Freedom Line Blog

The Pentagon doesn’t want it.  The Senate has voted it down.  The House has voted it down.  The Bush White House sought to stop it.  The Obama White House has sought to stop it.

Yet the unnecessary duplicate engine for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter refused to die, riding the wave of Washington, D.C. pork-barrel political force.

Fortunately,  the Defense Department has ordered General Electric and Rolls-Royce to stop wasting dollars on a second engine for the F-35.

Pratt & Whitney serves as the main producer of the F-35 engine, but forces in Congress perpetuated the wasteful General Electric and Rolls-Royce second engine.  Although both the House and Senate have voted to end the second engine and allocate those precious defense dollars on more critical needs, the project kept going because the previous Congress never passed a 2011 budget.  That left the Defense Department to operate on continuing resolutions based on the fiscal 2010 appropriations.

It’s an embarrassing illustration of wasteful Beltway politics, and a reminder of what we who favor fiscal sanity must continually overcome.  Fortunately, the Defense Department just provided an assist in that effort.

Slate reports that former U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) will run for the Second District House seat being vacated by Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV).  Heller is running to replace retiring Senator John Ensign (R-NV).

Should she be successful, Angle may find the House a better fit than the Senate because of the lower chamber’s greater maneuverability for colorful members.

Yesterday, the new House of Representatives took another step to make good on its campaign promises last fall to the American people.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee, by a 30 to 23 vote, approved a resolution prohibiting Obama’s rogue Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from imposing so-called “Net Neutrality” on the nation’s Internet sector. This follows last week’s 15-8 vote by the Communications and Technology Subcommittee on the same issue. The FCC doesn’t possess the legal authority to regulate the Internet via “Net Neutrality” in the first instance, as a unanimous court of appeals ruled last year.  Further, Americans oppose this sort of Internet regulation by a solid two-to-one margin, and a rare bipartisan majority of 300 from Congress has formally instructed the FCC against pursuing this lawless course.  Ignoring all of that, the FCC rammed through “Net Neutrality” by a partisan 3-2 vote in December.

Big-government activists claim that “Net Neutrality” is somehow necessary to prevent Internet service providers, who invest the tens of billions of dollars necessary to create the networks on which the Internet passes, from blocking various websites or maliciously discriminating in Internet traffic.  But they cannot explain why that hypothetical epidemic of blockage has never occurred despite two decades of explosive Internet growth in our lives.  And with good reason – any service provider that did so would quickly find itself out of business due to irate customers.  But never mind that.  What are facts, after all, against the desire to add yet another sector of the American economy to the Obama Administration’s regulation?

Fortunately, Americans know better.  And just as fortunately, Congress and the courts are doing something about it.

After originally pledging to cut $100 billion in spending this year the House GOP leadership settled for a cut of $30 billion.  Then, the Tea Party-backed freshman caucus weighed in and forced a rethink.  Early this morning, the House voted to cut $60 billion in this year’s budget.

That’s real, measureable progress.  Getting 60% of a loaf may not satisfy everyone’s hunger for budget cuts, but it is still a victory for fiscal conservatives.  Well done.

Yesterday, CFIF Senior Fellow Troy Senik described the different approaches Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) are taking toward their state’s Tea Party movements.  Hatch is accommodating while Lugar is dismissive.

Count Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) in the Hatch camp.  The Maine moderate is raising the eyebrow of one home-state commentator by giving a lengthy response to questions about opposing Sharia law, repealing ObamaCare, increasing the debt ceiling, and Social Security spending, among other issues.

Snowe should get credit for answering those questions publicly and in-depth.  Time will tell if it helps her win another term in 2012.

Two months ago, when Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed its “Net Neutrality” proposal by a partisan 3-2 margin, we guaranteed that it would inevitably be defeated via legislation, the courts or both.

Sure enough, last month Verizon Communications challenged the FCC’s rogue vote in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the same court that unanimously ruled last April that the FCC doesn’t possess lawful authority to impose Net “Neutrality.”  Now this week, both the House and Senate introduced resolutions to repeal the FCC’s rogue action.  The resolutions were introduced pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to review and overrule federal agency regulations via simple majority.  Importantly, such resolutions are not subject to normal Senate filibuster hurdles.

