President Donald Trump called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act an “economic miracle” as he marked the reform package’s six-month anniversary during a White House event Friday.
“At last, our country finally has a tax system that is pro-job, pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-American,” Trump said.
The $1.5 trillion tax reform law cut the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent, the highest in the world, to 21 percent, in line with other developed nations. It also lowered the top individual rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, eliminated brackets, and closed loopholes.
“It’s my great honor to welcome you back to the White House to celebrate six months of new jobs, bigger paychecks, and keeping more of your hard-earned money where it belongs: in your pocket or wherever else you want to spend it,” Trump said.
During his remarks, Trump recognized Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James and others in the audience for helping push what so far has been his signature legislative achievement through Congress in late 2017.
Trump pointed out not a single Democrat voted for the reform. He also said deregulation might have had as much to do with growing the economy $7 trillion.
“The typical family of four earning $75,000 will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000, and in some cases much more, slashing their tax bill in half,” Trump said. “We cut taxes for businesses of all sizes to make this the best place on earth to start a business, to invest. We have billions and billions of additional revenue coming in.”
Trump asserted more than 100 utility companies cut prices as a result of the tax cut, “saving Americans $3 billion on their utility bills.”
Trump again noted unemployment claims are at a more than four-decade low, and again cited historic low unemployment rates for blacks and Hispanics, a frequent theme in his speeches.
He added women are about to join that historic category.
“Unemployment for women, if you listened to my speech two weeks ago, you would have heard me say it’s the lowest in 21 years,” Trump said. “Now I’m saying it’s the lowest in 65 years and soon will be the lowest in history.”
The economy appears to be doing very well, said Adam Michel, tax policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, noting some of the same employment numbers as the president.
“Even more impressive is that in the first quarter of 2018, investment—the bedrock of economic growth—increased by more than 21 percent among companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, compared with the same quarter in 2017,” Michel told The Daily Signal. “The good economic news only accounts for some small part of tax reform’s benefits, there is much more to come as businesses and individuals start to realize how the new law allows them to expand, hire, and invest even more.”
Trump also framed these changes as part of his larger reform agenda.
“Commonsense is being restored in Washington once again because hardworking Americans are in charge of their government once again. Washington tried to change us,” Trump said. “That’s not going to happen. Instead, we’re changing Washington and we are changing it quickly and for the better.”
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Toya Sarno Jordan/CNP/Newscom.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/6mo-taxReform-1250x650-e1530530839832.jpg375640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-02 07:27:312018-07-02 07:27:31Trump Celebrates 6 Months of ‘New Jobs, Bigger Paychecks, and Keeping More of Your Hard-Earned Money’
The July/August 2017 issue of The Atlantic had an article titled “What’s Wrong With the Democrats?” by Franklin Foer. Foer wrote:
Leaderless and loud, the Resistance has become the motive power of the Democratic Party. Presidential hopefuls already strive to anticipate its wishes. Elected officials have restructured their political calculus to avoid getting on its wrong side. The feistiness and agitation of the moment are propelling the party to a new place.
But where?The question unnerves Democrats, because the party has no scaffolding. All the dominant leaders of the last two generations—the Clintons, Barack Obama—have receded. Defeat discredited the party’s foundational strategy—or, at the very least, exposed it as a wishful description of a more distant future, rather than a clear plan for victory in the present. Resistance has given the Democrats the illusion of unity, but the reality is deeply conflicted. Two of the party’s largest concerns—race and class—reside in an increasing state of tension, a tension that will grow as the party turns toward the next presidential election.
To produce a governing majority, the party will need to survive an unsettling reckoning with itself. Donald Trump didn’t just prevail over the Democrats; he called into doubt their old truths. [Emphasis added]
The Democratic Party is eating its own. Watch this video about how a Hispanic socialist candidate won the Democrat primary in New York because she targeted her Democratic opponent was white.
As a young man I was a JFK Democrat. He was my American idol. It was the time of Camelot and at the peak of American economic, political and military power. JFK embodied a vision of the future that Americans embraced.
Allow me to point out a few examples of what JFK brought to the Democratic Party:
JFK was a Catholic. He held those beliefs and spoke about his beliefs. JFK stated, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.”
JFK was a decorated Navy Combat Veteran. JFK Commanded PT109. He served proudly and loved the military. He created the U.S. Army Special Forces, which led to the creation of special operations forces such as the Navy SEAL program. JFK said, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” JFK supported compulsary military service and noted, “A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard-core unemployed.”
NASA and reaching for the stars. It was JFK who believed in American ingenuity and wanted to put a man on the moon. He and his policies did just that.
The National Rifle Association. JFK was a life member of the NRA. On March 20, 1961 JFK became a life member and in a letter to the NRA President Franklin L. Orth stated, “Through competitive matches and sports in coordination with the National Board for Promotion of Rifle Practice, the Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen.” BHO hates the NRA and all it stands for. BHO, his administration and Democrats have taken an adversarial position on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. JFK supported Second Amendment rights for Americans, saying in an April 1960 statement, “By calling attention to a well-regulated militia, the security of the nation and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding forefathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of government tyranny, which gave rise to the Second Amendment, will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains a major declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.”
JFK added the M16 (AR15) rifle into the U.S. military inventory. It was JFK who introduced the Armalite M16 (AR-15) rifle into the inventory of the U.S. Military. Under JFK, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance to test the M14 , the AR-15 and the AK-47 . The Army’s test report stated only the M14 was suitable for Army use, but Vance wondered about the impartiality of those conducting the tests. He ordered the Army Inspector General to investigate the testing methods used, who reported that the testers showed undue favor to the M14. McNamara ordered a halt to M14 production in January 1964. In November, the Army ordered 85,000 XM16E1s for experimental use, and the Air Force ordered another 19,000. Meanwhile the Army carried out another project, the Small Arms Weapons Systems (SAWS) , on general infantry firearm needs in the immediate future. They highly recommended the immediate adoption of the weapon, so much so that they started referring to it as the M16.
Immigration policy was much different under JFK. JFK in his book “A Nation of Immigrants” wrote, “The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.” In his book JFK Kennedy outlines three main reasons why immigration to the U.S. took place: freedom from religious persecution, political oppression and economic hardship. While JFK believed in a generous, fair and flexible immigration policy he did not believe in open borders and no immigration policy.
On Federal taxation and balancing the budget. As JFK wrote on September 18, 1963, “A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget….As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.” BHO has raised taxes, spent like no other president and increased the federal deficit to historic levels.
Communism and the Free World. As JFK stated in his 1961 inaugural address, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge —- and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder….We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”
JFK and McCarthyism. Joseph Kennedy had befriended McCarthy because he found him to be a likable fellow Irish-Catholic who had all the right ideas on the domestic communist menace. These warm feelings were quickly transferred to the entire Kennedy family. JFK liked the fact that McCarthy went after the “elites” in the State Department whom JFK regarded with contempt. Even before McCarthy made accusations against the State Department of subversion, JFK had already aligned himself with the militant anti-communists who blamed the Truman State Department for the “loss” of China. So JFK declared on the House floor in January 1949, “The responsibility for the failure of our foreign policy in the Far East rests squarely with the White House and the Department of State.”
I could go on and discuss how JFK worked with Congress. How JFK embraced the Constitution. At his 1962 State of Union, JFK stated, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.”
Just like Foer, I ask, “What has happened to the Democratic Party?”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/jfk-antifa.jpg360640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-06-29 06:31:442020-02-09 07:29:13From JFK to the Resistance: What has happened to the Democratic Party?
“The country would be wise to let the market take a shot at cleaning up government waste.” – Brittany Hunter”
Last week, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal to privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS). The plan comes as part of a broader initiative to trim and reorganize the federal government. And given its track record of waste and inefficiency, the USPS is a great place to start cutting the fat.
“USPS’s current model is unsustainable. Major changes are needed in how the Postal Service is financed and the level of service Americans should expect from their universal service operator,” the White House’s new proposal reads. The plan goes on to say that the administration plans to “fix” the post office before beginning the process of privatization. “USPS privatization through an initial public offering (IPO) or sale to another entity would require the implementation of significant reforms prior to sale to show a possible path to profitability.”
In terms of “fixing” the post office before taking it out of the hands of the government, the Trump administration has proposed reassessing the USPS’s ties with labor unions. This would give the new owners of the post office more freedom to set wages and provide benefits that are economically realistic.
The document reads:
“Freeing USPS to more fully negotiate pay and benefits rather than prescribing participation in costly federal personnel benefit programs, and allowing it to follow private sector practices in compensation and labor relations, could further reduce costs.”
As it stands today, much of the financial mess the USPS has found itself in is because of the exorbitant benefits programs that come with collective bargaining. In fact, as it stands today, the USPS still owes over $100 billion to its retiree health benefits fund.
It should come as no surprise that the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) have joined the likes of Bernie Sanders in opposing privatization. Commenting on the matter the NALC President Fredric Rolando said:
“NALC has long been committed to working with all of the stakeholders and not one has floated the idea of privatization except private shippers, who would love nothing more than to see the Postal Service dismantled. Now that we know that this administration and its Task Force will make recommendations on reforms to achieve OMB’s privatization goals, NALC will work tirelessly with other stakeholders and Congress to oppose this faulty privatization plan every step of the way to preserve this public institution, which is based in the Constitution.”
To be sure, when Rolando speaks of other “stakeholders” he is speaking about the other labor unions who have a vested interest in seeing this perpetual cycle of inefficiency continue, so long as they continue cashing checks. In fact, Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union echoed this sentiment, calling the privatization proposal “draconian” and predicting that it “would end regular mail and package services at an affordable cost.”
