They're Just Charts, People

The Tax Plan we all want.

 

People gotta eat right?

 

Job Gains & Losses

 

 Welfare Spending or

Just give them money and they'll shut up.

 

I'm sure Nancy, Princess of Pineapples could explain this.

Right Your Highness?

We won't deny that Obama has set several records in the past 4 years:

US Unemployment rates

 And in case you're wondering why gas is at 3.75 a gallon:

I Thought Unions Were About Protecting Jobs

Obama's Attack on Private Industry

You might think that a U.S. company's decision to expand its manufacturing facilities and create 1,000 new jobs here at home -- rather than overseas -- would be hailed by the Obama Administration as a step in the right direction, especially with nine percent unemployment. You'd be wrong. Instead, President Barack Obama's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is doing all it can to throw a wrench in the machinery of private industry.

The story begins with Boeing Corporation's decision to build a new assembly plant in Charleston, South Carolina, in order to produce the 787 Dreamliner, the company's fastest selling airliner. (To date, Boeing has 800 planes on order.) The NLRB, which is charged with remedying unfair labor practices, got wind of the decision and last month filed a complaint against Boeing, alleging that the company decided to build the plant in South Carolina out of retaliation for union strikes at its Washington state facilities.

Those locations have caused difficulties for Boeing. The International Association of Machinists (IAM) regularly goes on strike during contract negotiations, causing Boeing to miss orders and costing it billions in lost business. Boeing considered building its new plant in Washington, but the IAM refused to sign a long-term no-strike agreement. That played a role in Boeing's decision to expand into South Carolina, a right-to-work state with a good business and tax climate, as Heritage's Rea Hederman, Jr., and James Sherk explain.

The NLRB's actions are drawing strong criticism from Republicans in the U.S Senate. "It's clearly outside of the authority of this federal government to be threatening and bullying and trying to intimidate companies like Boeing who should have the freedom to locate their plants anywhere they want. It's intimidation," Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said Wednesday. DeMint joined with 18 senators in writing a letter to the president last week condemning the NLRB's complaint:
We consider this an attack on millions of workers in 22 right-to-work states, as well as a government-led act of intimidation against American companies that should have the freedom to choose to build plants in right-to-work states.

If the NLRB prevails, it will only encourage companies to make their investments in foreign nations, moving jobs and economic growth overseas. America will not win the future if Washington penalizes workers in states that have discovered winning economic strategies.

But in a White House where the cozy relationship between big labor and big government couldn't be any closer, the NLRB's moves are just the Obama administration's latest effort to come to the defense of the union machine. And it's also a direct shot at private industry's freedom to make fundamental business decisions, which has serious consequences for the U.S. economy.

Hederman and Sherk write:
If the Obama Administration succeeds, it will chill business investment. Unions raise business costs and discourage employers from investing and expanding. Studies consistently show that unionized employers create fewer jobs than non-union employers. Forcing businesses to invest in states with bad business climates will cause them to scale back their investments. It might create a few more jobs for union members, but will mean fewer jobs and higher unemployment in the economy overall.

President Obama has remained silent on the issue, with a White House official maintaining that the NLRB's complaint is an "independent agency's enforcement action." Governor Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) isn't satisfied and has a pointed question for the president, as National Review Online reports.

I want to ask him why he is allowing unelected bureaucrats to come in and do the unions' dirty work on the backs of our businesses . . . It's hurting the jobs in South Carolina and every other right-to-work state. He owes us an answer."The answer to Haley's question can be found in the Obama-big labor alliance. If the Obama NLRB prevails, it will have struck a significant blow against right-to-work states by significantly expanding labor's ability to dictate where companies do business, all while solidifying their base of political power. The losers, unfortunately, will be private industry, job seekers and the U.S. economy.

There Is Only One Solution

DRILL BABY DRILL!!!!

How Obama Is Making Gas Prices Higher

Yesterday, for the first time since September 2008, the price of a barrel of crude oil topped $100 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. But while the recent unrest in the Middle East has had some marginal effect on rising prices, the most significant factor has been increased oil demand worldwide. That is why, long before the recent protests even began, analysts were predicting $4 a gallon by this summer and $5 a gallon by 2012. Anyone could have predicted that the recovering world economy, coupled with the continued growth of India and China, was going to push oil prices higher. So if an Administration wanted to keep gas prices down, they could have mitigated increased oil demand by increasing domestic oil production. But that is not what the Obama Administration has done. Instead of increasing domestic oil supplies, the Obama Administration has cut them at every opportunity, and Americans are now suffering because of those choices.

Back in February, when the protests in Egypt were first unfolding, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked what the Administration could do to combat rising world oil prices. Chu responded: "The best way America can protect itself against these incidents is to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, in fact to diversify our supply." It is now one month later and the Administration has not updated its talking points. Pressed on gas prices yesterday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "We are also, as you have seen over the past two-plus years, very focused on the need precisely to develop other energy sources so that we are not as dependent on foreign oil as we have been in the past." So what are these "other energy sources" the White House has been developing? How does the White House plan to "diversify supply" to reduce gas prices? The answers are corn, wind, sun, and electric cars. And they won't help a bit.

According to Heritage analysts Nick Loris and John Ligon, Obama’s energy policy consists of: increased biofuel production, increased electric vehicle production, and increased renewable power production. These are all terrible public policies. The major source of biomass production, corn-based ethanol, produces less energy per unit volume than gasoline, contributes to food price increases, costs taxpayers $4 billion to produce 2 percent of the total gasoline supply, and has dubious environmental effects. The electric cars the Obama Administration has invested in are prohibitively costly, do not fit the needs of the American consumer, and are also environmentally suspect. The other sources of energy the Obama Administration is subsidizing and promoting—wind and solar—not only make up a minuscule 1 percent of America’s electricity generation but are entirely irrelevant to gasoline supply in the transportation sector.But not only has President Obama failed to diversify our energy supply in any meaningful way; he has actually proactively moved to cut our own domestic energy supplies:

First, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah in his first month in office. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, there are 800 billion barrels (a moderate estimate) of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation, which goes through Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. This is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Then last summer, President Obama needlessly instituted not one but two outright drilling bans in the Gulf of Mexico. The Energy Information Administration estimates that President Obama’s offshore drilling ban will cut domestic offshore oil production by 13 percent this year.

