got nothing left to lose.

Cato Institute – Preemptive Regulation of the Internet
WSJ – The Fight Against Net Neutrality
Rep. Tom Price – When is a Tax Not a Tax?
Politico – Obama Urges Action on Climate Change

Washington Post – ACORN Names Its Investigator
The Hill – Reid Gives GOP Warning on Health Care
WSJ – The Health Care Markup
Steny Hoyer – House Schedule

Federal Debt: $11.826 trillion

Since its inception in the mid ’60s, the National Endowment for the Arts (“NEA”) has received billions in taxpayer dollars. 

Here is a link to its Congressional appropriations by year (through 2007), as they’re disclosed on the NEA website.

Below is a snapshot of taxpayer funding for just this decade alone:

Here is NEA’s FY 2010 appropriations request totaling $161,315 million.

Following the news that the White House has been colluding with the National Endowment for the Arts (a public agency) to enlist artists to become propaganda tools for the President’s agenda on health care, the environment and other issues, we thought it would be prudent to remind readers that Congress earmarked $50 million for the NEA in the so-called Economic Stimulus Bill passed back in February.

According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey, Members of Congress have surpassed those evil, greedy, no-good Corporate CEOs as having the least respected job in America.

Just one-out-of-four Americans (25%) have a favor[able] opinion of members of Congress. Seventy-two percent (72%) view them unfavorably. There’s some intensity in that perception, too. Only four percent (4%) have a very favorable view of congressmen, while 37% view them very unfavorably.

Even 56% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Congress although their party controls both the House and the Senate. Of course, their opposition pales next to the 86% of Republicans and 81% of adults not affiliated with either party who have an unfavorable opinion of Congress.

Topping the list for most respected profession are small business owners, with 94% of respondents claiming to have a favorable opinion of them vs. a mere 3% who expressed an unfavorable opinion.  Journalists finished fifth out of the nine professions asked about with 43% viewing them favorably vs. 54% unfavorably.

I wonder how President Obama would rank the professions asked about in the Rasmussen Reports survey?   He must least respect those “greedy Corporate CEOs”  for making profits and creating jobs, right?  Or, does Obama least respect those small business owners who stand to lose most from the policies highest on his agenda?  

Then again, maybe Obama agrees with the public and their unfavorable view of Members of Congress, who failed to ram through his cap-and-trade and government-run health care schemes by the beginning of August as he demanded?   No… he must least respect those biased journalists.  How dare that Stephanopoulos press him on the fact that his health care tax is a tax when he says it isn’t a tax, because if it were a tax he again would be breaking his promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 per year?

Jeff Flake, arguably one of the strongest supporters of the free market in Congress, has just sent a letter to the White House regarding President Obama’s recent decision to impose tariffs on Chinese imports.

Here is the link. The text is below.

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I write to raise concern about your recent decision to impose tariffs on imported Chinese tires pursuant to a petition filed by the United Steelworkers of America under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974.

In an opinion piece highlighting the G20 summit in March of this year, you stated that “we should embrace a collective commitment to encourage open trade and investment, while resisting the protectionism that would deepen this crisis.”  Unfortunately, it is difficult to see how exercising your discretion to impose trade restrictions on imported tires from China is consistent with this sentiment.  Given the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the timing of this decision is troubling.  Rather than showing U.S. leadership in the global effort to encourage open trade, your decision runs the risk of giving other countries the green light to take their own protectionist measures that could stall a global economic recovery.

Beyond the global implications, your decision could set in motion a troubling trend in our bilateral trade relationship with one of our strongest trading partners.  The tire tariffs represent the first time restrictions have been imposed under Section 421.  While other trade laws do not require presidential involvement, duties imposed under Section 421 reflect the direct orders of the U.S. president, which might help explain China’s reaction. It is difficult to interpret the Chinese government’s initiation of antidumping proceedings against U.S. chicken and auto product exports as independent of your actions on tires. Your decision to impose duties on Chinese tires is likely to encourage other domestic industries to file their own petitions for relief under Section 421. The potential for an endless cycle of U.S. restrictions and subsequent retaliation from China is the last thing our economic recovery needs.

Finally, it is worth noting that the domestic tire industry was conspicuously absent from the Section 421 petition.  Given the economic importance of vibrant export markets for our products, it is critical that the Administration avoid even the appearance of U.S. trade policy being based on political calculus rather than comprehensive, pragmatic, and forward-looking economic analyses.

I respectfully request that, based on these concerns, you reconsider the decision imposing protectionist tariffs on Chinese tire imports.  I appreciate your attention to this request, and please do not hesitate to contact me should you like to discuss this matter further.