But as it stands currently, costs are hardly affordable. In addition to the billions of taxpayer dollars used to fund the post office, “consumers” also have to pay to use the USPS services, which essentially means that post office patrons are actually paying twice.
But all this just speaks to the larger point that the post office has been an incompetent disaster for far too long. It is about time some sort of action was taken.
The Post Office Is A Mess
No one looks to the post office as a beacon of government competence. Actually, no one looks to the post office for any sense of efficiency at all. And while the United States Postal Service has frequently found itself at the butt of many jokes, the truth of the matter is that its incompetence is costing the American taxpayers billions of dollars each year.
For the last 11 years in a row, the post office has experienced financial losses. In 2012, it was revealed that the USPS had experienced a net loss of $15.9 billion dollars. In 2013, this number decreased to a still enormous $4.8 billion, followed by $5.3 billion in 2014. As far as fiscal year 2018 is concerned, the Postal Service has already reported a $1.3 billion dollar loss. If any private company had experienced net losses to the tune of several billions of dollars, they would quickly find themselves out of business. But the post office is a beast of a different color.
As the USPS is a government protected monopoly, it does not have to respond to market demand. And since the taxpayers are on the hook for funding the USPS regardless of its performance, there are almost no consequences for its ineptitude. In fact, in many cases, it has been rewarded for its incompetence by having more money thrown in its direction.
It might be easier for Americans to look the other way and ignore all the wasteful spending if the post office actually held some sort of relevance in our daily lives. But in the digital age, there is really no justification for extorting money from taxpayers in order to pay for an outdated service that most people do not need. All correspondence can now be done through email and online shopping has completely replaced the need to send off for physical retail catalogs. Most bills are also already sent through email, with many companies even offering discounts for going “paperless.”
While congressional approval is needed before any manner of privatization can occur, it has been met with opposition by both members of Congress and labor unions. Unfortunately, the term “privatize” scares many, who fear what might happen if the post office is put in the hands of “greedy capitalists.”
Luckily for the critics, the post office serves almost no purpose in our digital age, making these concerns virtually unfounded. Not to mention, considering the USPS’s reputation for inefficiency and waste, it would take a great deal of effort for the private sector to do a worse job than the government has done.
Experiments in Privatization
Bernie Sanders recently expressed his concerns over Trump’s plans for the post office, saying:
“If the goal of the Postal Service is to make as much money as possible, tens of millions of people, particularly low-income people and people in rural areas, will see a decline in or doing away with basic mail services.”
But those who, like Sanders, are wary of putting the post office in the hands of the private sector might be surprised to learn that many European countries began privatizing their postal systems years ago. And it didn’t end in a disaster. For example, when Germany privatized the Deutsche Post in 1995, it helped saved the country’s mail system.
In the wake of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany was ready for change. Much like the USPS, prior to privatization, the Deutsche Post was slow and costly. Eager to get this wasteful agency out of the state budget, Germany decided to experiment with privatization. While the process was rather long, privatizing the German post and giving it control over its own operations allowed it to function like an actual business.
Now able to make decisions without the input of state authorities, Deutsche Post was able to implement policies that saved vast amounts of money. Instead of hiring new couriers to replace those who had retired, the German post opted to leave the positions vacant. They also centralized routes to save money where they could. Coincidentally, this plan to centralize routes is also part of the proposal by Trump administration.
The only law that the German government placed on the Deutsche Post was to mandate that letters were to be delivered to all areas of the country, meaning no one could be excluded.
Sure, this one stipulation did give the government a little control over the post, but it was far preferable to the previous situation. Since it was now privately controlled, Deutsche Post was still able to make the important budget decisions that ultimately led to its eventual success. In fact, the German privatization model was so successful, it now runs the DHL shipping company. And while the German model provides a beacon to look to abroad, even the United States has had its own experiment in privatizing the mail.
In 1844, Lysander Spooner was frustrated by the increasing costs of the USPS. Recognizing that as a government monopoly, the post office was exempt from having to actually care about its consumers’ needs, Spooner founded The American Letter Mail Company. Charging less and providing better services than the USPS, Spooner’s venture became a direct competitor to the almighty state.
However, while the American Letter Mail Company did end up having several locations in cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, the USPS was not impressed. Angered by Spooner’s success, the government made threats to railroad companies who preferred Spooner’s services. When the state fought back, the Circuit Court actually began to doubt that the government had any authority to monopolize the mail. While the Constitution does give the government the power to run the Postal Service, it does not explicitly bar other companies from competing with state-run services. However, the state sought legislative action against Spooner, reinforcing its monopoly.
Commenting on the advantage private enterprise has over government-run services, Spooner wrote:
“Universal experience attests that government establishments cannot keep pace with private enterprise in matters of business — (and the transmission of letters is a mere matter of business.) Private enterprise has always the most active physical powers, and the most ingenious mental ones. It is constantly increasing its speed, and simplifying and cheapening its operations. But government functionaries, secure in the enjoyment of warm nests, large salaries, official honors and power, and presidential smiles — all of which they are sure of so long as they are the partisans of the President — feel few quickening impulses to labor, and are altogether too independent and dignified personages to move at the speed that commercial interests require. They take office to enjoy its honors and emoluments, not to get their living by the sweat of their brows.”
Governments love to think inside the box. In fact, they are almost incapable of operating in any other fashion. But this has led to major inefficiencies, which, in the case of the USPS, have become too expensive to ignore. While Congress would need to approve this plan before any measure of privatization can occur, our elected officials would be wise to look at the options the private sector has to offer. If we are truly seeking prosperity, rather than financial insolvency, then the country would be wise to let the market take a shot at cleaning up government waste.
Brittany is a writer and editor for the Foundation for Economic Education. In addition to co-hosting FEE’s weekly podcast, she is also a co-host of Beltway Banthas, a podcast that combines Star Wars and politics. Brittany believes that the most effective way to promote individual liberty and free market economics is by telling timely stories that highlight timeless principles.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/usps-truck-e1468573323472.jpg360640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2018-06-28 16:21:132018-06-28 16:21:44It’s Time to Privatize the United States Postal Service
Finally, the military is announcing a kind of transitioning we can support! For the first time since President Trump overturned Obama’s transgender military policy, the Army is shifting away from the focus on politically-correct topics like gender and back to the issues it should be concerned about — like combat.
In a message no one could mistake, the memo makes it clear: “Transgender training is complete across the total Army.” From now on, sensitivity classes and lessons on gender transitions will be 100 percent optional. “The move, Army leaders argue, is designed to relieve stress on the overburdened troop training regimen and refocus on soldiers’ ability to fight in combat.” In a nod to the hundreds of wasted hours spent on ridiculous topics like “male pregnancies” and “off-duty drag” the chief of the Army’s training program explained, “It was all the other [training] requirements that we levied on ourselves, or we had levied from other places” that took away from military readiness.
Like a lot of commanders, he told the Washington Times that the trainings Obama handed down as part of the integration of people who identify as transgender “served as barriers to maximizing time… to build readiness and lethality.” Of course, this is the argument that experts like FRC’s Lt. General Jerry Boykin had been making all along. The military is a fighting force, not a gender clinic. “Talk to any service member today and you will find that a majority of them will express great frustration with the amount of time that they spend in these lectures at the expense of preparing for war,” he argues. “They spent all their training time in classrooms listening to lectures on diversity, tolerance, and inclusion instead of the Military Code of Conduct.”
That’s time our military can never get back. Every hour (and dollar) our troops waste on the social engineering of the last administration is time they could have been on the range or practicing combat maneuvers. “When do you train for battle when you’re bogged down with these politically-correct mandates?” General Boykin asked. “You don’t. You go out and crash ships or get captured by Iranians, because you were never prepared for war.”
Fortunately, the Army is putting an end to two years of this P.C. nonsense. “One of the things this [change has done] is reinforce to commanders out in the field that you have the authority and responsibility to ensure your units are as highly trained as humanly possible” to carry out combat operations,” Colonel John O’Grady said. And sexual politics aren’t the only thing getting the boot. Branch leaders are also paring down on other non-essential trainings. It’s about time, say most troops, who were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea anyway. With the growing number of global threats, we need our servicemen and women focused on what matters: making America safe again.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/062618_army_770x400.jpg400770Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2018-06-27 11:05:522018-06-27 11:05:52Army Gives Trans Training the Boot
The Heritage Foundation has released its annual “Blueprint for Balance,” which, if fully adopted, would cut taxes, maintain a strong national defense, and balance the budget in six years.
The blueprint’s proposals are not merely financially responsible; they also limit the federal government to a more proper size and promote individual liberty and a strong civil society. The blueprint would eliminate programs that promote favoritism, diminish entrepreneurial incentives, fall outside the proper scope of the federal government as delineated by the Constitution, and waste taxpayer dollars.
The plan would put power back into the hands of American families and limit growth in government, which should be priorities for any administration that wants to empower people, protect individual liberty, promote economic freedom, and allow its people to prosper.
President Donald Trump’s budget fully or partially includes 53 percent of Heritage’s 142 savings recommendations, which means this administration has taken significant steps toward realizing the promise of limited government.
Some of the main proposals include market-based health care solutions, federal employee compensation reform, economic deregulation, and welfare reform.
One critical blueprint policy recommendation would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced funding for Medicaid expansion. This would end the inequitable treatment in federal reimbursement which preferences the Medicaid expansion population over other more vulnerable populations such as individuals with disabilities, the elderly, and poor children and parents. This proposal would save $116 billion in the first year.
Food stamp reform is another priority the Trump budget and Heritage plan share. Heritage’s proposal to include work requirements for able-bodied adult food stamp recipients is partially included in the Trump budget. The president’s budget also ends broad-based categorical eligibility for food stamps.
The Heritage and Trump administration proposals, which direct assistance to those most in need and promote self-sufficiency through work, would save taxpayers $11 billion in one year.