Last fall, Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic coast, and the Pacific coast will not be developed, effectively banning drilling in those areas for the next seven years. At least 19 billion barrels of easily recoverable oil lie off the currently restricted Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

President Obama has also failed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lie beneath a few thousand acres that can be accessed with minimal environmental impact. Those 10 billion barrels are equivalent to 16 years’ worth of imports from Saudi Arabia at the current rate.

"The Obama Administration is repeating the mistakes of President Jimmy Carter’s failed energy policies, which marred his term and stigmatized the 1970s. They are leading us straight into another national energy disaster," Steve Forbes warned in Politico yesterday. And what would that "energy disaster" cost the American people? According to The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, an increase in the per-barrel price of imported crude oil by $10 in the first quarter of 2011 and by $20 in the second quarter would reduce gross domestic product by $20 billion, drop potential employment by nearly 100,000 jobs, and increase gasoline prices by 18 cents per gallon in 2011 alone.Yesterday, Carney said that "the president is extremely aware of the impact that a spike in oil prices can have on gasoline prices and therefore on the wallets and pocketbooks of average Americans."

If that is true, and if Energy Secretary Chu really has recanted his belief that Americans ought to be paying $8 a gallon for gas, then the President must completely reverse his entire energy policy so far by allowing Americans to develop our own natural resources, issuing permits in a timely manner, and removing regulatory and litigation delays on energy projects.

Heritage Morning Bell-The Patriot Act

Read today's Heritage Web Memo:

Letting PATRIOT Act Provisions Expire Would Be Irresponsible

Patriot Act Facts

Last night, despite a strong majority vote in favor of the bill, the House of Representatives fell seven votes short of the two-thirds they needed to suspend the rules and pass three key counterterrorism amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Many of the headlines you will read today will say things like “Patriot Act Extension Fails in House,” but the reality is that much of the PATRIOT Act was already permanently enacted.

Of the three amendments to FISA at issue in last night’s vote, two were part of the original PATRIOT Act, one was part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and all are set to expire at the end of this month.Eight of the 26 Republican no votes came from freshmen who, Politico reports, “felt completely uniformed by their leadership.” Representative Todd Rokita (R–IN), who voted for the bill, even told Politico that he “didn’t know anything about [the vote] until today.”

The three amendments voted on last night have been extensively modified over the years and now include significant new safeguards, including substantial court oversight.

They include:

Roving Surveillance Authority: Roving wiretaps have been used routinely by domestic law enforcement in standard criminal cases since the mid-1980s. However, national security agents did not have this garden-variety investigative tool until the passage of the PATRIOT Act in 2001. Section 206 of the PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement, after approval from the FISA court, to track a suspect as he moves from cell phone to cell phone. The government must first prove that there is “probable cause” to believe that the target is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. It further requires continuous monitoring by the FISA court and substantial reporting requirements to that Court by the government.

Business Record Orders: Domestic law enforcement, working with local prosecutors, routinely rely on business records through the course of their investigations, oftentimes through the use of a subpoena. However, national security agents did not have the same authority to acquire similar evidence prior to the passage of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. This provision allows law enforcement, with approval from the FISA court, to require disclosure of documents and other records from businesses and other institutions (third parties) without a suspect’s knowledge. The third-party recipients of 215 orders can even appeal any order to the FISA court.

The Lone Wolf Provision: Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act allows law enforcement to track non-U.S. citizens acting alone to commit acts of terrorism that are not connected to an organized terrorist group or other foreign power. While the FBI has confirmed that this section has never actually been used, it needs to be available if the situation arises where a lone individual may seek to do harm to the United States.

At least 36 known terrorist plots have been foiled since 9/11. The United States continues to face a serious threat of terrorism. National security investigators continue to need the above authorities to track down terror leads and dismantle plots before the public is any danger. Opponents of these provisions have produced little evidence of any PATRIOT Act misuse. All of the provisions above are subject to routine oversight by both the FISA court and Congress, and no single provision of the PATRIOT Act has ever been found unconstitutional. Congress should not let the sunset provisions expire and should instead seek permanent authorization.

Something We Need To Watch Closely

Treat this as you would a poisonous snake in your backyard: as soon as you see it, take the hoe and chop off its head. Its the only way to be sure.

The Left’s Plan to Impose a Value-Added Tax and Why It Won’t Work for America

Liberals are finally facing up to the fact that their big-spending ways are leading to growing deficits. But they still insist that the right solution is to raise taxes to cover their profligate spending rather than living within our means.One proposal is to implement a European-style value-added tax on consumption on top of the income tax. This new tax, Heritage’s J.D. Foster explains, would “hammer private savings for an extended period as individuals and families slash their saving rates to sustain current consumption in light of the VAT’s higher prices.”

A new analysis from Heritage tax expert Curtis Dubay explains how the VAT really works and why it is wrong for America. He also debunks several myths about the VAT: that it would increase savings rates and investment; that it would boost economic growth; that it would promote exports; and that it would allow lower income taxes.

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell

If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Harry Reid engineer this massive a tax increase in a faltering economy, they will join two Republicans -- Reed Smoot of Utah and Willis Hawley of Oregon -- in the pantheon of economic fools. Before they do so, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid should consider that history has still not forgiven their predecessors for the Smoot-Hawley tariff that led to the Great Depression.

Liberals Leave The Reservation

Any piece of legislation must be both constitutional and improve the condition of the American people. When President Obama and Congressional Republicans first announced their tax deal early last week, our reaction was to hold our noses against its bad elements; on balance, we thought the extension of the current tax rates was laudable. Now, however, the full text of the bill has been released and we see all the bad things that were in the original deal. Meanwhile, liberals in Congress are walking away even from that deal, and are holding the country hostage to their hatred of those they call “the rich.” The tax cut deal, we now know, has been so freighted with liberal special interest tax giveaways that true conservatives cannot support it in good faith.

Morning Bell-Heritage Foundation

Remember Doodad Pro and Good Will.

Who wants to prove a negative?