Sincerely,

JEFF FLAKE

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski today laid the groundwork for formal imposition of so-called Net “Neutrality” rules upon the telecommunications sector in a speech before the Brookings Institution, and the usual chorus of nanny-state activists quickly applauded this potential intrusion.  The Free Press trumpeted that Chairman Genachowski’s speech was “a breath of fresh air in a Washington policy environment that has long stagnated under the influence of a powerful phone and cable lobby.”  So let us get this straight…  The Internet is the most innovative and thriving sector in American life, but Net “Neutrality” advocates are under the illusion that it has somehow “stagnated?”

Among other things, Genachowski contended that, “if we wait too long to preserve a free and open Internet, it will be too late.”  As if the Internet has somehow been constrained and closed to date?  Tellingly, Genachowski later slipped into an admission when he said that we should “take steps to preserve Internet openness” (emphasis added), acknowledging that it has been, and remains, open.  He later said that, “we will do as much as we need to do, and no more, to ensure that the Internet remains an unfettered platform for competition, creativity and entrepreneurial activity.”

In other words, even according to Genachowski, the Internet is “an unfettered platform for competition, creativity and entrepreneurial activity,” but federal government intrusion is suddenly and mystically vital to its survival? It all obviously recalls Ronald Reagan’s adage that the most terrifying words are, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

As we’ve said on multiple occasions, Net “Neutrality” is a supposed solution in search of a problem.  Doesn’t the federal government have enough on its plate right now without adding spoliation of the Internet?

It appears that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus failed to get the White House memo about tax increases not being tax increases prior to drafting his latest version of ObamaCare.

During yesterday’s now-infamous exchange with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, President Obama insisted that the provision in Baucus’ bill that taxes families up to $3,800 annually for failing to get health insurance (aka the “individual mandate”) is not a tax increase and therefore does not violate his oft-repeated campaign promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.

Hat tip to Chris Frates and Mike Allen of Politico for pointing out that the first sentence of Page 29 of the Baucus bill reads: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”

But that’s not all. According to Frates and Allen:

And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does, in fact, consider it a tax: ‘The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.’

So who’s lying now?

Here’s a hint: The President and his Administration are trying the same sleight of hand trick with regard to Cap-and-Trade … oops, Cap-and-Tax.

This video, an interview with White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod, demonstrates how health care “choice” is fine for the White House, as long as the government chooses.  People can choose the Public Option, but people cannot choose to purchase health insurance across state lines because the government makes it illegal. HT: Andy Roth.

Leftist author and weekly Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank called CFIF out by name in his commentary last week, entitled “The Left Should Reclaim ‘Freedom.'”

Continuing his Wednesday morning habit of superficial analysis and juvenile critique, Frank attacked the previous weekend’s taxpayer march on Washington, D.C. that drew hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans.  The opening sentence of Frank’s denunciation summarizes his angst well, as he stated, “[t]here are few things in politics more annoying than the right’s utter conviction that it owns the patent on the word ‘freedom.'”  Nothing torments Frank more than the reality that everyday, middle-class Americans disfavor his leftist political agenda, so the taxpayer march had to be particularly painful for him.

He then identified CFIF by name in his futile attempt to justify reclamation of the term “freedom,” and engaged in his typical straw-man argumentation when he asserted, “that our ancestors could ever have understood freedom as something greater than the absence of the state would probably strike protesters as inconceivable.”  First, Frank should take a moment to contemplate the difference between anarchists, who seek “the absence of the state,” and conservatives.  And second, which “ancestor” does he cite as proof of his assertion?  Thomas Jefferson?  James Madison?  Abraham Lincoln?  John Locke?

No.  Norman Rockwell.  Now, we love Rockwell’s artistry as much as anyone, but one would think that even Frank could do better than that.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, we at CFIF can take pride in counting Thomas Frank amongst our antagonists.

The White House has made a habit out of its secret dealings with outside groups, including unions.  However, now it appears that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is scheming to promote the President’s agenda.  One would think that White House talking points wouldn’t be the best muse, but let us not underestimate the power of “hope.”

According to the Washington Times and Breitbart, the NEA and the Administration set up a conference call to encourage artists around the U.S. to channel their creativity … with the help of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

What’s worse, when confronted by reporters, the NEA lied about setting up the conference call.   Here is the transcript. The Director who misled reporters did not resign, but has instead been reassigned.

As Patrick Courrielche of Breitbart wrote:

“I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to take part in a conference call that invited a group of rising artist and art community luminaries ‘to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.'”