Other Heritage proposals included in the Trump budget focus on unleashing the potential of the American economy through deregulation and by promoting competition over corporatism.
For example, both the president’s budget and the “Blueprint for Balance” eliminate the Department of Agriculture Rural Business-Cooperative Service, which operates financial assistance programs for rural businesses instead of letting private competition determine market outcomes. Eliminating similar federal programs would encourage business growth and expand employment opportunities across the American economy.
Heritage and the administration don’t agree on every issue, however. The Trump administration fiscal year 2019 budget rejects 15 percent of the savings proposed in the blueprint.
For example, Heritage education expert Lindsey Burke recommends sunsetting the failed Head Start program to make way for better state, local, and private alternatives. The Trump administration’s budget would slightly increase funding for Head Start.
Many important blueprint recommendations are unaddressed in the president’s budget. Medicare and Social Security, two of the main drivers of the national debt, require substantial reform. The president’s budget takes no action to address these programs.
Heritage calls for transformation of Medicare into a defined contribution program that would expand choice, increase competition, and save $61 billion in a year, but the Trump budget does not mention this. It also fails to include proposals to expand the current threshold for Medicare income-related subsidies, harmonize Medicare’s age of eligibility with Social Security’s age of eligibility, and update Medicare premiums. These three reforms would save approximately $78 billion in one year.
Ensuring Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are financially sustainable is critical to keeping taxes low and growing the American economy. Former Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski recently highlighted Heritage’s entitlement reform proposals and called on the president to act. “The solution is for a strong leader to push to reform these programs while restructuring them in a way that still provides a safety net to those in need,” he said.
Nonetheless, the Trump budget for fiscal year 2019 make serious inroads toward beginning to right-size the federal government. The president and Congress must work together to address America’s growing fiscal crisis.
The Heritage “Blueprint for Balance” includes 181 savings and policy rider recommendations to balance the budget, strengthen national defense, protect individual liberty and economic freedom, and strengthen civil society—all without raising taxes. It’s now up to Congress to act.
Romina Boccia focuses on federal spending and the national debt as the deputy director of Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and the Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary affairs at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. Twitter: @RominaBoccia.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
Little is as unnerving as trouble with the IRS, especially if you haven’t done anything wrong. That happened repeatedly during the Obama administration, as his IRS enthusiastically targeted conservative groups.
We’re now understanding why the Congress didn’t do much of anything about it.
We just released internal IRS documents revealing that Sen. John McCain’s Former Staff Director and Chief Counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations, Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” President Trump, presumably unaware of these new facts, appointed Kerner as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an April 30, 2013, meeting between Kerner, Lerner, and other high-ranking IRS officials. Just ten days following the meeting, Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups.
Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”
In the full notes of an April 30 meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, Nikole Flax, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”
Henry Kerner asked how to get to the abuse of organizations claiming section 501 (c)(4) but designed to be primarily political. Lois Lerner said the system works, but not in real time. Henry Kerner noted that these organizations don’t disclose donors. Lois Lerner said that if they don’t meet the requirements, we can come in and revoke, but it doesn’t happen in a timely manner. Nan Marks said if the concern is that organizations engaging in this activity don’t disclose donors, then the system doesn’t work. Henry Kerner said that maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous. Nikole noted that we have budget constraints. Elise Bean suggested using the list of organizations that made independent expenditures. Lois Lerner said that it is her job to oversee it all, not just political campaign activity.
We previously reported on the 2013 meeting. Senator McCain then issued a statement decrying “false reports claiming that his office was somehow involved in IRS targeting of conservative groups.” The IRS previously blacked out the notes of the meeting, but we found the notes among subsequent documents released by the agency.
We separately uncovered that Lerner was under significant pressure from both Democrats in Congress and the Obama DOJ and FBI to prosecute and jail the groups the IRS was already improperly targeting. In discussing pressure from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat-Rhode Island) to prosecute these “political groups,” Lerner admitted, “it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity.”
The April 30, 2013 meeting came just under two weeks prior to Lerner’s admission during an ABA meeting that the IRS had “inappropriately” targeted conservative groups. In her May 2013 answer to a planted question, in which she admitted to the “absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate” targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups, Lerner suggested the IRS targeting occurred due to an “uptick” in 501 (c)(4) applications to the IRS but in actuality, there had been a decrease in such applications in 2010.
On May 14, 2013, a report by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed: “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status” (e.g., lists of past and future donors). The illegal IRS reviews continued “for more than 18 months” and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” in advance of the 2012 presidential election.
All these documents were forced out of the IRS as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the IRS after it failed to respond adequately to four FOIA requests sent in May 2013 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)). Judicial Watch is seeking:
All records related to the number of applications received or related to communications between the IRS and members of the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate regarding the review process for organizations applying for tax exempt status under 501(c)(4);
All records concerning communications between the IRS and the Executive Branch or any other government agency regarding the review process for organizations applying for tax exempt status under 501(c)(4);
Copies of any questionnaires and all records related to the preparation of questionnaires sent to organizations applying for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status and;
All records related to Lois Lerner’s communication with other IRS employees, as well as government or private entity outside the IRS regarding the review and approval process for 501 (c)(4) applicant organizations.
The Obama IRS scandal is bipartisan – McCain and Democrats who wanted to regulate political speech lost at the Supreme Court, so they sought to use the IRS to harass innocent Americans. The Obama IRS scandal is not over. We continue to uncover smoking gun documents that raise questions about how the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, the FEC, FBI, and DOJ to target the First Amendment Rights of Americans.
JW Sues for Mueller Deputy Andrew Weissmann’s Text Messages
This week we learned that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein hid from Congress a text message by FBI official Peter Strzok declaring that Trump wouldn’t become President:
“No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
The highly partisan Strzok became a lead player in Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation of Donald Trump. Also, and still, in the lead is Andrew Weissmann, a senior deputy for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a former chief of the Justice Department criminal Fraud Division.
Now the question is: What was Weissmann saying about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton? We will find out.
Our legal team just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit asking the court to compel the Department of Justice to produce “all text messages to or from DOJ official Andrew Weissmann” regarding President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-01356)).
We sued after the DOJ failed to respond to our December 15, 2017, FOIA request for:
All text messages sent to or from DOJ official Andrew Weissmann regarding Donald Trump and/or Hillary Clinton between August 8, 2016 and the present.
All calendar entries, whether in physical or electronic form, for Weissmann from January 1, 2015 to the present.
We’re not at all surprised that the Justice Department didn’t respond, given its deplorable record of transparency.
Weissmann’s objectivity in Mueller’s investigation was called into question in December 2017 when a separate JW FOIA lawsuit uncovered an email Weissmann wrote praising former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for defying Trump on enforcement of the President’s so-called travel ban.
Weissmann wrote to Obama appointee Yates in the email: “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects.” President Trump fired Yates over her refusal to defend the policy. Yates was appointed by President Obama and was serving in an acting capacity as Attorney General for President Trump.
Also in December 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that Weissmann had been in attendance at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election night party. According to the Washington Post, Weissman contributed more than $4,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 and $2,300 to the Clinton campaign in 2007.
Weissmann, described by The New York Times as Mueller’s “pit bull,” is the lead prosecutor in the Mueller team’s case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Weissmann is demonstrably an anti-Trump/pro-Clinton activist. And it is suspicious that the Justice Department refuses to turn over any Weissmann text messages, especially given the anti-Trump bias documented in the FBI”s Strzok-Page texts.
Judicial Watch Seeks Obama-Era Records on Refugee Resettlement Sites
While the professional Left has successfully diverted everyone’s attention to a manufactured crisis involving illegal alien children on our Southern border, we are investigating other ways people flow into our country.
In particular, we continue to look at the UN-sponsored refugee program that has brought dangerous people across our borders. During the Obama administration, pro-refugee officials in several places gamed this system to disguise their intent.
We have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for records on sites that were considered for the resettlement of refugees in the United States during the last two years of the Obama administration. (Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-01244))
We sued after the State Department failed to respond to our February 23, 2017, FOIA request for:
All records reflecting the locations within the United States that were considered as possible sites for refugee resettlement under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) in 2015 and 2016.
All records reflecting the criteria used to determine suitability of locations as refugee resettlement sites in 2015 and 2016.
All records reflecting the names of local organizations promoting any of the locations identified above for consideration as refugee resettlement sites.
In October 2016 we made public 128 pages of documents we obtained from the mayor of Rutland, Vermont, showing a concerted effort by the mayor and a number of private organizations to conceal from the public their plans to resettle 100 Syrian refugees into the small southern Vermont town. The mayor and resettlement organizations shrouded the plan in such secrecy that not even the town’s aldermen were informed of what was taking place behind closed doors. The aldermen eventually wrote to the U.S. Department of State protesting the plan and opened an investigation into the mayor’s actions.
The State Department says it currently works with nine nonprofit organizations to resettle refugees. Those nonprofits have about 315 affiliates in 180 communities throughout the U.S.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the U.S. admitted 84,994 refugees during fiscal year 2016, just short of the 85,000 target set by the Obama administration. The U.S. admitted 16,370 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 12,587 from Syria, 12,347 from Myanmar, 9,880 from Iraq and 9,020 from Somalia. Pew Research reports that nearly 39,000 Muslim refugees entered the U.S. in fiscal year 2016, the highest number on record, according to analysis of data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.
In fiscal year 2015, the U.S. reportedly admitted 70,000 refugees. The Obama administration also proposed admitting 110,000 refugees for fiscal year 2017.
President Donald Trump on January 27, 2017 issued Executive Order 13769, which included a suspension of the USRAP for 120 days. There were 29,022 refugees reportedly admitted to the U.S. in 2017 – the lowest number since 2002.
