Freedom Line Blog

The nation’s capital is abuzz today over President Obama’s Wall Street Journal commentary, “Toward a 21st Century Regulatory System.” Astonishingly, Obama actually praises America’s free market system as “the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known” while promising regulatory reform:

I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government.  This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth.  And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.  It’s a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.”

Whether Obama speaks honestly, or simply seeks to deceive the electorate in anticipation of 2012, lies beyond our powers of divination.  The available evidence, however, justifies extreme skepticism.

One cause for doubt stands out immediately.  In identifying examples of the federal regulatory state run amok, the best Obama can do is point to saccharine, saying that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits it for consumption in coffee while his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) labels it a “dangerous chemical.”  That’s it?  That’s the best example he can cite?

Just one month ago, Obama’s own Federal Communications Commission (FCC) flagrantly defied two-to-one public opposition, a unanimous Court of Appeals and a bipartisan group of 300 members of Congress by voting to regulate the Internet via “Net Neutrality.” Obama claims in his column that he aims to prevent “regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive,” but that’s exactly what “Net Neutrality” will do.  The FCC seeks to regulate an Internet sector that has thrived over the past two decades precisely because the federal government has refrained from interfering with regulations such as this.  The result will be fewer incentives for continued Internet investment, expansion and innovation, as well as declining service as capacity fails to keep pace with demand.

Additionally, Obama’s Labor Department seeks to impose “card check,” which will end secret ballot voting in union elections, and his EPA seeks to impose global warming carbon cap-and-tax regulations.  Both of those agenda items failed miserably in Congress even when controlled by Democratic supermajorities, but Obama’s regulatory agencies now seek to impose them anyway.

So Obama talks a good game in today’s op/ed.  But unless he issues an immediate cease-and-desist order on “Net Neutrality,” card check and cap-and-tax, his words will prove just as meaningless as his other broken promises.

While House Republicans are planning on bringing the repeal of Obamacare to a vote next week, even the staunchest opponents of the healthcare law admit that a fullblown reversal isn’t coming anytime soon.

With that in mind, healthcare analyst Avik Roy lays out the practical implications for conservatives in a piece on National Review Online. Roy is sagacious across the board, but his delineation of the consequences for the 2012 presidential election are especially pertinent — and jarring:

We must remind ourselves of the electoral realities. For Republicans to succeed in repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), they will need to control the House, the Senate, and the White House. From a political standpoint, if Republicans are not able to achieve this in 2012, they are unlikely ever to repeal Obamacare.

 This means that influential Republican activists must — must — coalesce around the most electable Republican presidential candidate who can articulate conservative health-care principles. This is no time for single-issue small-ball or personal score-settling. A GOP nominee who passes all the litmus tests but can’t win in November would only succeed in making Obamacare permanent. One who can win but isn’t capable of pushing for real health-care reform wouldn’t be much better.

Roy is right. Who the Republican nominee is in 2012 could well determine how free of a nation the United States is for the forseeable future. Vote accordingly.

Making good on the promise to offer greater legislative transparency and in preparation forthe House vote to repeal ObamaCare scheduled for next week, House Republicans have posted the repeal bill online for all to see.

Check it out here.

Well, that didn’t take long.  Speaker-elect John Boehner (R-OH) and incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced today that the new Republican leadership will make good on its campaign promise to repeal ObamaCare.  Next Monday the bill hits the Rules Committee, followed by a Friday floor session deciding the rule for debate.  With 242 members, the House GOP is virtually assured of a favorable pro-repeal vote.

But since Democrats still hold the Senate hostage, no actual repeal is happening anytime soon.  Right now, though, that isn’t the point.  As Politico reports:

The repeal effort is not expected to succeed, given that Democrats maintain control of the Senate and the president can veto the legislation. But Republicans could embarrass the White House if they persuade a number of Democrats to vote with them, and over the long term, plan to try to chip away at pieces of the law.

That yeoman work will begin quickly under new House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA).  His sights are set on investigating just about every consequential action by the Obama Administration.  Ladies and gentlemen, set your DVRs!

In October 2003, tough-talking optimist Arnold Schwarzenegger unseated bland public union yes-man Gray Davis as Governor of California in a revolutionary special recall election.  Today, Schwarzenegger departs with a depressed 22% approval rating that serves as a warning for Republican newcomers in Congress and across the 50 states against the perils of go-along-to-get-along “bipartisanship.”

During his first two years in office, Schwarzenegger maintained a confrontational demeanor that California desperately needed as it hurtled toward its current disastrous state.  In March 2004, for instance, he famously ridiculed California’s milquetoast political class as “girlie-men.”

