MIKE CRAPO Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

The Senate voted largely along party lines early Saturday morning to pass a budget blueprint encompassing many of President Donald Trump’s legislative priorities, including a permanent extension of the president’s 2017 tax cuts and $175 billion in new spending on border security.

Senators voted 51 to 48 to advance the Trump-backed budget resolution to the House for consideration with Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine joining with Senate Democrats to oppose the fiscal framework. The budget blueprint’s passage at roughly 2:30 a.m. came after a marathon series of votes known as a “vote-a-rama” during which Senate Democrats forced their Republican colleagues to take politically contentious votes on amendments related to entitlement program spending, Department of Government Efficiency actions and Trump’s tariffs.

Senate Republicans countered that the forthcoming tax and spending bill that would be unlocked with passage of the budget resolution by both chambers would not cut Americans’ Medicaid or Medicare benefits. Congressional Republicans are seeking to enact Trump’s legislative agenda through a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows Senate Republicans to bypass the filibuster and advance legislation by a simple majority vote.

“The argument is going to be made that we’re going to hurt all kinds of different people tonight in different ways,” Republican Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo said on the Senate floor Friday evening. “But the reality is that’s not going to happen. The President has been very clear any reforms to Medicare or Medicaid must not reduce patient benefits.”

No amendment offered by Senate Democrats was notably related to border security or helping fast-track the president’s deportation agenda.

Paul voted against the budget resolution, citing the blueprint’s inclusion of a $5 trillion increase in the statutory debt limit, which the Kentucky Republican argued would set a record for borrowing more money during one bill at any recent point in American history.

“If we expand the debt at $5 trillion that will be an expansion of the debt equal to or exceeding everything that happened in the Biden years,” Paul said on the Senate floor Friday. “Republicans who vote for this will be on record as being more fiscally liberal than their counterparts. They will vote to borrow more money than the Democrats have ever borrowed.”

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget found that the Senate’s blueprint will add up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit, which the organization argued would be “historically unprecedented in its fiscal irresponsibility.”

Senate GOP leadership has argued that the low spending reduction floors in the bill give the upper chamber maximum flexibility to ensure compliance with the budget reconciliation process.

Some deficit-concerned House GOP lawmakers are not convinced senators are serious about cutting spending, suggesting they will oppose the budget resolution barring changes to the text.

“If the Senate can deliver real deficit reduction in line with or greater than the House goals, I can support the Senate budget resolution,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris said in a statement Saturday. “However, by the Senate setting committee instructions so low at $4 billion compared to the House’s $1.5 to $2 trillion, I am unconvinced that will happen. The Senate is free to put pen to paper to draft its reconciliation bill, but I can’t support House passage of the Senate changes to our budget resolution until I see the actual spending and deficit reduction plans to enact President Trump’s America First agenda.”

“The Senate response was unserious and disappointing, creating $5.8 trillion in new costs and a mere $4 billion in enforceable cuts, less than one day’s worth of borrowing by the federal government,” House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said in a statement Saturday morning.

The initial House budget resolution did not allow for permanent tax relief, which is a nonstarter for most Senate Republicans and the president.

Senate Republicans included a permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts in the fiscal framework by using a budget scoring approach that assumes a permanent extension has a deficit neutral impact because the forthcoming bill would just be continuing current policies.

“Americans should not have to live in fear of a tax hike every few years,” Thune said in a speech on the floor Thursday.

Arrington appeared to slam the budget resolution’s scoring approach Saturday morning for including the current-policy baseline without commensurate spending reductions.

“It also sets a dangerous precedent by direct scoring tax policy without including enforceable offsets,” Arrington said.

Trump has notably endorsed the Senate budget resolution, adding pressure on House lawmakers to support the blueprint when they return to Washington.

“Every Republican, House and Senate, must UNIFY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. “We need to pass it IMMEDIATELY!