In a July 2017 report on the refugee applicant screening process and associated fraud risks, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that, “Increases in the number of USRAP applicants approved for resettlement in the United States from countries where terrorists operate have raised questions about the adequacy of applicant screening.”
We are suing to find out which towns across America were, without input and over the objections of residents, targeted for refugee settlements by the Obama administration.
And to make sure the Deep State isn’t up to its usual tricks, we are investigating to make sure now that the current State Department is being more transparent and honest in its placement of refugees.
The Strange Case of McAuliffe & McCabe — Another Clinton/FBI Scandal
You won’t hear from this from the liberal media, but the IG report is chock full of facts and scandal leads that go way beyond Clinton emails and the “get Trump” fever that overtook the FBI leadership. As our own Micah Morrison points out in his latest Investigative Bulletin piece, raises more questions about other players in the Clintons’ orbit:
Every student of American politics knows that Terry McAuliffe is that swampiest of swamp creatures, the cool cat with the big bucks. Al Gore called him “the greatest fundraiser in the history of the universe.” In 1996 alone, as national finance chairman of the Clinton-Gore re-election team, McAuliffe raised $50 million, but plunged the Democratic Party into a sweeping campaign-finance scandal involving the sale of sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom, coffee klatches at the White House, a vast cast of sketchy characters and rivers of money. The Clintons loved the ebullient money man and he loved them back. By 1999, McAuliffe claimed to have raised nearly $275 million for the Arkansas couple—and that’s before he joined forces with the Clinton’s 21st century money machine, the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. In 2000, he was named chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In 2008, he chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In 2013, with enthusiastic support from the Clintons, he ran for governor of Virginia and won.
By 2015, Governor McAuliffe already was “shaping a significant role for himself” in Mrs. Clinton’s second try at the presidency, Politico reported. A “consummate political animal, [McAuliffe] just can’t keep his fingers away from the flame. Despite the daily demands of running the state…he’s emerging as Hillary’s informal liaison to governors and the party’s biggest donors, while also keeping a finger on the pulse of the camp’s central operations in Brooklyn.”
By contrast, even today, in the wake of hundreds of media stories and last week’s Office of Inspector General report on alleged wrongdoing in the 2016 election, few people will recognize the name Andrew McCabe. He’s a swamp inhabitant too, though many would put him on the right side of the swamp, on dry land, chasing the bad guys. Except that’s not quite how it turned out.
Many of the McCabe details in the OIG report will come as no surprise to Judicial Watch followers. We’ve been uncovering facts about the McCabe affair for over a year. Read about our efforts here, here, and here.
A useful timeline in the OIG report sketches the McCabe-McAuliffe saga—a swamp tale of a particular sort. In 2014, McCabe, a rising star at the FBI, is assistant director of the bureau’s Washington, DC, field office. His wife is a pediatrician in Virginia. Terry McAuliffe is governor.
In February 2015, Dr. McCabe receives a phone call from Virginia’s lieutenant governor. Would she consider running for a state senate seat?
Less than two weeks later, in March 2015, McCabe and his wife drive to Richmond for what they thought was a meeting with a Virginia state senator to discuss Dr. McCabe’s possible run for office.
In Richmond, according to the OIG report, they are told there had been “a change of plans” and that “Governor McAuliffe wanted to speak to Dr. McCabe at the Governor’s mansion.”
It’s around this time that a veteran FBI agent’s radar might start blinking.
McCabe and his wife meet with McAuliffe for 30 to 45 minutes, according to the OIG report. Fundraising was discussed. “Governor McAuliffe said that he and the Democratic Party would support Dr. McCabe’s candidacy.” McAuliffe asked McCabe about his occupation and “McCabe told him he worked for the FBI but they did not discuss McCabe’s work or any FBI business.” McCabe later described it to an FBI official as a “surreal meeting.”
After the meeting, the couple rode to a local event with the governor, then returned to the mansion with the governor to retrieve their car.
McCabe informed FBI ethics officials and lawyers about the meeting and consulted with them about his wife’s plans. No one raised strong objections. McCabe recused himself from all public corruption cases in Virginia and Dr. McCabe jumped into the race.
In July 2015, the FBI opened an investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email practices.
Let’s pause to note here that while the official FBI investigation was opened in July 2015, Mrs. Clinton was known to be in hot water as far back as March 2015, when the State Department inspector general revealed her widespread use of a private, non-government email server.
Swamp cats will notice that March 2015 is also when Andrew and Jill McCabe got their surprise audience with McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton money man.
The McCabe fortunes rose in the autumn of 2015. Mr. McCabe was promoted to associate deputy director of the FBI. Dr. McCabe received $675,000 from two McAuliffe-connected entities for her state senate race. They were by far the biggest donations to her campaign.
In November 2015, Dr. McCabe lost her race.
In January 2016, the FBI opened an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
On February 1, Mr. McCabe was promoted again, to deputy director of the FBI.
Despite the McAuliffe connection, the OIG report notes, there was no FBI re-evaluation of McCabe’s recusals following his promotions. Although recused from Virginia public corruption investigations, he retained a senior role in Clinton-related matters.
In May 2016, news broke that McAuliffe was under FBI investigation for campaign finance violations. CNN reported that investigators were scrutinizing “McAuliffe’s time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative” and Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang, a U.S. permanent resident who made large donations to both the McAuliffe 2013 gubernatorial campaign and to the Clinton Foundation.
On October 23, the Wall Street Journal revealed the McAuliffe-linked donations to Dr. McCabe’s campaign. At FBI headquarters, McCabe resists pressure from senior executives to recuse himself from all Clinton-related matters.
Finally, on November 1—a week before the presidential election — McCabe recused from the Clinton email and Clinton Foundation investigations.
Following James Comey’s dismissal in May 2017, McCabe was briefly acting director of the FBI—the most powerful law enforcement position in the land. Following the appointment of Chris Wray as director, McCabe returned to the deputy director position and, as controversy engulfed him and the FBI, he went on paid leave. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired him in March, 2018. The Justice Department inspector general has referred a possible criminal case against McCabe to federal prosecutors for lying to internal investigators in an earlier probe of the Wall Street Journal story and leaks.
One of the strangest claims in the OIG report is that the senior leadership of the FBI was not aware of — or perhaps simply did not care about — McAuliffe’s long history with the Clintons. “We were troubled,” the OIG report notes, “by the fact that the FBI ethics officials and attorneys did not fully appreciate the potential significant implications to McCabe and the FBI from campaign contributions to Dr. McCabe’s campaign and did not implement any review of those campaign donations. Thus, while the same factual circumstances that led to McCabe’s recusal on November 1, 2016, were present at the time McCabe became deputy director on February 1, 2016, the FBI ethics officials, McCabe, and Comey only learned of them as a result of the October 23 WSJ article.”
It seems likely now that the McCabe chapter of the larger battle in Washington will end with a whimper, not a bang. The beasts—investigative, media, political—move on. But what are we to make of Terry McAuliffe’s role in the episode?
Swamp aficionados will note the sudden “change of plans” that elevated the trip to Richmond from a meeting with a low-level political operative to an encounter with the governor. McAuliffe is charming and charismatic. Money is (vaguely) discussed, and oh by the way, McAuliffe asks McCabe, what is your occupation?
Now, Terry McAuliffe’s connections are legendary. His devotion to the Clinton ambitions is unswerving. He knows everybody, particularly anybody who has any business with the Clintons (remember, the email controversy is about to metastasize) and certainly he knew that Andrew McCabe worked for the FBI before he asked that question. But now McCabe knows that the governor knows. Next, money—a lot of it—flows to Dr. McCabe’s campaign.
Things might have turned out differently, after all. Jill McCabe might have been in the state senate. Hillary Clinton might have been in the White House. And Andrew McCabe was in line to be the next director of the FBI. Some of the best swamp plays are not about greed but ambition.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bush-mccain-e1531389356176.jpg361428Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2018-06-23 06:52:022018-06-23 06:53:21VIDEO: McCain’s Subcommittee Staff Director Urged IRS to Target Conservative Groups
The Trump administration proposes to reform and reorganize government by streamlining food regulation, merging two Cabinet departments, and consolidating housing programs.
Combining the Education and Labor departments is among 32 proposals in a plan released Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget in response to a charge President Donald Trump issued 14 months ago.
“We wanted to change the dialogue in Washington, to say it’s not acceptable to have things that just don’t make sense,” Margaret Weichert, OMB’s deputy director for management, told The Daily Signal.
Weichert did not provide an estimate of savings, but said it would be clear in the administration’s next budget proposal.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, lauded the report’s recommendations Thursday during a Cabinet meeting convened by the president.
The OMB’s 132-page plan also would merge the food component of the Food and Drug Administration, now part of the Department of Health and Human Services, into a Department of Agriculture entity to be known as the Food Safety Agency.
The report notes that the USDA regulates chicken, but the FDA oversees eggs—if the eggs are in shells. If the eggs are processed and in a carton for pouring, then it’s the USDA’s job.
What’s more, the FDA regulates cheese pizza but the USDA regulates pepperoni pizza.
“Our favorite one is an open-face roast beef sandwich is regulated by the Department of Agriculture,” Weichert said. “If you stick a layer of bread on top of it, and you add new bureaucracy, it switches to FDA. That just doesn’t make sense.”
Since the Labor Department and the Education Department both are responsible for learning and skills for Americans, the Trump administration wants to create a single Department of Education and the Workforce.
“When it comes to education and labor, most OECD countries managed education and labor missions in an integrated fashion. It’s actually part of the kind of competitive advantage dialogue that you can see in Europe and China,” Weichert told The Daily Signal, adding:
Lifetime learning and whatever form of education is needed to both drive the needs of society broadly, but also to drive the economy, is integrated. The House committee itself that has jurisdiction over these two agencies is a single committee.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, called the proposed change a long overdue recognition of the connection between the two missions.
