Recent Blog Posts

HR 3582: Pro-Growth Budgeting Act

By admin on February 2, 2012

The simple question now before us is whether it is better for Congress to have more information or less information when it is deliberating on matters that directly affect the economy of this nation.

The answer should be self-evident, but apparently, some members of this house prefer blissful ignorance than having to go to the fuss and bother of actually assessing the full ramifications of the policies they are enacting.  (That explains a lot about some of the decisions they've made in recent years).

The economy is a dynamic and fast-changing thing, responding rapidly to every tax and regulation imposed by government and every dollar that changes hands in markets.  

We've Heard this Song Before

By admin on January 26, 2012

After President Clinton took a drubbing from voters in the 1994 Congressional election, he realized his policies weren't working.  He promptly declared, "The era of big government is over," and he then went about making good on that declaration:

  • He reduced spending by a miraculous 3 1/2 percent of GDP.
  • He attacked entitlement spending and abolished the ballooning open-ended welfare system.
  • He signed what amounted to the biggest capital gains tax cut in American history.
  • He delivered the only four budget surpluses in four decades.
  • And he produced a period of prolonged economic expansion.

 

Freedom and the Internet, Victorious

By admin on January 23, 2012

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.- January 23, 2012

Madam Speaker:

Long ago, Jefferson warned, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground."  The exceptions to that rule have been few and far between recently, and ought to be celebrated when they occur.

One did this past week with the announcement that supporters of the so-called "Stop On-Line Privacy Act" and the "Protect Intellectual Property Act" have indefinitely postponed their measures after an unprecedented protest across the Internet.

SOPA and PIPA pose a crippling danger to the Internet because they use the legitimate concern over copy-right infringement as an excuse for government to intrude upon and regulate the very essence of the Internet - the unrestricted and absolutely free association that links site to site, providing infinite pathways for commerce, discourse and learning. 

It is not the Internet per se that has set the stage for the next quantum leap in human knowledge and advancement - but rather the free association at the core of the Internet.  And this is precisely what SOPA and PIPA directly threaten.

But as dangerous as this concept is to the Internet, it pales in comparison to the danger it poses to our fundamental freedoms as Americans.

HR 3671— Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012: NO

By admin on December 19, 2011

Viewed in isolation, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 reduces total discretionary spending authority (those expenditures that don't require statutory changes, including war and emergency spending) from $1.209 trillion in FY 2011 to $1.181 trillion in FY 2012), or $28 billion (2.3 percent).  Viewed over the past five years, however, this still constitutes an increase of $144 billion, in discretionary spending (13.5 percent).  

This may constitute an improvement over the past year, but begs the question, "Does it put the nation back on the path to fiscal solvency?"

Cracking Freedom’s Foundation

By admin on December 14, 2011

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.-December 14, 2011

Mr. Speaker:

I rise in opposition to Section 1021 of the underlying Conference Report (H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act).  

This section specifically affirms that the President has the authority to deny due process to any American it charges with "substantially supporting al Qaeda, the Taliban or any 'associated forces'" - whatever that means.

Would "substantial support" of an "associated force," mean linking a web-site to a web-site that links to a web-site affiliated with al-Qaeda?  We don't know.  The question is, "do we really want to find out?"

Squaring Social Security and the Payroll Tax Cut

By Tom McClintock on December 6, 2011

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. December 6, 2011

Mr. Speaker:

Topping the list of unfinished business this year is the impending collision of two closely related crises: the expiration of the payroll tax cut and the acceleration of Social Security's bankruptcy.

Last year, Congress voted for a payroll tax cut that averages roughly $1,000 for every working family in America. 

As warned, it failed to stimulate economic growth and it accelerated the collapse of the Social Security system.  But as promised, it threw every working family a vital lifeline in tough economic times. 

The Plunder of Colfax

By admin on December 1, 2011

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
December 1, 2011

Mr. Speaker:

In the Sierra Foothills in northeastern California lies the little town of Colfax, population 1,800, with a median household income of about $35,000. 

Over the past several years, this little town has been utterly plundered by regulatory and litigatory excesses that have pushed the town to the edge of bankruptcy and ravaged families already struggling to make ends meet.

Colfax operates a small wastewater treatment plant for its residents that discharges into the Smuthers Ravine.  Because it does so, it operates within the provisions of the Clean Water Act, a measure adopted in 1972 and rooted in legitimate concerns to protect our vital water resources. 

Concealed Carry

By Tom McClintock on November 18, 2011

HR 822
House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
November 16, 2011

Today the House will consider HR 822, a long-overdue measure to assure that states recognize the concealed weapons permits issued by other states.

This very simple measure has unleashed a firestorm of protests from the political left. I noted one polemicist, who obviously has not read the Constitution, fumed that this is a Constitutional violation of states' rights enshrined in the tenth amendment. 

What nonsense. Article IV of the Constitution could not possibly be more clear: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."

It is precisely this article that requires one state to recognize driver's licenses, birth certificates or arrest warrants issued by another state. Without it we are not a union but a loose confederation.

We are told it is "dangerous" and "risky" to allow honest and law-abiding citizens to exercise their lawfully issued permits in other states.

Upon what basis do they make this claim? Certainly not upon any empirical data.

Back to Basics with the Balanced Budget Amendment

By Tom McClintock on November 2, 2011

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
November 2, 2011
Mr. Speaker:

The International Monetary Fund estimated that as of Halloween night, the debt of this nation surpassed its entire economy for the first time since World War II.  We all know that if you live beyond your means today you must live below your means tomorrow.  That’s the tomorrow that our generation has created for the children who were dressed up as princesses and cowboys when they came calling on Monday.  That is our generation’s eternal shame, and something that our generation must set right.  

The House is expected soon to vote on a balanced budget amendment that is critical to stop this plunder of our children.  There are a number of excellent proposals out there and I would have no trouble supporting any of them.  

I do rise, however, to express the hope that the final product of these deliberations proves worthy of the wisdom that guided the drafting of the Constitution. 

The beauty of the American Constitution is in its simplicity and its humility.  The American Founders recognized Cicero’s wisdom that “the best laws are the simplest ones.”  And they realized that they couldn’t possibly foresee the circumstances and conditions that may confront future generations and therefore they resisted the temptation to micro-manage every decision that might be made centuries in the future.  Instead, they set forth general principles of governance and erected a structure in which human nature itself would naturally guide future decisions to comport with those principles. 

In crafting a balanced budget amendment, we need to maintain these qualities. We should not attempt to tell future generations specifically how they should manage their revenues and expenditures in times that we cannot comprehend.  The experience of many states that operate under their own balanced budget amendments tells us that the more complicated and convoluted such strictures become, the more they are circumvented and manipulated.

Many have quoted Jefferson’s 1798 letter to John Taylor as support for a balanced budget amendment.  Here’s what he actually wrote: 

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing." 

What is a balanced budget? It’s simply a budget that doesn’t require us to borrow.  Then why not just say so, as Jefferson did?  

Putting Freedom Back to Work

By Tom McClintock on October 28, 2011

House Chamber, Washington, D.C.
October 26, 2011
M. Speaker:

The government’s continuing failure to address our nation’s gut-wrenching unemployment stems from a fundamental disagreement over how jobs are created in the first place.  

We are now in the third year of policies predicated on the assumption that government spending creates jobs. 

We have squandered three years and trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth on such policies, and they have not worked because they cannot work.

 Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy until it has first taken that same dollar OUT of the economy.