“Net Neutrality” constitutes a destructive and illegal federal intrusion into the Internet, which has managed to flourish just fine over the past two decades without Obama Administration micromanagement, thank you very much.  The American public opposes it by a 2-to-1 margin, courts have rejected it unanimously and Congressional opposition is bipartisan.  While “Net Neutrality’s” demise is a matter of when, not if, it is still absolutely critical that we as citizens maintain our resolve to spare the Internet sector from becoming bureaucrats’ tech version of ObamaCare.

Last month, we noted with alarm that the Congressional Budget Office forecast a record $1.5 trillion federal budget deficit for fiscal 2011.

It’s apparently even worse than that.  Today, the Obama Administration unveils its proposed budget, projecting that this year’s deficit will actually reach $1.6 trillion.  So after telling Americans during his 2008 campaign that he was going to go through the budget “line-by-line” and reduce the deficit, Obama has given us deficits of $1.4 trillion, $1.3 trillion and now a record $1.6 trillion.  And what to show for it?  Unemployment remains at or above 9% for a post-World War II record 21st consecutive month, despite Obama’s promises that it would top out at 8% in October 2009 and decline to between 6% and 7% today.

As for those who continue their mindless “Blame Bush” rationalization crusade, they must explain how three years into the Age of Obama, the deficit is increasing, not decreasing, from $1.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion (an almost 25% increase).

The uniqueness of Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Jim DeMint (R-SC) in joining their chamber’s Tea Party caucus shone forth again when yet another freshman conservative declined to join their ranks.  Tea Party darling Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) refuses to join.  Now, it’s John Boozman’s (R-AR) turn.

Officially, Boozman says he doesn’t want the public to confuse the tri-partisan nature of the Tea Party (Republican, Reagan Democrat, and Independent) with being an arm of the GOP.  But closer scrutiny of Boozman’s rationale to ABC News indicates he’s not ready to balance the budget by cutting agricultural subsidies.

“But it doesn’t sound like ag subsidies will be at the top of your list for things to cut,” Karl said.

“We’re going to have to look at everything but ag subsidies are like everything else. That affects jobs,” the senator said. “Now listen, the one thing about agriculture is we’ve lost our manufacturing, we’ve lost a great deal of jobs overseas, lots of our industry. The last thing in the world we need to do is lose the ability to produce our food.”

Chances are Boozman doesn’t want to tie himself to unqualified budget cutters like Paul, Lee, or DeMint.  Boozman’s calculation may be that it’s far better to fight for certain cuts while arguing to keep tax-supported jobs in his home state.

Senators like Rubio and Boozman argue that caucus membership in the Senate isn’t as important in the upper chamber as it is in the House.  Any member of the Senate can unilaterally slow or kill legislation he doesn’t like.  While that’s true, it’s also a way to sidestep a measure of accountability.  After all, if your major theme is cutting the budget, why not join a group that won’t make exceptions for pet pork projects?

Eventually, Paul, Lee, or DeMint might prove the truth of the single senator theory by killing bills favored by Rubio or Boozman.  If that happens, don’t be surprised to find Rubio and Boozman caught between their rhetoric and their record.

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is set to be the biggest ever, and CFIF Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs Timothy Lee is honored to be selected as one of its speakers.

His panel, entitled “The Left’s Campaign to Reshape the Judiciary,” is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. this Friday, February 11 in the Marshall Ballroom.  Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute will moderate the panel, which also includes Ken Klukowski of the American Civil Rights Union and Dan Pero of the American Justice Partnership.   Our judicial system is a primary tool by which the political left seeks to remake America to fit its distorted image, and we must remain vigilant against that scheme.  Especially with the 2012 presidential kicking off, this CPAC isn’t one to miss.

In its monthly report this morning, the Labor Department announced that unemployment has now remained at or above 9% for a post-World War II record 21st consecutive month.  Additionally, it reported just 36,000 new jobs, well short of the expected 140,000 number.

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, these numbers contrast the results of a big government agenda versus a free market agenda.  In the 23 months since Obama’s massive $1 trillion “stimulus” passage, unemployment has increased from 8.2% to 9%.  One would expect better results in exchange for deficits of $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and an expected record $1.5 trillion this year.  Keep in mind that Obama projected that if we followed his big government agenda, unemployment would be down between 6% – 7% by now.  In contrast, the 23 months following the effective date of Reagan’s tax cuts in January 1983 saw unemployment plummet from 10.4% to 7.2%.