“We welcome the administration’s focus on education and workforce issues together, and as we continue our oversight over the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, we look forward to working with the administration on the proposal and how the new department could function to best serve American students, workers, job creators, and families,” Foxx said in a public statement.
The merger idea already is getting pushback, though, including from unions.
“The proposed merger of the departments of Labor and Education is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to weaken programs that serve and protect working families and to concentrate even more power in the hands of large corporations,” Chris Shelton, president of the Communication Workers of America, said in a formal statement.
In general, the OMB report calls for combining the functions of several departments and agencies and largely eliminating duplication.
Between a quarter and a third of the recommendations may be done through executive action, but the bulk of them would require congressional action, Weichert said.
In April 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13781, which directed the Office of Management and Budget to propose a plan that would reorganize governmental functions to limit duplication.
The resulting plan contains solid ideas, said Paul Winfree, who was director of budget policy at the White House when Trump asked for the reorganization plan. Winfree since has returned to his position as director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
“The Heritage research team started thinking through a reorganization proposal more than three years ago,” Winfree said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “Early in the administration, I drafted the executive order that established the plan for assembling the proposal, which the president signed.”
“OMB worked closely with the Heritage team,” Winfree said, “and it’s obvious from reading the administration’s proposal that everyone is moving in the same direction.”
The federal government spends about $250 million a year for education programs on financial literacy across more than 20 agencies. The report recommends consolidating programs to save time and taxpayer resources.
The plan also calls for moving programs providing rural housing loan guarantees and rental assistance out of the Agriculture Department and into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, locating all federal housing programs in a single Cabinet department.
“To be sure, there’s going to be a lot of good public-sector drama around some of these proposals,” Weichert said, adding:
But I hope underneath all of that, we can find a spirit of willingness to actually do the right thing for the American people. Frankly, all of us know we need to do something. That’s why this president was elected. That’s why the American people wanted a businessman to come to Washington, was the fact that so much business as usual in Washington doesn’t make sense.
Past presidents, going back decades, have tried to reorganize and reform government but haven’t reached the desired effect, said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan research group.
“No one can reasonably dispute that our government needs reform, but structural reorganizations are rarely the most effective way to improve service to our citizens,” Stier said in a public statement.
The OMB report notes that President Warren Harding created the Bureau of the Budget in 1921 in one of the earlier reorganization attempts of the 20th century.
President Jimmy Carter carried out a personnel reform agenda that was fully implemented under President Ronald Reagan. And Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all pushed efforts to reduce duplication and increase public-private sector cooperation.
“For the administration’s reorganization plans to succeed, the president and members of his administration must articulate a government-wide vision for reform, the rationale for each proposal, and how the administration will implement changes and measure progress,” Stier said. “The White House also must get congressional buy-in and bipartisan support, make substantial, upfront investments, and plan for sustained attention over many years.”
Still, Weichert contends now is a time for action.
“Our system was designed after World War II, addressing legacy problems that in many cases are not problems today, and, we are 20 years into the 21st century, fundamentally. We have no time to waste,” she said.
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney presenting proposals to consolidate the work of executive agencies during a meeting Thursday of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom)
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Reorg-Photo-1250x650-e1529676984662.jpg378640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-06-22 10:16:402018-06-22 10:16:40Here’s How Trump Wants to Streamline Government
Readers might recall that, in 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare, by a 5-4 vote in a case captioned NFIB v. Sebelius.
Last year, Congress revised Obamacare. In the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Congress eliminated the penalty imposed on people who do not purchase health insurance by reducing the penalty to $0 effective January 2019.
What makes that 2017 law interesting for present purposes is this: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the controlling opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius; he concluded that the Obamacare penalty can be characterized as a “tax”; and he decided that, so viewed, Obamacare was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to raise taxes.
Enter Texas. In February of this year, Texas and several other states filed a lawsuit alleging that, by reducing the Obamacare tax to zero, Congress eliminated the only basis on which the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare. A sine qua non of a tax is that it generates revenue, Texas argued, and beginning in January 2019 Obamacare will no longer do so.
Accordingly, concluded Texas, starting next year Obamacare can no longer be upheld as a lawful exercise of Congress’ taxing power, so the federal courts should hold the law unconstitutional now.
The possibility that Obamacare could yet be consigned to the ash heap delighted some and troubled others. (For my opinion on the matter, see here.) Recently, the Department of Justice filed its answer to the Texas complaint. In it, the department agreed with the plaintiffs that Obamacare will become unconstitutional once the individual mandate penalty effectively disappears next year.
The Justice Department believes that, as a result, several provisions of Obamacare must go, such as the requirement that insurance companies provide coverage to someone with a pre-existing condition—but the Justice Department thinks that the rest of the statute can stand.
Texas disagrees. It argues that the Obamacare statute is like the base in Jenga: Once you remove the critical elements, the entire superstructure falls apart.
So what happens now? Here is how the case might proceed.
The district court is likely to act without delay. Why? There are no facts in dispute, only (at most) two legal issues: Is Texas right that Obamacare can no longer be upheld as a lawful exercise of Congress’ taxing power? If “No,” game over. If “Yes,” then is Texas also right that the unconstitutional portion(s) of the law cannot be severed from the remainder without leaving Obamacare a jumble of words that does not make sense?
Those issues may be difficult to resolve legally, but there is no need for a trial over the facts. Plus, the district court knows that, in all likelihood, the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve this dispute and that, the closer it gets to January 2019, the more attention there will be on the effect of eliminating the “tax” on the insurance markets.
The Supreme Court will need to decide this issue because of the odd way that it upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare in NFIB v. Sebelius. Four justices concluded that Obamacare was a lawful regulation of commerce, and four disagreed. Roberts was the fifth vote to uphold Obamacare. He decided that the health care law could be upheld as a tax, but not as a regulation of commerce.
The result was that five justices found the law constitutional, but they disagreed about why.
Given the odd nature of the court’s lineup in NFIB v. Sebelius and the pending disappearance of the “tax,” it is incumbent on the Supreme Court to take up the issue once again and—hopefully—come up with a majority opinion that puts the matter to rest.
Once the district court issues its decision, it is possible for one or more parties to ask the Supreme Court to review the case even before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit does.
How? One of the parties could file in the Supreme Court what is known as a “petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment,” a mechanism that allows a party to leapfrog over the appeals court and go directly to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court does not have to grant such a petition, and it prefers to have at least one appeals court review an issue before taking it up, because it likes the help that comes with having three circuit judges write about a problem. But it may not make much of a difference because the court of appeals is also likely to act expeditiously.
Regardless of how the case reaches the Supreme Court, it is likely that the Supreme Court will revisit the constitutionality of Obamacare this fall. With luck, the whole matter will finally be resolved before the end of this year. Stay tuned.
Paul J. Larkin Jr. directs The Heritage Foundation’s project to counter abuse of the criminal law, particularly at the federal level, as senior legal research fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research.
Dear Readers:
With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.
However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.
If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.
This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.
We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.
United States antitrust laws regulate the organization and conduct of business corporations on state and national levels to provide fair competition for the benefit of consumers. Why are they necessary?
“Free and open markets are the foundation of a vibrant economy. Aggressive competition among sellers in an open marketplace gives consumers – both individuals and businesses – the benefits of lower prices, higher quality products and services, more choices, and greater innovation. The FTC’s competition mission is to enforce the rules of the competitive marketplace – the antitrust laws. These laws promote vigorous competition and protect consumers from anticompetitive mergers in business practices. The FTC’s Bureau of Competition, working in tandem with the Bureau of Economics, enforces the antitrust laws for the benefit of consumers.”
The Sherman Antitrust Act, passed by Congress in 1890 under President Benjamin Harrison, was the first Federal act that outlawed interstate monopolistic business practices. It is considered a landmark decision because previous laws were limited to intrastate businesses.
In 1890 Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii were not even states. The Transcontinental Railroad that connected the eastern United States with the Pacific coast was in its infancy. That was then, this is now. Today there are 50 states, world travel is commonplace, and antitrust matters matter to every person on Earth.
Why? What do antitrust matters have to do with me? The answer is EVERYTHING.
The protections of antitrust laws focus on the unfairness of business monopolies on consumers. What about the unfairness of political monopolies on citizens? America broke free from the monopolistic centralized power of the British monarchy and won its independence after years of war and death. Why? To create a country based on the principles of individual freedom and liberty.
Every freedom articulated by our Founding Fathers was designed to protect the citizenry by promoting individualism and fairness. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are the greatest antitrust documents ever written providing:
Freedom of religion
Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
Freedom of assembly
Freedom to petition
Right to keep and bear arms
No quartering of soldiers
Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures
Right to due process
Right to speedy trial
Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment
The United States Constitution protects citizens from anticompetitive mergers in government practices. The United States of America is the greatest experiment in individual freedom and liberty the world has ever known specifically because of its antitrust antimonopolistic infrastructure. The Constitution defines the checks and balances of power and the individual rights of its citizens.
The current battle for our national sovereignty is an antitrust struggle against global governance. Globalism must not be confused with fair global trade between independent nations. Globalism is the monopolistic anticompetitive political practice of concentrating world power in the hands of a few globalist elite rulers. It is a return to the feudal infrastructure of a paternalistic pyramid with the few elites at the top and the masses of enslaved people at its base.
In 1890 antitrust legislation was necessary to protect consumers from exploitive business practices that focused on goods and services in the interstate marketplace. In 2018 the competition is over the world of ideas. Political systems of national sovereignty supporting individual freedom are battling political systems supporting collectivist globalism.
