Obama’s False Choices

From theWashington Times

President Obama pretends to be a unifying figure while consistently denigrating his opponents. This lowers public discourse and makes it harder for the country to move forward as one.

The latest example of this disturbing pattern came in a column by Mr. Obama published in Sunday’s Washington Post. In the column, Mr. Obama tried to defend his failed economic “stimulus” plan, but he wasn’t content merely to argue for his own policies. Instead, he insisted on misrepresenting the motives of those who disagree with him.

“There are some who say we must wait to meet our greatest challenges,” he wrote. “They … believe that doing nothing is somehow an answer.” And later: “There will continue to be those who argue that we have to put off hard decisions.”

But who are these mysterious people who want to “do nothing” or actually “argue that we have to put off hard decisions?” This is absurd. It is similar to Mr. Obama’s repetitive use of the straw-man argument that George W. Bush administration lawyers tried to assert that we must choose “between our safety and our ideals.” Mr. Obama labeled that a “false choice,” but it was false only because nobody but Mr. Obama asserted it was a choice in the first place….

Tax as you go

From the Washington Times

President Obama said on Tuesday that “Entitlement increases and tax cuts need to be paid for. They’re not free.” To look like he’s getting tough on the deficit, he’s promoting the “pay as you go” rule, which provides a justification for raising taxes. Mr. Obama shouldn’t go there.

The proposal would require lawmakers to make up for new spending programs and tax cuts by cutting other programs or raising other taxes. The rule wouldn’t be retroactive, so it would not pay for the extravagant spending programs Mr. Obama already has introduced, such as the $787 billion stimulus bill he signed in February. The mandate wouldn’t apply to the $2.5 trillion worth of new spending priorities that the Obama administration plans to enact in the future. Steps toward nationalized health care would be exempt.

Mr. Obama has been pretending to be a deficit hawk since his presidential campaign last year. On the hustings, he continually blamed last fall’s financial crisis on the deficit, which he promised to cut by shrinking government spending. During the presidential debates, he complained of an “orgy of spending and enormous deficits” and promised to correct the costly spending cycle.

His rhetoric didn’t change after he moved into the Oval Office. Mr. Obama told C-SPAN on May 23 that “we are out of money now,” and said at a May 14 town meeting in New Mexico that our deficit spending is “unsustainable.” But the president continues to spend at record levels.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt will surge over the next 10 years from $6 trillion to $15 trillion. In 2019, debt will exceed 80 percent of the gross domestic product. For comparison, in the 2007 budget, the last fiscal year that Republicans controlled Congress and the presidency, the annual deficit was $162 billion. In 2006, it was $248 billion – and Republicans were hardly frugal. CBO’s estimated deficit for this year is $1.8 trillion, but that figure does not account for the soaring unemployment rate that took off after the calculation was made.

On April 14, Mr. Obama boasted: “Already we’ve identified $2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade.” The claim was too much for the liberal New York Times, which reported, “Three-quarters of those ‘reductions’ reflect assumptions that the nation would have had as many troops in Iraq in 10 years as it does now, even though President George W. Bush signed an agreement with Baghdad before leaving office that will result in the withdrawal of all American forces within three years.” Administration spokesmen continue to repeat this misleading figure even though the supposed savings resulted from Mr. Bush’s action, not Mr. Obama’s.

“Pay as you go” rules provide politicians with a ready excuse to raise taxes. If deficits are projected, they can point to the rule and say the law requires them to compensate for the revenue shortfall. Spending cuts are a better way to fill budget gaps, but it’s never easy to pry nickels and dimes from profligate politicians, let alone billions. Mr. Obama’s “pay as you go” proposal opens the door to massive new taxation to pay for out-of-control government spending – and it does nothing to address his growing deficits.

Business vs. labor: Round 2 for card check

From the Washington Times

Having successfully checked “card-check,” business groups are mounting a second offensive on Capitol Hill against major changes to the nation’s labor laws, seizing on another controversial aspect of the bill in hopes of thwarting an unpalatable compromise by moderate Democrats.

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor’s top legislative priority, has sparked a fierce lobbying battle pitting the nation’s unions against virtually a united front of the nation’s major business lobbies, with the Obama administration and many centrist Democrats caught in the crossfire.

The original bill would have enabled workers to form a union if a majority of employees sign authorization cards, a “card-check provision” taking away the ability of businesses to demand a secret-ballot election in organizing battles.

Efforts by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to paint the card-check proposal as poisonous to the economy appear to have worked as Democratic supporters struggle to round up the necessary 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But EFCA opponents now worry that some moderates could support a compromise that still includes binding arbitration.

EFCA also would stiffen penalties for labor law violations and allow for a government-appointed arbitrator to impose a binding contract if companies and workers cannot reach a collective-bargaining deal after 120 days. Both of these provisions would significantly strengthen labor’s hand in organizing battles.

“Our concern is that you would find senators that know this is a bad bill but would perhaps be lured into voting for what we call ‘card check lite,’” said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative.