If You Cant Beat Them, Silence Them

The President is not interested in educating the American people by making everyone disclose their donations. He is only interested in silencing his opponents. That is why unions were specifically exempted from the DISCLOSE Act as were a slew of other interest groups.

On Face the Nation this Sunday, CBS host Bob Schieffer confronted White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod about a New York Times article showing that White House charges of "secret foreign money" "stealing our democracy" were completely baseless. Schieffer asked: "If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?"

Axelrod went on to contend that it is the responsibility of those the White House accuses to prove they aren't breaking the law. This morning, NBC's Chuck Todd described Axelrod's answer as "McCarthy-esque" on Daily Rundown.

Yes. Baseless charges about foreigners stealing democracy is the best the left can do. Their policies have completely failed and they are afraid of being held accountable. The President's response is to try and use the power of the federal government to deter all dissent. If there is a threat to our democracy in this election, it is not coming from the Chamber of Commerce.

A Message From The Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Pledge
My fellow conservatives,
The stakes couldn’t be higher for our nation at this moment. In the coming months, Americans will help choose which direction our nation’s future will take. Will the federal government continue to spend more, tax more, control more, and defend our liberties less? Or will we choose a new and bolder direction that returns power to the people? All indications are that we are approaching one of those pivotal moments in our political history, a tipping point. It will be a test of our national character.

Like many Americans, we here at The Heritage Foundation are not concerned with party labels or affiliations. We are motivated by principles and by the best policies that will advance and defend those principles in the public square. We are unabashedly conservative, because we work to conserve an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish.So whatever composition we see in our next Congress, we want to see majorities that represent the consent of the governed and that will take control of our presently unlimited government. We intend to leave to our children and grandchildren an America even better than the one we inherited from our forebears.

In its “Pledge to America,” the Republican Party last week offered its own vision for America’s future. The pledge is a step in the right direction and rightly frames the debate around our core first principles and the role of the state, popular consent and self-government.We have ourselves produced a set of recommendations that we think will heal much of what ails our country. We call them “Solutions for America.”

We’re happy that some proposals in the Pledge mirror proposals we have in Solutions for America. Both of these plans are headed in the right direction. But we want to be even bolder.Our Solutions for America is an overarching blueprint for governing. It’s designed to replace the failed policies of the liberal establishment with solid conservative solutions that will shrink government, reduce debt, keep taxes low, put Americans back to work and keep us safe.

Solutions for America identifies the nature and scope of our most pressing problems in 23 policy areas and recommends 128 specific policy solutions to guide the new Congress. Here are some of our ideas:

Cap Federal Spending:
President Obama’s proposed budget would increase the national debt from $13 trillion now to $20 trillion by 2020. This is an unsustainable trajectory. We propose a “binding cap” that forces lawmakers back to fiscal sanity.

Put Entitlement Programs Under the Budget:
We propose putting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid into the congressional budget process rather than continue to allow them to grow on auto-pilot without oversight. Lawmakers would establish a five-year budget for these programs and include triggers to keep spending with approved limits.

Reform Social Security:
We should raise the Social Security retirement age and encourage people to work longer by eliminating payroll taxes for those over the retirement age. This would lessen the burden on employers to keep people employed and lessen the burden on Medicare and other entitlements.

Revive Federalism:
We must reverse the current trend in which the federal government more and more usurps the traditional state role in areas such as transportation, education, health, homeland security and law enforcement.

Loan Welfare Money to Able Bodied Recipients:
Our plan advises treating welfare assistance to able-bodied adults as a loan to be repaid, rather than a free gift from taxpayers. This will reduce dependency while providing temporary help to those who need it.

Keep Taxes Low:
First, no tax increases, including the planned Obama Tax Hikes as well as the reintroduction of the Death Tax. Instead, cut taxes to spur economic growth.

Implement a Pro-Growth, Pro-Jobs Strategy:
We must reduce the top tax rate on corporate earnings, which is currently the second highest among ALL industrial nations, and let businesses immediately deduct investments in new plants and equipment.

Peace Through Strength:
Defense spending is near historical lows. We must refurbish our armed forces, especially our depleted Navy fleet and vital missile defenses.

These are just some of the many policy recommendations we include in Solutions for America. Please go read the entire document at Heritage.org. Share it with your friends and encourage them to join the debate, whether it is by going to a Heritage event, liking us on Facebook, or signing up for The Morning Bell.

Every action you take towards a brighter future for America is – like the Pledge and Solutions for America – a step in the right direction.Now is the time to be bold, and to act as befits our character. That is what our parents and grandparents would expect of us, what future generations demand—and what The Heritage Foundation offers to America. Thank you.

Its a Dessert Topping, Its a Floor Wax

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell

The New York Times confirmed Friday that in preparation for defending constitutionality of the Obamacare individual mandate in court, an Obama Justice Department legal brief argues that the penalty used to enforce the mandate is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes. Mr. Obama’s own Justice Department further repudiates the President’s earlier statement by noting that the penalty is imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code, people must report it on their tax returns, and that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will cost Americans $4 billion a year. Yale Law School professor Jack Balkin told a meeting of progressive activists last month that President Obama “has not been honest with the American people about the nature of this bill. This bill is a tax.”

The fact that the Obama administration and their allies are now admitting the individual mandate is a tax betrays their very real fear that the Supreme Court could find Obamacare’s individual mandate unconstitutional. In the bill itself, Congress identified the Commerce Clause as the source of their authority to force all Americans to buy health insurance. But as our legal team has made imminently clear, the mandate does not purport to regulate or prohibit commerce of any kind. To the contrary, it purports to “regulate”—and penalize—inactivity. If the Supreme Court allows the Obamacare individual mandate to stand, then Congress could do anything it wanted. They could: require us to buy a new Chevy Impala each year to support the government-supported auto industry; require us to buy war bonds to pay for the Iraq and Afghan wars; or force us to eat our vegetables.