Globalists are selling planetary governance. They are facilitating the sale by concentrating their power with mergers and acquisitions that limit the information the public is offered. Monopolistic information through censorship and partisan program content on the Internet, television, radio, films, and particularly in academic curricula indoctrinate the unsuspecting public toward collectivism and planetary governance.
Today’s consumers need protection from exploitive political practices to provide fair competition for the benefit of consumers. The American public needs to become aware of how protective antitrust legislation that prevents monopolistic concentration of power affects them. Global governance is a worldwide concentration of power that eliminates individual freedom in the same way global monopolies on goods and services eliminate fair competition. Free and open markets are the foundation of a vibrant economy just like the free and open marketplace of ideas is the foundation of freedom.
The choice that Americans must make is between “free” stuff in a monopolistic collectivist political system of global governance that will enslave them, or freedom in an independent sovereign United States of America. The coordinated effort to delegitimize and overthrow President Donald Trump is the coordinated effort to delegitimize and overthrow our national sovereignty. Antitrust matters matter because monopolistic oppression is never good for the consumer whether they are buying goods, services, or their freedom.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Donald Trump arrives for the official welcoming ceremony the G7 Summit in the Charlevoix town of La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, June 8, 2018. (Christinne Muschi/Reuters) This column originally appeared on the Goudsmit Pundicity.
WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) by Anita Carey : The federal government is proposing removing federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood, and is seeking the public’s opinion on its proposed rule.
In May, when President Trump spoke at the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) Gala, he introduced the Protect Life Rule that would stop all federal money from the Title X family planning program from going to organizations that perform abortions. Last week, the federal government opened the mandatory 60-day public commenting period before legislative discussions to adopt the rule.
Father Stephen Imbaratto of Priests for Life calls this “a good and proper first step to totally defunding the abortion industry.”
Eric Scheidler, executive director of Pro-Life Action League, told Church Militant, “Planned Parenthood likes to pretend that low-income women depend on them for health care, but that’s simply untrue.” He explained that they offer mostly contraception and abortion services, while only providing about one percent of all STD testings and less than one percent of all Pap tests.
Title X was passed in 1970 and was aimed at providing government grants to public or nonprofit entities to establish and operate family planning projects, “including natural family planning methods, infertility services and services for adolescents.” The program was never intended to be used to fund abortion.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained that the new rule is needed because there is not sufficient guidance to ensure funding is not used to encourage or promote abortion as a method of family planning.
Scheidler said that the $60 million Planned Parenthood would be stripped of “would go to healthcare providers that offer a wider range of services and a higher standard of care.” He added, “This could include pregnancy resource centers and abstinence programs.”
Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony List, told Church Militant, “The Protect Life Rule directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not provide or perform aboartions — such as the growning number of community and rural health centers that far outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities — without reducing family planning funding by a dime.”
“These alternatives offer holistic ppreventative and primary care, not just for women, but for their children, as well as men,” Quigley noted. Planned Parenthood often tells women not to bring their children with them to appointments.
In 2016, Title X handed out over $286 million in taxpayer money to 48 states and 43 family planning agencies that provide contraception, testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and cancer screenings to almost 3,900 clinics. Planned Parenthood receives about $60 million from Title X grants, representing only about 20 percent of all the federal money they receive.
Father Imbaratto told Church Militant, “Planned Parenthood gets more than this and by all accounts spends all government monies either directly or indirectly to elect pro-abortion candidates.”
Quigley said abortion mills can use this funding as a “slush fund” that allows them to pay for rent, electricity, and other overhead costs. “It can also be used for advertising within the community to attract more clients,” she said.
A recent poll found 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. Quigley said it’s important for all pro-life Americans to submit comments to the HHS: “A large outpouring of public support ensures that the abortion lobby understands the majority of Americans side with President Trump and support the pro-life action taken by the administration.”
Scheidler pointed out that stripping Planned Parenthood of its Title X funding would “reduce Planned Parenthood’s access to low-income women, who will have to go elsewhere for family planning.” He said this could reduce the number of women seeking abortions because “Planned Parenthood will not be able to market abortion to these women.”
Susan B. Anthony List agrees, saying, “Research released by the Charlotte Lozier Institute in 2018 shows Planned Parenthood has inflated the U.S. abortion rate, controlling more than 35 percent of the abortion industry and resulting in more than three million ‘extra’ abortions that could have been avoided.”
Quigley noted that Planned Parenthood’s annual report show that “despite the increase in taxpayer funding, the only thing not to decline at Planned Parenthood is the number of abortions they do.”
“To fully defund Planned Parenthood of all federal money would require legislation,” Scheidler explains. He said the November general election could provide enough votes in the Senate to look at “making Planned Parenthood ineligible for Medicaid funds, which would be a dramatic pro-life victory — and very bad for Planned Parenthood.”
“There is no need to justify withholding such funds,” Dr. Monica Miller, national director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, said. “One red cent of taxpayer money should never be granted to any group that fails to respect life.”
“No other argument need be given and Planned Parenthood is the flagship when it comes to carrying the blood of the unborn,” Miller said.
Quigley noted that their “working to-do list” in the pro-life movement mirrors Trumps’s campaign promises: “appointing only pro-life Supreme Court nominees, to defund Planned Parenthood … to protect the Hyde Amendment, and to advance and sign into law the Pan-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — which would end abortion after five months.”
“This is not about the pro-life movement,” Fr. Imbaratto clarified. “It’s about babies and moms.”
The commenting period runs to July 31. Pro-lifers are asked to weigh in before the period closes.
When I first began writing this blog in July 2007, one of the issues that attracted my attention was the puzzling decision by the Virginia Council of Churches, working for major resettlement contractor Church World Service, to place refugees in one of the worst buildings in the worst section of Hagerstown, MD.
But, here we are 11 years later and Church World Servicehas placed Congolese refugees in Greensboro, NC in housing that is managed by a company that has a record of many years of troubling business practices.
I’m sure CWS rejoinder is—well give us more taxpayer money and we will get them nicer apartments.
And, I say, this was supposed to be a public-private partnership, so how about you, CWS, raising private money from your churches to help these Africans you placed (so that North Carolina meatpackers could have cheap compliant labor)!
It all began with that fire that killed five Congolese children. We wrote about it here (fire marshal determined food had been left on the stove).
But, that isn’t the end of it as a Congolese refugee, the father of the dead children, asks (in a heated meeting):
“We are refugees from Africa, we want to know if we have rights.”
I know what some of my readers will say to the Africans, but have some compassion, I’m sure most were never fully informed of what to expect in America.
CWS does much of our processing in Africa and they surely painted a rosy welcoming picture for the Congolese. (In June 2013, the Obama Administration told the UN that we would take 50,000from the DR Congo over 5 years. They are still coming!)
Safety concerns persist at complex that houses Congolese refugees
Congolese refugees, resettlement agencies and the owners of the Heritage Apartments give conflicting accounts of maintenance efforts in the wake of a deadly fire that took the lives of five children last month.
Refugee contractors face unhappy tenants.
Representatives of two agencies that resettle and support refugees in Greensboro had given lengthy presentations about their menu of services to the group of Congolese refugees packed into a sweltering community room at Heritage Apartments on a recent Saturday.
One of the residents, the father of five children who were killed in a fire last month at the apartment complex, asked a pointed question.
“We are refugees from Africa,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “We want to know if we have rights.”
Many of the residents, who work low-paying and grueling jobs in chicken plants in Wilkes and Lee counties, complained about going to the hospital for treatment and coming home with insurmountable hospital bills. Others complained that their apartments lack air-conditioning units.
How about BIG CHICKEN coming up with money for the hospital bills (and air conditioners for their workers)!
Earlier in the meeting, Lynn Thompson, outreach director for the New Arrivals Institute, ventured an answer to the question about refugees’ rights, alluding to widespread community concern about the deadly fire and poor conditions at the apartment complex, which is owned and managed by the Agapion family.
Go buy your own air conditioners says resettlement agency!
“It’s really bad for us,” Anzuruni Juma said through a translator. “When we moved in we didn’t know we only had heating to keep warm in the winter, and nothing to keep cool in the summer. Sometimes we can’t even sleep and have to go to a neighbor’s place to cool off.”
Rachel Lee, a program coordinator for African Services Coalition — one of two resettlement agencies, along with Church World Services, responsible for placing refugees at Heritage Apartments — suggested the residents go to Lowes or Walmart to purchase window units for their apartments. The residents said they don’t earn enough money to be able to afford air-conditioning, prompting some talk that the refugee agencies might turn to churches for donations.
Refugee advocates not happy with Church World Serve and African Services Coalition (Ethiopian Community Development Council)
Some of the advocates directed pointed questions, alongside the residents, at the representatives of the two resettlement agencies.
See Heritage Apartmentslandlord has history of tenant conflict (2008), and so didn’t CWS or this ECDC subcontractor know any of this? Do the contractors get some special benefits from choosing certain landlords?
So where are the humanitarian churches*** willing to help the refugees of Greensboro (and America!)?
Too busy protesting the President to do their Christian duty?
Those small circled signs are CWS signs. How about if CWS spends less time protesting at the White House with CAIR and more time taking better care of the refugees they place in your towns and cities!
Do you belong to one of these churches represented by CWS? If so, ask what is your church getting out of it?
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/ally-way-city.jpg360640Ann Corcoranhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAnn Corcoran2018-06-14 08:10:272018-06-14 08:10:27The Dark Underbelly of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S.
Donald Trump may not be on the ballot in November, but the future of his conservative agenda is. And three waves into this primary season, that seems to be all the motivation Republican voters need.