Unfortunately, four common-sense and ultimately necessary ballot initiatives that he supported failed in November 2005.  Instead of sticking to principles, Schwarzenegger opted for “bipartisan” political expediency and personal survival.  What followed was a shameful litany of global warming bills, ObamaCare-like proposals, lack of leadership and tax hikes.  His capitulation provided a short-term payoff via reelection in 2006, but ultimately proved disastrous for himself and the state.  Today, despite Schwarzenegger’s early promise, California is in even worse shape than when he entered office.  And jaded voters witnessed yet another sad example of a politician who promised to change the political culture, only to allow the political culture to change him.

Schwarzenegger’s failure, however, provides a helpful cautionary guide for incoming Republicans this new year.  Namely, sacrificing the principles that got you elected at the tempting altar of “bipartisanship” will only deepen our nation’s current difficulties and eventually doom you politically.

Christine Erickson at Free Enterprise Nation has a chilling analysis of Judge Henry Hudson’s ruling that Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional:

The idea behind the individual mandate is that it is a way to achieve universal coverage through the private market, rather than through a government-sponsored plan. When considering the regulations placed on insurance companies by the reform law, the individual mandate is necessary because it brings healthy individuals into the insurance pool. Under a major provision within the law, insurers can no longer deny policies to people with preexisting conditions. If this regulation is put in place without the individual mandate, a healthy individual can go without insurance, knowing that he or she can purchase coverage after having been diagnosed with a serious medical problem. For insurance companies that sell to the individual market, this would shift the makeup of their policy holders to the point where they would spend much more on claims than they make in premiums, leaving them with the decision to drastically raise premiums (15% to 20% by CBO estimations) or exit the individual market altogether. Once private insurers are forced out of the individual market, it is almost guaranteed that the government would step in and create a government-run plan.

With Judge Hudson’s ruling, as well as two other recent rulings that the mandate falls within Congressional limits, healthcare reform supporters now see two likely outcomes to a Supreme Court challenge: the law will be upheld in its entirety, or the individual mandate alone will be overturned. If the Supreme Court decides the latter, the country could be immediately set on a path towards a government-run, single payer system.

Oh, dear…

On this date in 1773, Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty hosted their original tea party in Boston Harbor.  Two hundred thirty-six years later, CNBC’s Rick Santelli refreshed the movement from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, and its momentum continues.  So happy birthday, Tea Party – federal judge Henry Hudson provided a fitting gift by declaring ObamaCare’s core mandate unconstitutional based on your underlying principles.

Below is two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez’s take on yesterday’s federal court ruling that Congress exceeded its authority by mandating all individuals buy health insurance in ObamaCare.

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

In his opinion declaring ObamaCare’s central provision (the individual mandate) unconstitutional, United States District Judge Henry Hudson today vindicated the core concept of individual freedom that provides the foundation of our constitutional republic.  More than that, however, Judge Hudson provided a refreshing break from that loathsome parade of shameless judges who have insulted Americans’ intelligence through recent decades by mangling the English language beyond any logical recognition.

Namely, Judge Hudson rejected the Obama Administration’s central argument that economic inactivity somehow amounts to “economic activity.”  On Page 11 of his ruling, Judge Hudson neatly summarized the Administration’s core logic: “Critical to the Secretary’s argument is the notion that an individual’s notion not to purchase health insurance is in effect ‘economic activity.'”  Just as neatly, he rejected that Orwellian illogic in terms that should be etched permanently as a reminder on Obama’s teleprompter:  “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to Congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”

Individual freedom and linguistic logic won a historic victory today.  For if inactivity was somehow contorted to constitute “commerce,” then there is no limit whatsoever to Congress’s reach.

The fight continues, but we should also stop to savor this important moment.

A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that significant parts of ObamaCare are unconstitutional, including the mandate requiring individuals to purchase health care insurance.

As Politico.com is reporting it:

In a highly-anticipated suit brought by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, District Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that the individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional as it “exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.”

Hudson stopped short of blocking the law’s implementation until a higher court acts, but said he expects the administration to honor his ruling.

“The final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court,” Hudson wrote in his ruling. “In this Court’s view, the award of declaratory judgment is sufficient to stay the hand of the executive branch pending appellate review.”

In light of today’s ruling, the Obama Administration should immediately cease implementation of the unconstitutional individual mandate and all other provisions of ObamCare until the matter is fully resolved by the courts.  If the Administration refuses to act, Congress should act without delay to force the Administration’s hand.

Amid solid recommendations to put Medicare and Medicaid on a sustainable financial path, Obama Debt Commission member and Roadmap author Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) staked out very defensible ground for today’s conservative leaders to Roll Call’s Mort Kondrake:

And the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee described himself as having been mentored by the late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), believing in “a prosperous opportunity society built atop a solid safety net.”

“I am not a laissez-faire, Hobbsian libertarian,” he told me. “I believe in a circumscribed safety net, one that helps people get back on their feet and is there for people who can’t help themselves. But I believe in a pro-growth, limited-government, free-enterprise society that encourages people to make the most of their lives.”