Heritage Morning Bell-Healthcare and Rules of Reporting

Red Tape Rising

Just three days after President Barack Obama's health plan was signed into law, AT&T announced that due to an obscure tax change in the bill, the nation's largest telephone company would take a $1 billion hit to its bottom line this quarter. According to health benefits analysts this tax law modification would shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits. While it would have been better had these tax losses been made more public before Congress voted, at least these tax charges are transparent and easily quantifiable enough to get noticed by the American people. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the hundreds of new regulations that the federal government will enforce as it tries to implement Obama's redistributionist health agenda.

In addition to the federal government's explicit taxes and spending, Americans are also burdened with a slew of hidden taxes imposed by an ever-increasing number of regulations. More than 50 agencies have a hand in federal regulatory policy, enforcing more than 150,000 pages of rules. Many of these regulations provide needed benefits. Most Americans would agree on the need for security regulations to protect citizens from terrorist attacks, although the extent and scope of those rules may be subject to debate. But each regulation comes at a cost--a "regulatory tax" imposed on all Americans. According to a 2005 study commissioned by the Small Business Administration, the cost of all regulations then on the books was some $1.1 trillion per year.

Worse than the existing size of our country's regulatory burden, is the pace at which it has been growing. Contrary to what most liberals and media elites would have you believe, President George Bush had a decidedly mixed record on regulation. While he should be praised for strengthening the role of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in screening new regulations, by every objectively measurable metric the size and scope of the regulatory state grew significantly under his tenure. And President Bush's last years in office were his worst. In 2008 36 major regulations were enacted by the Bush administration, and in 2009 some $15 billion in new regulatory costs were imposed on the American people.

President Bush doesn't deserve all the blame for that $15 billion in new costs for 2009. About $4.4 billion is attributable to regulations approved by the Obama administration. While that may seem like a significant decrease, it is actually an ominous sign when put in context. Regulatory activity always increases near the end of a presidency and is slower at the beginning. So in President Bush's first year, he enacted only one major rule and he was in his third year in office before the new regulatory costs he inflicted on the American people hit President Obama's one-year $4 billion mark. And that $4 billion does not yet include all the regulations for Obamacare. Or all of the regulations Obama's EPA wants to pass under the Clean Air Act. Or any of the new financial regulations that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) want to inflict on the American people.

There are some things Congress can do now to help better manage the onslaught of federal regulations. First the authority and scope of OIRA should be protected. Establishing a sunset date for all new regulations would also help. But ultimately things will not change for the better until policymakers exercise the will and resolve to guard against the deluge.

As Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked last week: "If Congress can't control what a few mortgage finance bureaucrats do with your dollars, why would anyone trust Congress to control what tens of thousands of bureaucrats will do with your health? ... Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power ... or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?"

DWW-Driving While White

One Nation Under Arrest

Before President Barack Obama took over the White House, no United States citizen had ever been forced by the federal government to buy a product against their will. But now, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, Americans, by dint of their mere existence, are now required to purchase Obama administration approved health insurance or face a penalty assessed through the Internal Revenue Code. This is simply unprecedented. The income tax doesn't kick in until an American earns income. Auto liability insurance doesn't become mandated until an American chooses to drive (and even then it's only by the state). And farmers must first grow food before they are subject to the regulations of the Department of Agriculture.

But facing federal government sanction for simply breathing? That is a troubling assault on American liberty.

Obamacare is just the latest example of the growing reach of the federal government into all aspects of our lives. While the final bill passed by Congress specifically made the noncompliance with an IRS individual mandate penalty not a crime, far too often when the spotlight of American attention is not focused on an issue, Congress has gone ahead and criminalized what was once before perfectly normal behavior. Consider, for example, small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, whose story is recounted by Heritage fellows Brian Walsh and Hans von Spakovsky:

In May 2004, FBI agents driving a black Suburban and wearing SWAT gear ran Evertson off the road near his mother's home in Wasilla, Alaska. When Evertson was face down on the pavement with automatic weapons trained on him, an FBI agent told him he was being arrested because he hadn't put a federally mandated sticker on a UPS package.

A jury in federal court in Alaska acquitted Evertson, but the feds weren't finished. They reached into their bag of over 4,500 federal crimes and found another ridiculous crime they could use to prosecute him: supposedly "abandoning" hazardous waste (actually storing, in appropriate containers, valuable materials he was using for the clean-fuel technology he was developing). A second jury convicted him, and he spent 21 months in an Oregon federal prison

Putting the wrong stamp on a package. Storing your own property own your own land. When did these actions become federal crimes? Why? How can we stop them?

A new book launched yesterday and published by The Heritage Foundation answers these questions. One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty documents how over the past 50 years the politicization of American criminal law and practice has created traps for millions of innocent and unwary Americans and threatens to make criminals out of those who are just doing their best to be respectable, law abiding citizens.

In 1998, an American Bar Association task force estimated that there were over 3,000 federal criminal offenses scattered throughout the 50 titles of the United States Code. Just six years later, that number is estimated to be over 4,000 and Columbia law professor John Coffee estimates that the federal government could use the criminal process to enforce as many as 300,000 federal regulations.

Lavrentiy Beria, the chief of the Soviet security and secret police under Stalin reputedly said, "Show me the man, and I'll find you the crime." Our country is by no means a Soviet police state yet, but a federal government empowered with a sprawling code that makes all of us potential criminals is more than just an existential threat to American Liberty. This overcriminalization trend must end. Become informed. Learn the issues. Buy the book. And fight back.

Morning Bell-Undermining National Security

A START towards Undermining Our Nuclear Security

Yesterday the Kremlin announced that the Obama administration and Russia had reached agreement on a new nuclear arms agreement intended to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

The declaration appeared to surprise the White House, as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs could only confirm that the two sides were "close" to a treaty. But U.S. officials confirm that "all major obstacles" in negotiations with Moscow have been cleared.Russian approval of a new START agreement has been the cornerstone of President Barack Obama's "long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons" policy. President Obama's desire to appease Russia is why he began negotiations by unilaterally surrendering to Kremlin demands that the United States betray our Czech Republic and Polish allies by going back on our promise to build ballistic missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe.

Russians took President Obama's easy and early capitulation on missile defense as a sign of naivete and weakness and concluded that the Obama administration was far more desperate for a new nuclear treaty than they were and, as The Los Angeles Times reports, "used that fact in negotiations."