The facts speak for themselves.  Inexplicably, Obama nevertheless called for even more federal “stimulus” in his State of the Union address.  As we celebrate the Gipper’s 100th birthday, we should remember the timeless lesson taught by his freedom agenda’s success.

I’ve yet to read a better sentence synthesizing the spirit of the Founding Fathers, the current Tea Party movement, and the threat to the American ideal embodied in ObamaCare than this passage from yesterday’s decision declaring the entire law unconstitutional:

“It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place,” wrote the judge, a Reagan appointee who sits in Pensacola, Fla.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, intentionally or not, makes a great argument for keeping the federal government within its historic bounds.  That Obama Administration officials are quietly pouting over the supposed dig makes it even better.

H/T: Evan Perez of the Wall Street Journal

Newt versus The Wall Street Journal editorial board – the unofficial 2012 Republican campaign is off to a very lively start.

On January 22, the Journal ran a commentary entitled “Amber Waves of Ethanol” in which it criticized federal ethanol subsidies.  It noted that, “Four of every 10 rows of corn now go to produce fuel for American cars or trucks, not food or feed,” which does nothing to improve the environment or our reliance on foreign oil, but wastes billions in taxpayer dollars and drives food price inflation.  Likely 2012 candidate Newt Gingrich responded in Iowa last Tuesday, repeatedly referring to himself “as an historian” and accusing the Journal as part of a sinister cabal, saying, “Obviously big urban newspapers want to kill it because it’s working, and you wonder, ‘What are their values?'”

This morning, the Journal responds in its lead commentary entitled “Professor Cornpone.” This dispute, it says, symbolizes the larger fight “between the House Republicans now trying to rationalize the federal fisc and the kind of corporate welfare that President Obama advanced in his State of the Union”:

Given that Mr. Gingrich aspires to be President, his ethanol lobbying raises larger questions about his convictions and judgment.  The Georgian has been campaigning in the Tea Party age as a fierce critic of spending and government, but his record on that score is, well, mixed…  Now Republicans have another chance to reform government, and a limited window of opportunity in which to do it…  So along comes Mr. Gingrich to offer his support for Mr. Obama’s brand of green-energy welfare, undermining House Republicans in the process.”

Regardless of one’s views toward Mr. Gingrich as a potential candidate, the fact that the race is already lively with substantive policy debate is a healthy sign.

Barack Obama assured Americans throughout his campaign that if we hired him, he’d reduce the deficit.  Here is Obama in his own words from his closing infomercial of October 29, 2008:

I believe we need to usher in a new era of responsibility.  Across the country, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington.  That’s why, for my energy plan, my economic plan and the other proposals you’ll hear tonight, I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.  I’ll also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that don’t work … and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.”

Here’s the ugly reality, over two years later:  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced this week that the 2011 budget deficit will reach a record $1.5 trillion.  That follows $1.4 trillion and $1.3 trillion deficits in his first two years.  The 2008 deficit, for purposes of comparison, was $455 billion.

Something to consider when assessing Obama’s latest State of the Union address, and his upcoming promises over the next two years.

Is there any promise that Barack Obama has kept as President?  He certainly made plenty of them, only to break them.

Now, it appears that we have two more.  Two very big ones.  Testifying before the House Budget Committee this week, Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster was asked a series of “true” or “false” questions by Rep. Tom McClintock (R – California).  Replying to McClintock’s question whether Obama’s famous pledge that “If you like your present health insurance, you can keep it” was true or false, Foster replied, “not true in all cases.”  And when asked whether ObamaCare would reduce costs as he explicitly guaranteed, Foster replied, “I would say false, more so than true.”

If the political left clings to their “Bush Lied!” belief, where are they now and what do they have to say about Barack Obama?  Just curious.

Are new “assault weapons” bans or pistol magazine limits appropriate responses to the Tucson murders?  Airheads from Senator Chuck Schumer (D – New York) to “conservative” commentator Peggy Noonan seem to think so.

If those were effective answers, then one could presumably find evidence that such laws reduce crime.  But that’s not the case, says Dr. John Lott, Jr.:

No research by criminologists or economists has found that the either the assault weapons ban or the magazine-size restrictions reduce crime.  This is not surprising, as magazines are simply small metal boxes with a spring and are thus very easy to make.  Besides, someone planning to harm a large number of people can easily bring two or more loaded guns.”