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This month the Hearing Protection Act of 2017 was introduced in the Senate by Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) with co-sponsors Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Rand Paul (R-KY) as S.59. Representatives Jeff Duncan (R-SC) and John Carter (R-TX) – together with 42 co-sponsors – introduced a similar bill in the House as H.R. 367.

The bill would remove suppressors from the provisions of the National Firearms Act (NFA), which requires buyers to pay a $200 tax and undergo an enhanced background check that can take up to nine months to complete. Suppressors would continue to be regulated like non-NFA firearms, which require a background check when sold by a licensed firearms dealer or across state lines.

Not surprisingly, anti-gun advocates and their media allies are furious that the gun community would dare remove an onerous and unnecessary law that limits their ability to protect against hearing loss while target shooting and hunting.

Washington Post reporter Michael S. Rosenwald announced that “violence prevention advocates are outraged that the industry is trying to ease silencer restrictions by linking the issue to the eardrums of gun owners.” Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times piled on, declaring that the naming of the “Hearing Protection Act” was “so absurdly transparent an effort to deceive that voters may be prompted to ask an obvious question: ‘What are they hiding?’”

Joining the anti-gun tirade, Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center contended that “they want the general public to think it’s about hearing aids or something,” arguing that “when the general public finds out what’s really happening, there will be outrage.” Kristin Brown of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence went so far as to argue “there’s no evidence of a public health issue associated with hearing loss from gunfire.

Let that sink in. A representative of the Brady Campaign argues that there is no evidence of hearing loss from gunfire. One is left to wonder if their zealotry blinds them to the truth or if they really are that ill-informed on firearms and their use.

Other anti-gun advocates argue that “silent” guns make it easier to commit crimes, citing YouTube videos and television shows where silencers reduce a gunshot to a faint cough. Professor Robert J. Spitzer, writing in the Washington Post, even argued that deafening noise “is an important safety feature of any firearm” and that “the lifesaving safety benefits of gun noise should weigh far more in the silencer debate.”

Supporters of so-called “common sense gun safety” are willfully blind to the reality that clear, objective scientific evidence demonstrates that suppressors prevent hearing loss. Noise-Induced Hearing Loss and tinnitus are high-priority health issues – and the only type of hearing loss that is completely preventable.

The benefits of suppressors are scientifically proven. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have both determined that even a single noise over 140 decibels causes hearing loss. The peak sound pressure of a gunshot ranges from a low of 144 decibels (.22 caliber rifle) to 172 decibels (.357 caliber revolver). A suppressor reduces the sound by approximately 30 decibels. In consequence, even suppressed firearms are loud – about 120-130 decibels – and louder than a car horn three feet away. It is, therefore, both inconsistent and illogical for the government to recommend – and even legally mandate – noise abatement for loud machines like lawn mowers and chainsaws while simultaneously setting large regulatory hurdles that discourage suppressor use with firearms.

Furthermore, suppressed firearms are not the choice of criminals, and the more than 100-year history of suppressors in both the United States and Europe demonstrates that anti-gun fearmongering is unfounded. A study of the criminal use of suppressors between 1995 and 2005 found only 15 used in crimes – and only two instances of being used in a murder. Indeed, as the number of federally-registered suppressors has nearly quadrupled in the last decade (from 150,364 in 2006 to 902,805 in 2016), the Violence Policy Center can identify only a scant handful of crimes committed with them. As Chicago Tribune editorial board member Steve Chapman notes, “any useful technology can be put to villainous ends,” and common sense demonstrates that the existing rule on silencers is “a major hassle for the law-abiding” while being “an irrelevance to criminals.”

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Violence Policy Center are counting on public ignorance and disinformation to derail a legitimate effort to allow gun owners to protect their hearing and the hearing of those around them. Armed with facts and scientific evidence, the National Rifle Association urges its members to contact their lawmakers to support the Hearing Protection Act of 2017.

You can contact your member of Congress via our Write Your Reps tool by clicking HERE or use the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Tag Archive for: MIKE CRAPO

Disinformation Campaign on the Hearing Protection Act Continues [Video]