The full text of the new agreement has not been released, but early reports indicate that it will not adequately address three key issues and would therefore compromise U.S. national security:

Verification: The Russians have a long and well documented history of violating arms control agreements. By focusing intently on the reduction in each nation’s strategic arsenal, the U.S. has lost some negotiating ground on the issue of verification. The Senate must ensure that the new treaty is adequately verifiable. There is no reason to sign the treaty if the verification mechanisms fall by the wayside.

Nuclear Modernization: Some arms control advocates insist that the U.S. has a robust nuclear modernization program. This claim is simply inaccurate. The truth is that America’s nuclear infrastructure is rapidly aging, in deep atrophy, and is losing its reliability and effectiveness. The U.S. is not producing new nuclear weapons, and its ICBM force is shrinking and not being modernized. In contrast, Russia and China are engaged in a major modernization effort. On December 16, 41 U.S. Senators voiced their concerns and signed a letter saying they will oppose the new treaty if it does not include specific plans for U.S. nuclear modernization as stipulated in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Missile Defense: It is absolutely imperative that a new START agreement not undermine our post-Cold War defensive posture by linking offensive weapons with missile defense. But early reports indicate that the treaty does exactly that. The New York Times reports: "Administration officials describing the draft treaty said its preamble recognized the relationship between offensive weapons and missile defense, but that the language was not binding." But the Times goes on to quote retired major general Vladimir Dvorkin who says Moscow will scrap the treaty if the U.S. pursues missile defense: "If, for example, the U.S. unilaterally deploys considerable amounts of missile defense, then Russia has the right to withdraw from the agreement because the spirit of the preamble has been violated."

The Obama Administration's arms control strategy has been deeply flawed. It is based on outdated 1970s arms control strategy and 1960s idealism and naivete. It will not work because it does not account for Russian nuclear strategy, which is based on approximate parity between the two sides, Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), denial of missile defenses to the U.S., and nuclear warfighting capability.

The U.S. needs to reset the reset before the Obama administration is allowed to seriously undermine our national security.

Morning Bell - Undermining the Rule of Law

Congress vs. The American People

Another day, two new polls showing the American people are strongly against the health care plan President Barack Obama will sign into law today. According to CNN, 59% of Americans oppose President Obama's plan. And according to CBS News, 48% of Americans oppose the plan (with 33% in strong opposition) compared to only 37% who support it (with only 13% in strong support). Digging deeper into the CBS poll, we find that 76% of Americans disapprove of how Congress is handling its job on health care, 46% think Congress has spent too much time on health care, and 49% believe the rules and procedures used in Congress to get the current health care bill passed have been mostly unfair.

But the leftist majorities in Congress just do not care what the American people think. Today, the Senate will press forward with work on the proposed "fix-it" bill through the reconciliation process. You may have thought it was impossible to make the policy and process of Obamacare even worse, but that is exactly what this reconciliation bill does:

Abuse of Process:
According to the Congressional Research Service, 19 reconciliation measures have been enacted into law since the procedure’s first use in the Carter administration. The record shows that reconciliation has been used for virtually all imaginable scenarios — save one: There is no precedent for using it to enact a once-in-a-generation rewrite of the relationship between Americans and their government that appeals exclusively to one side of the aisle. But that is exactly what Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is attempting to do. According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, a plurality of the American people strongly oppose this procedural tactic for this highly unpopular policy.

Even Higher Deficits:
According to the Congressional Budget Office, new entitlement spending in the reconciliation bill would cost $216 billion in 2019 alone and will increase by 8% every year after that. Now, the Democrats will tell you that the CBO has also said their plan raises enough taxes and cuts enough Medicare to pay for this gigantic new entitlement. But the CBO is obligated by law to believe whatever Congress tells them. The American people are not. According to the latest NBC/WSJ poll, 76% of the American people do not trust Congress. That is why, according to the latest CNN poll, 70% of the American people believe Obamacare will cause the federal budget deficit to go up.

Even Higher Taxes on Business:
As bad as the employer mandates in the Senate health bill were, the taxes on businesses in the reconciliation bill are even worse. Companies that hire certain low-income Americans will have to pay $3,000 per employee, per year, even if the company offers insurance. And companies that employ 50 or more workers will face higher tax penalties to the tune of $2,000 per full-time employee.

New Taxes on Investments:
Investment is what creates job growth. One would think at a time of 9.7% unemployment, the government would not want to increase taxes on investment. Not this leftist government. The reconciliation bill slaps a 3.8% tax on investment income.

Cornhusker Kickbacks for All:
You may have heard that the reconciliation bill "got rid of" the Cornhusker Kickback. That is not quite true. What it really did is extend the additional Medicaid funding Nebraska got to every state. But to keep the new entitlement spending deficit neutral, the new Medicaid funding creates a fiscal time bomb for states by vastly cutting Medicaid reimbursements in 2015. This reconciliation will only further strain already bankrupt state governments.

A Government Takeover Preview:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has already announced he will vote against the reconciliation bill because of the government takeover of the student loan industry that Democrats tacked onto the health care bill in order to help pay for the new entitlement. The student loan debacle is unfortunately just a preview of the direction the left wants to see health care go. The government first justified subsidizing student loans in the Clinton administration by saying it would make college more affordable. The opposite happened. College costs have only skyrocketed, just like health care costs will only sky rocket under this bill. So now this reconciliation bill is completely nationalizing the student loan industry. Unless the direction of health care policy changes, our health care sector will not be far behind.

Intolerable Acts - Round 2

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell-Round 2

Repeal!!!!!!

Fellow Americans,

Late last night, in a narrow and partisan vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the most significant piece of social legislation in over seven decades. It did so in the face of overwhelming and principled opposition from the American people. Large majorities of Americans oppose this legislation because it offends the historic American dedication to the principle of self-government. They understand that this new law will accelerate Washington's intrusion into our most personal and private decisions.

This is why opposition to this bill will only grow. Supporters of this bill argue that popular hostility will recede upon its passage. But, rather than cementing our descent into a European-style welfare state, last night’s passage of Obamacare is best seen as a historic turning point, a true catalyst for real change.