Anyone else for a one-on-one debate between President Barack Obama and Rep. Ryan on healthcare reform next January?

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said that we mustn’t allow a “crisis to go to waste” in foisting such things as ObamaCare upon an unwilling nation.  But what if there’s no “crisis” in the first place?

This month, Gallup released a scientific survey that is a critical component in any health care policy discussion.  In what must come as a devastating shock for those who defend ObamaCare, an astonishing 82% of Americans rate their health care as “good” or “excellent.”  Some 40% place their health care in the “excellent” category, which exceeds the previous high of 38% and the long-term average of 34%.  Even those who don’t possess health insurance (which must be distinguished from actual health care) rate their health care “good” or “excellent” by a 53% majority.

Clearly, there is no health care “crisis,” only a lot of ObamaCare “waste.”

So maybe the era of big government really wasn’t over when former President Bill Clinton declared it so.  Jim MacDougald of the Free Enterprise Nation explains that the balanced budget Clinton delivered was the product of a shell game with the Social Security Trust Fund, not a profile in political courage.  From a blog entry discussing the history of Social Security and Medicare:

The federal government recognized that beginning in about 2011 the transfer payment system wouldn’t work. There would be too many recipients of benefits and not enough workers to take money from to pay for it. To avoid the financial catastrophe that loomed ahead, in 1983 the government substantially increased employer and employee contribution requirements to (at least partially) pre-fund for 2011 and thereafter.

Planning ahead for an event that would occur 28 years in the future was a commendable and far-sighted act by our elected officials. “Baby-boomers,” who made up the majority of our workforce, were subsequently “taxed twice,” with matching contributions from employers. One portion of their tax was to pay for those on Social Security who had already retired, the second portion was to pre-fund a part of their own retirement benefits.

Congress took this excess tax revenue and put it in a “trust fund” to pay future benefits. But the trust fund they established was an enormous shell game because the money was treated as general revenues…a huge windfall to the federal government. It enabled President Clinton to announce at a State of the Union address, that the deficit was “exactly zero.” Even today, people are still congratulating Presidents Clinton and H.W. Bush for having balanced budgets and reducing national debt. But Congress had accomplished that feat by taking and spending all of the “excess revenue” that was coming in from payroll taxes for Social Security, and there was a lot of it to spend! From 1983 to 2008, the federal government took $2.5 trillion more than required to pay current Medicare and Social Security recipients, and they “bought Treasuries” with it. In other words, they spent it all.

Now, it makes a lot more sense how the federal government could “balance” the budget so quickly with nary a squeal heard from entrenched interests.  As MacDougald makes clear in the rest of his article, starting next year there are no more games to play.  The 2011 budget for Social Security and Medicare is $1.22 TRILLION – more than all of the federal income taxes paid by all of the workers in America last year.  In order to pay for the payments owed to Baby Boomers (who, as a cohort, begin reaching 65 in 2011), every American worker will have to pay at least $10,000 in new federal taxes every year.

Add this to the cost of ObamaCare and….pass the tryptophan and bring on the food coma.

On today’s Foundry blog at the Heritage Foundation there is a crisp analysis of the cost-cutting decisions being weighed by states threatened with billions in rising health care costs under ObamaCare.  With a massive, mandatory expansion of Medicaid rolls beginning in 2014, state budget writers are seriously considering dropping out of the Medicaid program in order to avoid bankrupting their treasuries.

Granted, it’s outrageous that the liberal elites running Washington, D.C. are forcing state governments to spend more of their taxpayers’ money on health care.  After all, the States didn’t get to vote on ObamaCare.  But too often in this debate there’s a simple – though difficult – solution that up until now hasn’t been mentioned.

Opt out.  The only way the federal government can dictate spending and policy decisions to the states is if the states agree to the terms.  Those terms are buried in the fine print of federal programs that condition receipt of federal money on compliance with federal policies.  Like dramatically increasing Medicaid rolls.

Though opting out of Medicaid will be difficult because it also means losing the matching funds that come with it, the renewed control over a state’s budget should give state legislators much more room to maneuver during this era of dwindling tax receipts.  Governments, like individuals, need options.  Opting out of Medicaid is an important first step to regaining state sovereignty.

Our Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, this week includes the commentary “A Balanced Budget Amendment Doesn’t Have to Mean Higher Taxes – CFIF’s ‘One More Vote’ Proposal Doesn’t.” In that column, we note that the White House deficit commission’s fundamental flaw is that it takes for granted 2010 federal spending levels as its baseline:

The overriding problem with the commission’s plan is that it accepts the 2010 fiscal year as its spending base, thereby locking in the alarming spending increases of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime.  That includes the failed “stimulus” that attempted to spend our way to prosperity, the bailouts, the pet projects and everything else they’ve heaped into our budget.  Since 2008, federal spending has surged from approximately $25,000 per household to $30,000 per household, and jumped during that two-year span from its historical average of 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) to approximately 25% of GDP.  Richard Rahn points out that, “Federal government spending and revenues in 1968 as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) were almost identical to the levels in 2008.”