For the third time in as many primaries, conservatives seemed determined to change the media’s narrative about the midterm elections — turning out en masse in four southern states that will be critical to keeping the GOP’s hold on the House. At least in Republican-leaning states, the “blue wave” Democrats keep promising has been more like a blue sprinkle. That’s not to say things can’t change — they most certainly can, especially with the string of West Coast and New England races still to be decided. But for now, it is clear that conservative voters are far from disengaged.
David Wasserman, one of the analysts with an eye on these trends, says that after a rough start to the year, Republicans are getting some small doses of good news. So far, the GOP seems to be reaping the benefits of a banner spring for the White House’s international policies. After positive developments on Iran, Israel, and North Korea, the Democrats’ lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot is nonexistent. After being up by double digits in January, Reuters says the two parties are neck-and-neck. But, Wasserman warns, there’s still a long way to go. “Republicans still can’t point to hard election data that proves their base has suddenly closed the ‘intensity gap’ in the last few months.”
But they’re working on it! Tuesday’s showing in Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia was the third strong showing for conservatives in states where liberals hoped to make some noise. Our friend Chris Wilson (@WilsonWPA), who first started seeing some positive trends for Republicans in toss-up states like Pennsylvania, says that pattern is continuing. In Texas, the Democrats’ turnout in the runoff resulted in the fewest votes case since 1920!
“D’s hopes of turning #TX even slightly violet continue to fade,” Chris tweeted. “Despite a closely contested #TXgov runoff… Dems can’t reach record low of 449k votes from 100 years ago!” And that’s not all, “In each of the open #TX [congressional districts] where *both parties* had a runoff, [Democrats] massively underperformed.” Republicans, on the other hand, continued to stream into their polling stations. In Georgia, the party cast 54,000 more votes than Democrats, which seemed like small potatoes compared to Arkansas, where they cast 96,000 more. Obviously, these are states where conservatives should be outperforming liberals. But in a year where Republicans can’t afford to take anything for granted, the outcome was a reassuring one.
Meanwhile, over at Democratic headquarters, party bosses deepened their bench of far-Left radicals on the November ballot with wins for LGBT activists, abortion extremists, and candidates who promise a return to the Obama years. In the Democrats’ words: We will impeach. We will abort. We will raise taxes. And that’s exactly the kind of agenda that failed them in 2016. Even now, a full year and change into Trump’s administration, heartland Democrats have pleaded with the national party to return to the middle. “You’re Killing Us” was the message to Washington. A message, so far, unreceived.
Over at Deep Root Analytics, experts are making a pretty solid case for a values-driven campaign. After the May 5 and 18 primaries, we mentioned just how potent social issues are proving to be in this election cycle. Well, it turns out, they’re even more compelling than most pollsters realized. In Pennsylvania and Idaho, where we pointed out that turnout was higher than expected, social issues appeared in “more GOP ads than any other issue — nearly doubling the total number of ads as tax reform, the next highest appearing issue.” In fact, Deep Root explains, there were “nearly two-times as many ads containing a social issue message than a tax message in these primaries.”
What does that mean? A lot if you’re a conservative campaign manager. “While the data we currently have access to does not allow us to comprehensively connect social issues advertising to higher-than-expected turnout, it does indicate something clearly: GOP advertisers relied on social issue messaging as their closing argument…” Obviously, David Seawright wrote, “advertisers believed that messaging on social issues was critical to their goal of both motivating and persuading GOP primary voters during the final stages of each campaign.”
It’s certainly worked in the primaries we’ve seen so far. Of course, the important part is not to get comfortable. I don’t mention these positive developments so that people can get complacent. On the contrary, we want people to know just how important and influential their voice can be. Making America great again starts by making America good again. And that’s not government’s mission, but ours.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/052318_flags_770x400_1-e1528491879145.jpg368640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2018-06-08 17:04:482018-06-09 06:28:58Are the Dems Still Ballot-proof?
For all intents and purposes, people are being paid not to be productive.
Guided by the spirit of Calvin Coolidge, we need to reform the welfare state.
Professor Dorfman of the University of Georgia, in a column for Forbes, pinpoints the core problem.
The first failure of government welfare programs is to favor help with current consumption while placing almost no emphasis on job training or anything else that might allow today’s poor people to become self-sufficient in the future. …It is the classic story of giving a man a fish or teaching him how to fish. Government welfare programs hand out lots of fish, but never seem to teach people how to fish for themselves. The problem is not a lack of job training programs, but rather the fact that the job training programs fail to help people. In a study for ProPublica, Amy Goldstein documents that people who lost their jobs and participated in a federal job training program were less likely to be employed afterward than those who lost their jobs and did not receive any job training. That is, the job training made people worse off instead of better. …Right now, the government cannot teach anyone how to find a fish, let alone catch one.
And Peter Cove opines on the issue for the Wall Street Journal.
…the labor-force participation rate for men 25 to 54 is lower now than it was at the end of the Great Depression. The welfare state is largely to blame. More than a fifth of American men of prime working age are on Medicaid. According to the Census Bureau, nearly three-fifths of nonworking men receive federal disability benefits. The good news is that the 1996 welfare reform taught us how to reduce government dependency and get idle Americans back to work. …Within 10 years of the 1996 reform, the number of Americans in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program fell 60%.
Interestingly, European nations seem to be more interested in fixing the problem, perhaps because they’ve reached the point where reform is a fiscal necessity.
Let’s look at what happened when the Dutch tightened benefit rules.
A fascinating new study from economists in California and the Netherlands sheds light on how welfare dependency is passed from one generation to the next—and how to save children from lives of idleness.
A snowball effect across generations could arise if welfare dependency is transmitted from parents to their children, with potentially serious consequences for the future economic situation of children. …there is little evidence on whether this relationship is causal. Testing for the existence of a behavioural response, where children become benefit recipients because their parents were, is difficult… Our work overcomes these identification challenges by exploiting a 1993 reform in the Dutch Disability Insurance (DI) programme… The 1993 reform tightened DI eligibility for existing and future claimants, but exempted older cohorts currently on DI (age 45+) from the new rules. This reform generates quasi-experimental variation in DI use… Intuitively, the idea is to compare the children of parents who are just over 45 years of age to children whose parents are just under 45. .
Here’s the methodology of their research.
The first step is to understand the impact of the 1993 reform on parents. Figure 1 shows that parents who were just under the age 45 cut-off, and therefore subject to the harsher DI rules, are 5.5 percentage points more likely to exit DI by the year 1999 compared to parents just over the age 45 cut-off. These treated parents saw a 1,300 euro drop in payments on average. …the reform changed other outcomes as well. There is a strong rebound in labour earnings.
This chart from their research captures the discontinuity.
Here are the main results.
The second step is to see how children’s DI use changed based on whether the reform affected their parents. We measure a child’s cumulative use of DI as of 2014, by which time they are 37 years old on average. Figure 2 reveals a noticeable jump in child DI participation at the parental age cut-off of 45. There is an economically significant 1.1 percentage point drop for children if their parent was exposed to the reform, which translates into an 11% effect relative to the mean child participation rate of 10%. …welfare cultures, defined as a causal intergenerational link, exist.
This second chart illustrates the positive impact.
But here’s the most important part of the research.
Reducing access to redistribution to parents is a good way of boosting income and education for children.
…we examine whether a child’s taxable earnings and participation in other social support programmes change. Cumulative earnings up to 2014 rise by approximately €7,200 euros, or a little less than 2%, for children of parents subject to the less generous DI rules. In contrast, we find no detectable change in cumulative unemployment insurance receipt, general assistance (i.e. traditional cash welfare), or other miscellaneous safety net programs. Looking at a child’s educational attainment, there is intriguing evidence for anticipatory investments. When a parent is subject to the reform which tightened DI benefits, their child invests in 0.12 extra years of education relative to an overall mean of 11.5 years. …these findings provide suggestive evidence that children of treated parents plan for a future with less reliance on DI in part by investing in their labour market skills.
And it’s also worth noting that taxpayers benefit when welfare eligibility is restricted.
These strong intergenerational links between parents and children have sizable fiscal consequences for the government’s long term budget. Cumulative DI payments to children of the targeted parents are 16% lower. This is a substantial additional saving for the government’s budget, especially since there is no evidence that children substitute these reductions in DI income for additional income from other social assistance programmes. Furthermore, there is a fiscal gain resulting from the increased taxes these children pay due to their increased labour market earnings. Overall, we calculate that through the year 2013, children account for 21% of the net fiscal savings of the 1993 Dutch reform in present discounted value terms. This share is projected to increase to 40% over time.
Ryan Streeter of American Enterprise Institute explains that other European nations also are reforming.
Welfare reformers might draw some lessons from unlikely places, such as Scandinavia. While progressives like to uphold Nordic democratic socialism as a model for America, the Scandinavian welfare systems are arguably more pro-work than ours… For instance, to deal with declining labor force participation, Denmark eliminated permanent disability benefits for people under 40 and refashioned its system to make employment central. Sweden reformed its welfare system to focus on rapid transitions from unemployment to work. Their program lowers jobless assistance the longer one is on welfare. The Nordic model is more focused on eliminating reasons not to work such as caregiving or lack of proper training than providing income replacement. Similarly, the British government combined six welfare programs with varying requirements into a single “universal credit.” The benefit is based on a sliding scale and decreases as a recipient’s earnings increase, replacing several differing formulas for phasing out of welfare programs with one. An evaluation of the new program, which encourages work, found that 86 percent of claimants were trying to increase their work hours and 77 percent were trying to earn more, compared to 38 percent and 55 percent, respectively, under the previous system. …Scandinavia and Britain learned a while ago that successful welfare reform is not just about how much money a country spends on people who earn too little. It’s really about how to help them find and keep a good job. It’s time for America to catch up.