I write to reassure our supporters, the conservative movement, and the American people at large that The Heritage Foundation will do all within its power to keep this issue alive in the public square and make the intellectual case for the repeal of this act. We will bring all our resources to bear on behalf of those who believe America is and will always remain the Land of the Free.

This, rest assured, can be done. The American people are never permanently thwarted. President Obama's health care legislation can and will be repealed.

Those who supported this bill are our fellow Americans, and we do not question their good will or patriotism. In public policy, however, good intentions alone do not suffice. And let there be no mistake, our philosophical differences with supporters of this bill are profound. The reason government-run health care has been the holy grail of the left for decades is that liberals realize as much as we do that it is a giant step toward the creation of a European-style welfare state.

This is an evolution Americans have always resisted because it is alien to our national character.If there is one good thing about the past year—one in which we have witnessed unprecedented horse-trading, press stunts, midnight votes and political manipulation in both houses of the U.S. Congress—it is that the American people have come away educated as never before about the differences between these two visions for America. Americans are strongly opposed to this bill not because they have been hoodwinked but because they understand this bill both in its particulars and at an instinctive, gut level.

They understand this health care bill forces individuals and employers to buy insurance policies designed by government bureaucrats. This intrusion is intended to follow us from cradle to grave.Instead of empowering families and individuals to make their own choices, Obamacare empowers the bureaucracy to make those decisions for them. It is this unelected bureaucracy, unanswerable to the electorate, that will determine the content of health benefits packages, including medical treatment and procedures, and how much will be paid for those services. Yesterday’s legislation brings us one step closer to fully government-run medicine, with expanded government power over the financing and delivery of medical services that is sure to ration care in the name of cost control.

You will hear the left say this new entitlement will be popular with the American people. Do not believe them for a second. Yes, 32 million people will gain the theoretical right to health insurance. But over half of that coverage comes from placing at least 16 million more Americans into Medicaid, an unpopular and overextended welfare program that already rations care.

Americans will not stand for it. The American love for liberty prevailed in our founding, and will prevail once again.

In December of 1773, to protest unjust taxation, a group of American colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor. The punishment for that first Tea Party was a series of intrusive laws passed by Parliament that were so oppressive that they could only be described as the "Intolerable Acts."

Obamacare is today's Intolerable Act. And just as the colonists banded together to enact change after those acts were passed, so should America respond to Obamacare. This law must be repealed.Much of the fight against this bill will be led by the individual states, a process we encourage. All told, 33 states have already taken steps to challenge various aspects of Obamacare, including its unprecedented mandate that every American purchase health insurance or face a steep penalty for noncompliance. Four additional States will have this question on the ballot in November.

On Capitol Hill, the initial battle over Obamacare will occur when Congress considers whether to fund the tens of thousands of new federal bureaucrats necessary to implement the new law. In the tradition of the Hyde amendment, which prevented federal funding for abortions through annual limitations appended to appropriations bills, conservatives should look to the appropriations process as our first line of defense. Straightforward funding limitations would prevent any Administration official or any bureaucrat from implementing the law.

Our health care system requires reform, and we have long advocated measures to improve our system. We can and should strengthen the ability of American families to choose the coverage they want, rather than giving that power to Congress and its agency bureaucrats. We can also spur competition and choice to bring efficiency and lower costs to the health system, in place of the bill’s deadening regulation and damaging price controls. And, above all, we should foster state innovation rather than Washington-based central planning.But such reforms can only be considered once this tragedy of arrogance has been fully and completely repealed.

Fortunately, there are no permanent victories or defeats in Washington. For millions of Americans and for Heritage, Round One of this fight is over. Today, the Heritage Foundation is answering the bell for Round Two. Join our fight; become a part of our mission. Help us educate our lawmakers, as well as those who aspire to become tomorrow’s lawmakers. Together we can make the persuasive case for repeal of this Intolerable Act and thereby return us to our American destiny.

Onward!

Sincerely,

Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.

President The Heritage Foundation

Morning Bell - Undermining the Rule of Law

As Meese and Barr so eloquently state, the citizens of this Nation are paying attention and we are concerned about the direction the current Congress and administration is taking. I have faith that the citizens woud never knowingly submit to socialist rule, but I also have enough cynicism built up to know that incremental implementation of socialist programs will ultimately result in a total and complete takeover of American society and we will no longer be the United States of America; and that will be the end of western civilization.

This Process is Undermining the Rule of Law

This week, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal released poll results that are disturbing but by no means surprising. The March 11th - 14th poll of 1000 American adults showed that only 17% of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing in Washington. And as bad as that number is, the reason why Congress' approval rating is so low is even more disturbing: a full 76% of Americans simply do not trust the U.S. Congress.

This was the lowest level of trust for any representative entity tested by NBC/WSJ. It is no coincidence that these record low ratings come amid current debate over health care in Congress. Yesterday, former U.S. Attorneys General Edwin Meese III and William P. Barr released the following statement:

The convoluted and questionable method under discussion by both Houses of Congress for final passage of the long-debated health care legislation raises serious constitutional concerns, which, at best, will lead to protracted and wholly avoidable litigation and continued doubt about the bill’s validity.

Members of Congress from both parties have criticized the use of such sleights of hand, and The Washington Post has rightly editorialized against such “unseemly” and “dodgy” maneuvers for the health care bill. Beyond the obvious practical concerns shared by all citizens, the use of such obscure “rules” for final passage is even harder to justify in light of the real constitutional doubt and the erosion of public confidence in government that it will cause.

Contrary to what President Obama and some congressional leaders have been repeating of late, the American people do care passionately that the process for consideration of health care reform be both constitutional and fair.

At a bare minimum, article I, sec. 7, cl. 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires that before it becomes law “(1) a bill containing its exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives; (2) the Senate approved precisely the same text; and (3) that text was signed into law by the President.” Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417, 448 (1998).

The “deem and pass” and similar options under consideration in the House of Representatives plainly violate at least the spirit of the Constitution’s bicameralism and presentment requirements. Those constitutional requirements were intended to
ensure democratic transparency with a straightforward up-or-down vote in each house on all bills that become law. More importantly, these requirements were designed to ensure that the new national government actually followed “the consent of the governed,” which the Declaration of Independence had declared to the world was the only basis of legitimate government.