Unfortunately, it’s actually even worse than that.  The commission also leaves in place ObamaCare, which is already driving up healthcare costs and adding to the deficit (despite promises that it would have the opposite effect).  As James Capretta from National Review Online observes, we shouldn’t be surprised given the commission’s composition:

None of this is all that surprising, given how the commission was formulated.  It’s not really a bipartisan commission at all; it’s an Obama commission.  It was created by the president and stacked with Democratic appointees.  Two-thirds of the 18 members were picked by the president or Democratic congressional leaders. Only six were appointed by Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell.  The president says the public doesn’t want to “re-litigate” the health care war.  He’s wrong.  As last Tuesday’s exit polls make clear, a strong plurality wants exactly that.  The American people know that the ill-advised law was railroaded through Congress and is a colossal mistake.   The fundamental problem here is that it is not possible build a bipartisan budget framework on a foundation that includes a partisan health-care plan with sweeping implications for future spending levels.

Americans cannot be asked to accept the commission’s findings when they take as a given current spending levels and an ObamaCare atrocity that must be replaced.

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.

As a former staff member in the Texas House of Representatives, I have an interest in news that the chamber may be headed for conservative leadership.  This morning, Rep. Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) announced his bid to unseat current Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio).  If successful, Paxton would be the third Republican Speaker in under three years, since Straus ascended to power by beating former Speaker (and my old boss) Tom Craddick (R-Midland) in 2009.

What does an intra-party fight in one of the reddest states in America mean for citizens outside the Lone Star State?  Plenty.

Texas is already the exemplar of low-tax, low-regulation state government.  Moreover, because the legislature only meets for 140 days every two years, Texas government has not had a chance to weigh in legislatively on issues like Arizona’s approach to illegal immigration and Virginia’s response to block implementation of ObamaCare.  With the kick-off of the legislative session next January, a more conservative Republican House majority will be able to make some big statements about the power of the 10^th Amendment in our federal system.

That is, if the House is run by a true conservative.  Stay tuned…

A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that most voters want the new House Republican majority to investigate the spending impact of ObamaCare.  The survey found that 55% of respondents support a close look at the costs and implications of the health care “reform” bill jammed through Congress earlier this year.

With the tentacles of ObamaCare reaching far beyond the purview of “health” don’t be surprised if House committees like Budget, Oversight and Government Reform, and even Commerce (among others) open investigations into the most drastic government power grab since LBJ’s Great Society.

One of the selling points for “universal” health care is the notion it carries of making treatment available to everyone.  That’s (somewhat) true, but when government-run health care displaces private companies, something else gets tossed out too: privacy.

According to a notice published in the Federal Register last month, President Barack Obama’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will be launching a new health-related database that adds to new data sets to one representing federal workers: private citizens who report pre-existing health conditions or use one of the newly created regional exchanges for pooled health insurance.  That information will be made available to any government agency, law enforcement group, or third party researcher that shows a need for it.

What gives OPM the right to collect and disseminate such sensitive health records?  The passage and implementation of ObamaCare.

Charles Krauthammer’s recent column heralding the demise Obama’s legislative agenda contained a paragraph that deserves mention:

Over the next two years, the real action will be not in Congress but in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy. Democrats will advance their agenda on Obamacare, financial reform and energy by means of administrative regulation, such as carbon-emission limits imposed unilaterally by the Environmental Protection Agency.

No doubt, there will be many battles to fight in Congress against enactment of more freedom-killing policies, but voters, activists, and politicians should remember that the threat to liberty only accelerates once the federal bureaucracy gets involved.  OPM is just the most recent example.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, retiring Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) shares some thoughtful insights about what went wrong for Democrats the last two years.  From appallingly bad advice from so-called strategists (e.g. “voters don’t care about deficits”) to an “authoritarian” leadership that demanded blind loyalty from members, Baird’s interview could be read as a warning to the incoming Republican majority.  Common sense in rules and policy is a non-partisan winner.

Most revealing are the ideas Baird has for tackling entitlements:

In his new book, “Character, Politics and Responsibility,” Mr. Baird argues that in order to afford caring for the needy, liberals will have to challenge “unsustainable entitlements.” “I would eliminate the concept of entitlements and move to needs-based social insurance,” he says. “The key is to both promote personal responsibility while lowering expenditures by not promising or giving money or other benefits to those who don’t need it.”

Too bad Baird won’t be around to make that case inside Congress.