From AEI’s Steven Hayward, writing in the WSJ:

“[T]o meet the target the climate campaigners have set, the U.S., Europe and Japan will have to replace virtually their entire fossil-fuel energy infrastructure. For the U.S., the 80% target means reducing fossil-fuel greenhouse-gas emissions to a level the nation last experienced in 1910. On a per-capita basis, we’d have to go back to the level of about 1875.”

LA Times – House Panel Investigates Maxine Waters
CNN – Conservatism is Far from Dead
Political Wire – Deeds Edging Closer to McDonnell
WSJ – Obama Backs ACORN Probe

Republican Study Committee – Climate Bill Could Shave 3.5% of GDP
Washington Post – White House Plays Political Hardball
New York Daily News – What’s Really Behind the Rage
New York Post – Inside ACORN

Federal Debt: $11.822 trillion

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis debated Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), one of the organization’s strongest congressional critics, this morning on Fox News Sunday.

Barack Obama isn’t going to “tax” Americans earning under $250,000 to help subsidize his healthcare overhaul – he’s merely going to “penalize” them, which is apparently something altogether different and palatable.

During this morning’s Obamapalooza tour of the Sunday talk shows (intentionally ostracizing Fox News Sunday, in a most un-Presidential fit of spite), a prevaricating Obama bizarrely insisted that his healthcare reform’s penalty provisions for those without insurance somehow do not amount to a “tax” on Americans earning under $250,000, but rather a justifiable “penalty.”  Throughout a large portion of his interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the two battled over this topic, with a visibly frustrated Obama even reproaching Stephanopoulos for reading Merriam’s definition of “tax” – “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

Instead of honestly explaining why his plan doesn’t meet this simple definition, Obama descended into pettiness and replied, “George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.”

The reason that Obama resorted to this contortion of logic is that he solemnly and repeatedly promised throughout his campaign that he wouldn’t raise taxes on Americans earning under $250,000 by a single dime.  Knowing that he cannot afford his own version of President George H. W. Bush’s “read my  lips – no new taxes” broken pledge, Obama will apparently stop at nothing in his Orwellian campaign of distortion.

Is he lying?  Or is he honestly confused?  Who knows anymore.  But uninsured Americans earning under $250,000 can rest assured that the money they’ll be forced to pay under ObamaCare isn’t a “tax,” it’s just a “penalty.”

I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.”   — President Barack Obama, September 20, 2009

According to The Washington Times, a series of “grass-roots demonstrations” set to take place Tuesday to promote ObamaCare are being planned as “tightly scripted events [featuring] an ‘escalation’ of efforts against ‘enemies’ of reform.

“…Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which is backed by a coalition of labor unions and liberal groups including ACORN and MoveOn.org, organized the protests to target insurance companies and drafted the plan, which describes the demonstrations as part of its ‘insurance enemies project.’

“The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, details specific talking points, tactics, props and strategies to stage the protests.  It lists goals that include action that ‘mobilizes or base by animating existing anger about private insurers.'”

Surely, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi will speak out against “animating existing anger.”  Doesn’t “animating anger” lead to violence?  Since when is “animating anger” a legitimate policy goal?

We’re still trying to figure out how health insurance plans could be so greedy and evil when they pay medical providers 20% more than Medicare pays the same medical providers for the same services and manage to make only a 3% profit margin.  No one seems to want to answer that question.

The Senate Finance Committee has posted all 564 proposed amendments to Chairman Baucus and President Obama’s health care bill.

• Summary of 180 amendments concerning the delivery system for health care  — here.

                    Actual text of above amendments — here.

• Summary of the 284 amendments dealing with “exapanding coverage” — here.

                    Actual text of above amendments — here.

• Summary of the 100 amendments dealing with financing — here.

                    Actual text of above amendments — here. 

First paragraph of Associated Press Saturday story:  “Keep going.  You don’t have to fix it all now.  Just please don’t let it stall.  That’s the essence of the message that Senate Democratic leaders have for their Finance Committee senators, who plan to start voting Tuesday on a remake of the nation’s health care system.”

Translation:  If this fails, Pelosi won’t have anything to work over in conference to get her public option, so if you only fix it for the union guys to keep getting their Viagra, well that’s ObamaCare, and she’ll dump the heavy stuff in from her side, when opponents are just too tired to keep fighting this.

Also as of Saturday, more than 500 amendments to the Baucus version of the bill had been filed in the Finance Committee.  Bets on how many of those will get read?

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino reminds the politicians in Washington that America deserves the truth about health care reform legislation.