The “deem and pass” options under consideration in the House and the subsequent use of a “reconciliation” process that is reserved for budget issues in acts already signed into law further erode confidence in the rule of law. Some past uses of the “deem and pass” or “self-executing” rules raise similar concerns, but none was as convoluted as the proposed use, and significantly, there may have been no one with legal standing to challenge prior uses in court. Many individuals will have standing to challenge any health reform legislation that restructures one-sixth of the American economy, and the contemplated use of the “deem and pass” maneuver in this instance may be combined with questionable procedural steps in the Senate that render it much more subject to challenge.

There is no need to engage in such procedural machinations, and no asserted reason for doing so exists other than to avoid the traditional legislative safeguards in the
Senate and to obscure the appearance that Members of the House actually voted for the Senate bill, which is a prerequisite for genuine reconciliation. The constitutional requirement of bicameralism should not be jettisoned under any circumstances—and certainly not for such trivial and partisan reasons.

Members of Congress take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Members should violate neither the letter nor spirit of the Constitution, especially when there is so much at stake, not only as a policy matter, but when the very legitimacy of the
legislative process is in question. Given that many parts of the underlying legislation itself raise substantial constitutional concerns, these “unseemly” and “dodgy” procedures underscore the justified concern the American people have that their elected representatives are blatantly disregarding the Constitution, and as a result, undermining the rule of law.

Slaughter on North Capitol Street

There Is No Bill But the Senate Bill

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell

Another day, another poll showing President Barack Obama's health care plan is wildly unpopular with the American people. Yesterday NBC News/The Wall Street Journal released their latest poll showing that the percentage of Americans who believe President Obama's health care plan is a bad idea (48%) is at the highest level since they started asking the question last year. Only 36% of Americans are willing to call the plan a "good idea" which is up a whole four points from the time when House Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY) wrote this about the Senate health plan:

[U]nder the Senate plan, millions of Americans will be forced into private insurance company plans, which will be subsidized by taxpayers. That alternative will do almost nothing to reform health care but will be a windfall for insurance companies. ... Supporters of the weak Senate bill say "just pass it -- any bill is better than no bill."

I strongly disagree -- a conference report is unlikely to sufficiently bridge the gap between these two very different bills. It's time that we draw the line on this weak bill and ask the Senate to go back to the drawing board. The American people deserve at least that.

The Senate health bill is so unpopular, even among House Democrats, that the leftist House leadership is desperately trying to trick the American people into believing that the House can pass the Senate bill without voting on it. Hence the Slaughter Rule which would deem the Senate bill passed at the same time the House would approve a new reconciliation bill.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was crystal clear on her motives this week telling a group of leftist bloggers: "It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know. But I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."There is one increasingly glaring problem with Pelosi's pass-the-bill-without-voting plan: it is proving impossible to draft that reconciliation bill. The Democrats first promised to unveil their new bill last Wednesday. Then Thursday. Then Friday. Then Monday. Then last night. As of this morning, still nothing. Democrats say they are waiting for a score from the Congressional Budget Office before they release their bill, but there is nothing stopping them from releasing whatever text they have now and then publicizing the CBO score when it comes back. But they are not choosing that open and transparent path.

As we reported last week, getting a CBO score consistent with reconciliation is going to be very difficult. According to House rules, a reconciliation measure must reduce the deficit by at least $2 billion over five years compared to existing law. In this case, however, "existing law" would be the yet-to-be-passed Senate bill. And all of the changes Democrats want to make to the Senate bill (scaling back the tax on high-end health insurance policies; closing the Medicare D loophole; boosting insurance subsidies; increasing Medicaid payments; and expanding the Cornhusker Kickback to all) either increase spending or decrease revenue. Which means the Democrats have to identify new revenues to make the CBO score work. And as Congressional Quarterly reported yesterday, Democrats have not yet identified the right pay-fors to game the CBO right. That is why House Leadership has not unveiled their new bill yet: they can't figure out how to pay for it.

Not that it really matters if they ever do. The reconciliation bill is never going to become law. The Senate will never pass it. They have no reason to. The Senate likes the existing Senate bill. That's why it's called "the Senate bill" ... they are the ones who passed it. The White House also likes the Senate bill. As soon as the House passes it, President Obama will sign it and then leave for Asia. That's it. Obamacare will be, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs promised last Sunday, "the law of the land." After the Senate bill is law, what could possibly motivate the White House, let alone the Senate, to ever pick up the yet-to-be-written House reconciliation bill?

This is why the White House political machine is pulling out all the stops to get the House to pass the toxic Senate bill. Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Donna Brazile is actively encouraging primary challenges to Democrats who vote against the Senate bill. One House Democrat aide tells Politico: “We’re having donors, even donors outside of our district, that are being called and asked to urge support." For her part Speaker Pelosi is relishing the bare knuckle fight telling reporters yesterday: "I never stop whipping. There’s no beginning, there’s no middle, and there’s no end." Let's just hope her members remember which bill she's really whipping them on.

Heritage Morning Bell-Stimulus and Healthcare

"The American Public Is Not Behind This Bill"

After more than a year of $862 billion dollar deficit stimulus bills, national-debt-doubling federal budgets, and government takeovers of the auto industry, it is difficult to remember that President Barack Obama actually ran as a moderate in many ways. On his way to a 53% - 46% win over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), then-Sen. Obama promised to “cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families,” expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000, and enact “a net spending cut” for the federal government. Obama promised lower taxes, a strong defense and shrinking the size of government. No wonder independents in nine states that went for President George Bush in 2000 and 2004 switched their vote to Obama in 2008 (CO, FL, IN, IA, NV, NM, NC, OH and VA). But now those independents are beginning to reassess. Public Policy Polling (a liberal polling firm) notes that Obama now has a negative approval rating in every state that he flipped from the Bush column to his in 2008.