In effect, block grant all means-tested programs to the states and then phase out the federal funding. That would give states the ability to experiment and they could learn from each other about the best way of helping the truly needy while minimizing incentives for idleness.
P.S. This Wizard-of-Id parody is a very good explanation of why handouts discourage productive work.
Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/lookingoffpaper-e1528490669552.jpg364640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2018-06-08 16:44:362018-06-08 16:44:36What We Can Learn About Welfare Reform from Europe
The untold story — the story the media refuses to tell — is that American small businesses are just banging it under the tax reform package the GOP Congress passed, every Democrat voted against, and Trump signed into law.
American economic strength as measured by unemployment, employment growth, GDP growth and other common measures is perhaps as hot as it has ever been. Even without knowing the exact numbers, Americans recognize this reality and that explains part of the reason President Trump’s approval ratings continue to rise and the generic Congressional ballot continues to narrow.
At the same time, and acting in tandem, small business confidence has hit an all-time high. This matters because businesses make investment, expansion and hiring decisions based on their confidence in the economy going forward, all of which suggests that the economic growth we are seeing has real, lasting legs — barring an unforeseen catastrophic event.
Small businesses are the heart and soul of the American economy. They always have been, and they always will be if the American economy is to retain is global leadership and strength. Apple, Google, Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, General Motors, may be great companies. But huge companies are not what built and sustain the American economy. Small businesses that blanket every community are that.
And the Trump GOP tax cuts, along with ongoing deregulation, are playing a major role infusing them.
John Horne is a small businessman on the Gulf Coast of Florida and his story is exemplar of hundreds of thousands of small businesses. He owns four restaurants in Manatee County, just south of Tampa, and employs 333 people — 300 of whom are hourly employees with an annual payroll of $2.5 million; 33 are managers who earned $1.5 million in salary and bonuses in the past year.
He recently wrote in SRQ magazine how the tax cuts are affecting his business.
“I met with my CPA after tax season this year when he brought me my returns. What he explained to me was one of the parts of the new Tax Cut and Jobs Act where I get a 20 percent Business Income Deduction this year. He showed me what my taxes were in ’17 and if the new code were in effect what they would have been. I’ve already planned 2018, plugging my adjusted gross income for this year with the 20-percent deduction. We’ve been very consistent in our stores over the last 10 years as far as bottom lines go.”
Like most small businesses — and unlike the caricature created by Democrats and the media — Horne saw a great opportunity arising from the 20-percent reduction that the Trump GOP tax cuts gave him. He is taking that money and reinvesting most of it in his company and people, just like most American small businesses will:
“There are so many options, one I’ve already taken. Back in April after I met with my accountant, I bonused $60,000 to some of my staff. I purchased two new two-sided LED signs at $20,000 each for two of my locations to attract new customers. I heard my accountant say we’d probably realize $100,000 in savings/benefits from the new plan.”
Horne is in the restaurant business, which too many people deride is minimum wage. But that’s not really true. Of his 300 hourly staff members, no one is paid minimum wage; 113 earn $10 and $12.50 per hour; 39 earn between $12.50 and $15; 40 between $15 and $20; and 64 over $20. And about 47 percent of the hourly staff earn more than $15 dollars per hour.
Expect those wages to move up. The suddenly strong economy undergirded by the tax cuts and deregulation is now driving wage growth at small businesses. “The low unemployment rate is contributing to steady increases in wage growth,” according to Martin Mucci, president and CEO of Paychex. That means Horne and everyone else will have to pay more to keep and get employees.
Further, the CBO now reports that the tax cuts may pay for themselves, eliminating the “scary” $1.5 trillion deficit issue. That’s because of the economic growth roaring through the economy based on thousands of reinvestment decisions such as Horne’s.
Last June, the CBO said GDP growth for 2018 would be just 2 percent. Now it estimates growth will be a robust 3.3% — a significant boost. It also cranked up its forecast for 2019 from a paltry 1.5 percent to 2.4 percent. The CBO now expects GDP to be $6.1 trillion bigger by 2027 than it did before the tax cuts.
All of those trillions in GDP will be taxed and that will go a long way toward erasing the deficit — unless Congress continues to spend like drunken sailors, which unfortunately is a safe bet.
Horne’s small business is a down-to-earth illustration of this, also. In the last 12 months, FICA payments at his four stores were $552,544. Matched with the employees’ payments, that means his small business contributed more than $1.1 million in taxes just to support Social Security.
All of this is the undeniable reality of lifting high tax and regulatory burdens off small businesses. When the weight of government on the backs of small businesses is lessened, those businesses take off.
Unfortunately, that is a story most Americans are not being told.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/small-business-owner-e1454664524819.jpg355640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2018-06-07 16:09:522018-06-07 16:09:52The Unreported Story Of America’s Booming Small Businesses
Back in December and January, Democrats and their fellow-travelers in the media were ebullient over the idea of running against the “tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent” tax reform package Congress had passed on a straight party-line vote, and President Trump subsequently signed into law.
It’s worth a quick and entertaining look back at the now commonplace hysterical response from the American Left (Democrat/Media/Culture/Education establishment), this time at basic tax cuts.
House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, a constant well-spring of poppycock, called the legislation “the end of the world” and “the worst bill in the history of the United States Congress.” (Ahem…Fugitive Slave Act?) She predicted the tax cut would create “a permanent plutocracy in our country that does violence to the vision of our Founders.” California Gov. Jerry Brown called tax cuts “evil in the extreme.”
The Washington Post felt compelled to run a column predicting the Great Depression II, including unemployment at 25 percent. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said the bill’s health provisions would kill 10,000 people annually. And economic historian Bruce Bartlett said that tax cuts are “akin to rape.”
Veteran Atlantic political reporter Ron Brownstein argued that “President Trump and congressional Republicans have just taken the same leap of faith that Democrats did when they passed the Affordable Care Act.” The Huffington Post anxiously ran a story headlined “ObamaCare Plagued Democrats In 2010. The GOP Just Voted For A Bill Even Less Popular.”
But now that the big blue wave midterms are approaching, Democrats actually are not running against the end of the world, against 25 percent unemployment, against rot, against evil. You’d think those would be winning issues with the American people. Perhaps the end-of-the-world bombast was just empty drivel like so much that has been upchucked into the media since November 2016.
Remember how Republicans ran loud and hard (and for some, lied) about repealing Obamacare as soon as they had the chance. It was proving unpopular and hitting Americans negatively. We are seeing an almost complete absence of that now in both Democratic primaries, and where the general elections are set, in regards to the tax reform package that was the end of the world.
It’s not just by observation we are seeing this step away from tax cut repeal. Democratic leadership is admitting it. Washington Post political reporter David Weigel asked Democratic leaders about it at their recent strategy retreat, and tweeted their response:
“Asked Dems at retreat presser if they’ll run in 2018 on repealing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Answer: Not really. (They’ll “restore balance.”) Weigel tweeted the full text of his questions and their answers. By balance, they presumably and without elucidation, mean balancing the budget, which they did such a bangup job of doing when they were in control.
Why the big flip for Democrats? It’s more than the dawning realization that the slogan, “Vote for me and I’ll raise your taxes!” is probably not going to resonate with voters.
⇒ First, there are the actual facts involved with the tax reform package. The politically liberal Tax Policy Center ran the numbers and figured the tax cuts would benefit 80 percent of American families, while raising taxes for just 5 percent. Those tax hikes would fall disproportionately on the wealthiest 1 percent. The average family would save $1,610.
More facts. The Congressional Budget Office has sharply increased its forecast for GDP growth in 2018 from 2 percent to robust 3.3 percent as a direct result of the tax cuts. The CBO predicts GDP growth next year at 2.4%, up from the expected 1.5% before the tax cuts. Further, the CBO says that this level of growth in the economy could eliminate most of the so-called tax-cut deficit that Democrats are suddenly so concerned about. Unfortunately but to no one’s shock, the media largely ignored that report.
⇒ Second, the tax cut package still remains popular. The “Republican” or “GOP” tax cuts, not so much. Recent polls showing a decline in support for the GOP tax cuts have elated Democrats and the media. But they’re quite misleading. The tax cuts themselves, broken down by almost every element within the bill, are overwhelmingly popular.
Investors Business Daily broke those down here. Americans’ support is absurdly high for most elements of the tax cuts. But most polls label the tax cuts as Republican or GOP, and when that happens, the support drops significantly.
A couple of things are at work here. One is the ongoing demonization of Republicans in the media. This has been a long-running train. The other is the conflation of budget deficit with the tax cuts. This of course has two elements, one of which is continued runaway spending, which congressional Republicans caved on like they always do. (Remember, they are caving to Democrats who actively pursue the runaway spending.) Saying that the taxes alone caused the projected $1.5 trillion deficit — over 10 years, because that is the only way to make it look bad — ignores half of the equation but clearly can influence news consumers.
⇒ Third, an April Gallup Poll found that Americans think the tax code is more fair today than it was before the GOP tax cuts took effect. Last year, 51 percent of Americans said middle income families pay too much income taxes. That is now down to 42%. And amazingly, given the media coverage, 26 percent say upper-income families pay their fair share, up slightly from 24 percent last year. And the big corporate fat cat giveaway? Well, 24 percent now say that corporations pay their fair share, up sharply from 19% a year ago when corporate tax rates were much higher.
It’s hard to run on a lie when the truth keeps showing up in bi-weekly dollars in the wallet, when you can see how strong the economy around you is. High GDP growth is tangible, just like anemic GDP growth was under Obama.
Americans realize that the tax reform package was a net positive for their pocketbooks, for the economy, for jobs and for the deficit — the absolute opposite of how they rightly viewed Obamacare. That Democrats aren’t clawing to run against it means they still have a modicum of political sense left.