Indeed, the objective evidence shows that tougher gun restrictions increase crime and violence.  Fewer gun restrictions, on the other hand, reduce crime and violence.  Just look at Chicago, where everyone from Mayor Richard Daley to former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens predicted “more gun death” and “anarchy” following last year’s McDonald Supreme Court decision overturning that city’s draconian gun laws.  Instead, Chicago homicides fell to their lowest level since 1965.

Polls show that the American public understands this.  When will people like Peggy Noonan?

Other than her congressional district, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) true base of support comes from the millions of Tea Party members currently providing the grassroots dynamism of the Republican Party.  Bachmann raised so much money last cycle that some pundits think she’s running for U.S. Senate or even president.

The announcement that Bachmann is delivering an unofficial Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address will heighten that speculation.  It will also anger the House Republican leadership that continues to pass over Bachmann.  First, it voted her down in a bid to be the new chair of the House GOP Conference Chair.  Bachmann pressed ahead with her own Tea Party caucus, raising even more money.  Now, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is slated to give the official Republican response, but Bachmann will deliver her own via the Tea Party Express website.

There may not be a way for Bachmann to capitalize on her media stardom, unless she continues to go her own way.  This will widen the gap between her and House GOP leadership, but if she wins a Senate seat or the presidency in 2012, the onus will be on leadership to make nice with her.

Yesterday, 60 members of the House Republican majority endorsed a bill that would “deregulate” health insurance purchases by allowing consumers to buy plans across state lines.  The idea is to let companies compete on a national scale, spreading the risk and lowering premiums.  The bill is gaining support as a free market counterargument against ObamaCare’s one-size-fits-all regulation of health insurance.

There is a caveat.  In order to liberalize the insurance market, the GOP-sponsored bill must take away the states’ power to regulate insurance.  The reason insurance plans cost different amounts in different states is because individual states have different regulatory schemes.  Those schemes are the product of public policy decisions hammered out at the state level.  Importantly for 10^th Amendment limited government types, the plan to “deregulate” the health insurance market comes at the expense of state sovereignty.

Ironically, the only way the House Republicans’ answer to ObamaCare gets passed is through an expansive reading of Congress’ ability to regulate interstate commerce “among the states.”  Members of Congress will (or at least should) have to struggle with which conservative principle they value more in this instance: the free market or federalism.  In a certain sense, federalism grants to states a public policy monopoly over all issues not expressly contained in the text of the U.S. Constitution.  That monopoly drives up prices for consumers in states with costly regulations.  Theoretically, if people want to pay less for health insurance, they could move to a state with less costly regulations.

Ideas like federalism have consequences.  As the Tea Party-flavored House GOP boards the ship of state, it will be interesting to see which crate of principles the revolutionaries toss over.

H/T: Los Angeles Times

Last month, President Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted by a partisan 3-2 margin to regulate Internet service via Net “Neutrality.”  On that date, we predicted,”The FCC’s reckless effort to regulate Internet traffic will now begin a slow death march to ultimate defeat from legal challenges and Congressional action.”

Exactly one month later, the judicial front in that battle is underway.

Yesterday, Verizon Communications challenged the FCC’s rogue vote in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  That’s the same court that unanimously ruled last April that the FCC doesn’t possess lawful authority to impose Net “Neutrality,” but the FCC defiantly pressed ahead despite that unequivocal ruling.  In so doing, the FCC also defied 2-to-1 public opposition and a bipartisan group of 300 from Congress.  Obama took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal this week to profess a new commitment to regulatory restraint in pursuit of a healthier economy, job creation and more humble federal government.  But his own FCC belies that supposed commitment with its Net “Neutrality” agenda.

Leaders of the new 112th Congress have also committed to overturning the FCC’s destructive attempt to regulate Internet service.  Whether the demise of Net “Neutrality” comes legislatively or judicially, it can’t come soon enough for American consumers, investors and employers.

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.

Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) have all joined the new Senate Tea Party caucus.  No word yet on movement favorite Marco Rubio (R-FL), or other stalwart fiscal conservatives like Tom Coburn (R-OK).

Politico notes that caucuses are more important in the House because of that chamber’s preference for majority rule.  In the Senate, one member can hold up or kill legislation if he’s willing to filibuster (or usually just threaten it).  Even so, it would be nice to see DeMint attract enough members to the Tea Party caucus so that the Senate has at least one institutional block against runaway spending.