And now President Obama has lost one of his biggest and earliest supporters on his signature issue: health care. Yesterday, when pressed on CNBC if he would be in favor of scrapping the Senate health care bill, Warren Buffett responded: "I would be." Specifically, Buffett believes that the Senate bill will not contain health care costs: "We have a health system that, in terms of cost, is really out of control, and if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So, we need something else. Unfortunately, we came up with a bill that really doesn’t attack the cost situation that much and we have to have a fundamental change." Buffett is correct on both fronts: 1) the President’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has reported that the Senate health care bill would raise national health expenditures $234 billion by 2019; and 2) our current system is completely unable to control exploding health care costs.

So why is our current system completely unable to control costs? For the same reason most Americans over-eat at buffets: when you don't have to pay for each plate of food, you usually eat more. In recent decades, the percentage of health care spending paid "out of pocket" by patients has fallen substantially, from 52% in 1965 to only 15% in 2005. Instead of patients paying for the care they receive, our system is built around a third-party payment system where the government and insurance companies are the ones who actually pay for individual medical expenses. When prices are determined through administrative procedures rather than market processes, both patients and producers are anesthetized from normal market incentives to reduce prices and spending. That is why our health care costs are rising so rapidly.

And every major pillar of Obamacare makes the third-party-payer problem worse: mandates that limit out-of-pocket spending by patients, mandates that extend the minimum benefits insurance must cover, a massive expansion of Medicaid, and lower limits on the tax deductibility of out-of-pocket spending. And the one measure that the left once pointed to as its key cost-reducing measure - the taxing of expensive health insurance plans - has been gutted and pushed back until 2018, when any honest observer knows it will never be implemented. Commenting on the state of health care reform, Buffet told CNBC yesterday:

If it was a choice today between plan A, which is what we’ve got, or plan B, what is in front of — the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill. But I would much rather see a plan C that really attacks costs. And I think that’s what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill. And we need the American public behind the bill, because it’s going to have to do some tough things.

The current system is unsustainable. We do need heath care reform. But not reform that is opposed by the vast majority of the American people and makes the core problem of the current system worse. The President should follow Buffett's advice, scrap the current bill and start over.

MyHeritage-Iran and February 11

February 9, 2010 By Amanda Reinecker
Expect the Unexpected from Iran

Iran's hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently warned that his country will deliver a harsh blow to "global arrogance" on Thursday, February 11, the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. But what on earth did he mean?

Heritage Middle East expert Jim Phillips weighs in on what Iran's latest provocation likely means. He writes:

In Ahmadinejad's twisted mind, Iran is a world power that leads a global alliance against a United States that seeks to dominate the world. Any action that signifies Iranian independence and progress on the political, military, nuclear, technological or economic fronts therefore is a blow against the United States. Ahmadinejad already has lauded the launch of an Iranian research rocket [last week] -- a "big event" and more ballistic missile tests may follow. Or perhaps an announcement on the nuclear front.

One thing seems certain: the "annual regime-supported demonstrations in support of Iran's Islamic revolution, with their customary chants of 'death to America', will not be the harsh blow that Ahmadinejad has in mind," Phillips explains.

Some signs suggest the blow will be "an announcement on the nuclear front."

Just today, Iranian officials announced that they have initiated the process for making higher-grade nuclear fuel. The Obama administration announced today that it is pushing for a new U.N. Security Council resolution targeting Iran's nuclear program more directly and firmly. But Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Fox News that, though the process would be expedited, it could take weeks. This announcement also sparked concern overseas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Iran's defiant nuclear progress with a call for "crippling sanctions [which] must be applied right now." Even Russia, which has often defended Iran, scolded the rogue country for its nuclear provocations.

Iran may be faced with a harsh blow itself, not from the free world but from within. Iran's opposition leaders and their Green Movement, who made their debut to the world during the controversial elections last summer, continue to bravely demand long-overdue reforms in Iran.

"If large numbers of Iranians demonstrate on February 11 in support of the Green Movement," writes Phillips, "that will be a harsh blow to Ahmadinejad and his thuggish regime."

» Get the latest on Iran plus all the facts at Heritage's Iran Briefing Room

Heritage Morning Bell-Stimulus and Snowjobs

Snow Slows Obama's Second Stimulus
The snowstorms that have already dumped over two feet of snow on the nation's Capitol and that are threatening to dump another 12 to 16 inches, have grounded the legislative process to a halt. But that might not be such a bad thing. Senate Democrats had hoped they could pass President Barack Obama's second stimulus today, but with only three of the Senate’s 100 lawmakers able to make it to the chamber, that vote has been postponed indefinitely. And the more we learn about what might be in President Obama's second stimulus, the better a little delay looks.

The Las Vegas Sun reported this weekend that big labor leaders are pushing to include their long-sought "card check" provisions into Obama's Second Stimulus. This legislation would effectively end a worker's right to fight unionization through secret ballot elections, would give the federal government the power to run small businesses and would cost the American economy thousands of jobs.

The other major provisions of Obama's second stimulus are also job killers. The $5,000 new worker tax credit does not create any incentive for already-struggling companies to begin long-term hiring. What's worse, it could even increase unemployment; companies would delay existing plans to create jobs so they could take advantage of the tax credit. And it would add to our national debt. Then there's the TARP-funded government-subsidized loans for small businesses. It's a big-government program destined to fail since the Small Business Administration has a terrible record of effectively allocating capital to the private sector.

For months, the American people and small businesses have been trying to tell the White House and Democrats in Congress that federal regulations and spending are part of the problem, not part of the solution. According to the latest National Federation of Independent Businesses survey, small business owners identified high taxes and government regulation as two of the top three problems facing their business.

Instead of piling on more debt and more regulations, the federal government should move in the opposite direction. For example, suspending the Davis-Bacon rules for the construction industry could fund 160,000 new jobs. Rescinding the unspent dollars from Obama's first failed stimulus would signal business owners that they will not face crippling new taxes enacted to cover the deficit. Killing the economically-devastating cap-and-trade legislation and prohibiting the EPA from regulating carbon-dioxide under the Clean Air Act would stabilize the regulatory environment so businesses could safely make long term decisions again.

There are things this Congress could do to help spur job creation. Notably, those job-creating ideas do not include more regulations and more deficit spending. Maybe a good thaw is what Washington needs to get back on the same page as the American people.