Despite some early setbacks, bill backers say they have not given up the fight.

An aide to Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat and a lead EFCA sponsor, said the senator is “still working toward labor reform this year.”

“Talks are continuing on Capitol Hill as they always have,” the aide said. “We are making progress.”

Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican turned Democrat from Pennsylvania who could cast a key Senate vote on a modified EFCA, hinted to a crowd of union activists in Pittsburgh over the weekend that he might be ready to accept the compromise labor bill.

“I think you’ll be satisfied with my vote on this issue on union organizing and on first contract,” Mr. Specter said.

One compromise that Democrats reportedly are floating would allow employees to send in their voting cards by mail rather than in public. Opponents of the bill say this proposal would do little to guard against intimidation.

“That’s just EFCA in drag,” said Katie Packer of the Workforce Fairness Institute, another business-backed anti-EFCA group. “How does putting a card in the mail take away the ability of people to intimidate and coerce you into signing it?”

Mr. Spencer said the bill’s “real job-killing potential” rests in the power of a government-appointed arbitrator to impose a legally binding two-year contract on both parties if a company’s management and the newly formed union fail to agree to a first contract within 120 days. Union leaders said current law encourages firms simply to stall and prevent a contract from ever being negotiated.

“In our opinion, binding arbitration is actually much more dangerous [than card check],” Mr. Spencer said. “It may be a contract that the employers simply can’t live with.”

About 280 business owners from across the country were in town to meet with key senators last week in the third “fly-in” this year to oppose EFCA. Late last month, opponents held a roundtable discussion featuring former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican.

Like the business groups, labor unions and bill supporters say they are fighting in the best interests of workers and the economy. When he introduced the bill, Mr. Harkin said passage is crucial to ensuring that the economic recovery is “fair” and that wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few.

EFCA proponents say the balance of power tilted sharply in corporate America’s favor under the Bush administration, and have looked to President Obama and the larger Democratic majorities in Congress to counter that.

“I think everybody from labor to Senator Specter to even some big businesses agree that we need major labor law reform right now,” said Christy Setzer, a spokeswoman for the Service Employees International Union.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, and Mr. Specter came out against the original bill, which included card check. Other Democrats — including Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Dianne Feinstein of California — have voiced reservations.

For organized labor and the business community, there appears to be little, if any, middle ground.

Asked what kind of a compromise the union would support, Ms. Setzer said it would have to “adhere to the principles of EFCA” and include card check, stiffer labor violation penalties and assurance that workers who voted for a union are “actually able to get to a first contract in a reasonable amount of time.”

Asked the same question, Ms. Packer said her group would not support any bill that includes card check or binding arbitration.

The bill is expected to easily pass the House of Representatives, but the near-certain prospect of a Republican filibuster means supporters must attract 60 votes in the Senate.

Democrats now control 59 votes in the Senate and would have to attract at least one Republican or hope that Democrat Al Franken can win the still-disputed race for the last vacant Senate seat from Minnesota

D.C. tax would ban free use of plastic bags

From the Washington Times

The District of Columbia moved Tuesday to impose a tax on the use of paper and plastic shopping bags, catapulting the nation’s capital to the forefront of the “green” retail movement while raising concerns that the new levy would impose an economic burden on the poor.

The D.C. Council unanimously approved legislation banning the use of disposable, non-recyclable plastic bags and assessing consumers a 5-cent fee per recyclable paper and plastic bag used to haul away purchases at places such as grocery and convenience stores.

The city’s effort is expected to earn final approval during a council session June 16, and a spokeswoman said Mayor Adrian M. Fenty would sign the bill, which coincides with movements elsewhere in the country to enact similar measures.

“Wherever the fault lies, the fact of the matter is our country’s becoming inundated with plastic bags and plastic bottles,” said council member Jack Evans, Ward 2 Democrat. “This is a first step to try to address that issue.”

The Seattle City Council last summer approved a 20-cent fee on disposable bags at grocery and some other stores, but the issue is scheduled to be brought before voters later this year after opponents gathered enough signatures to bring it to a referendum.

San Francisco in 2007 enacted a ban on plastic bags in grocery stores. In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently backed off a bag-tax budget proposal.

Lawmakers in California, Connecticut, Maine and Texas also have debated bag-tax proposals.

Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat, introduced legislation in April that would place a 5-cent tax on “single-use” bags between 2010 and 2015 and a 25-cent tax on them after Jan. 1, 2015. The federal legislation was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee.

The District’s bill, if passed, would not take effect until January. Its chief author is council member Tommy Wells, Ward 6 Democrat.

The bill would allow affected retailers to keep 1 cent of the bag fee and place 4 cents into a fund targeting cleanup of the Anacostia River, which officials say is littered with 20,000 tons of trash each year.

A carryout bag credit program would credit customers at least 5 cents for each bag they provide and let them keep 2 cents per bag sold.

D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi has said the bag-tax measure would bring the city $3.6 million in fiscal 2010 revenue and $9.5 million between fiscal 2010 and 2013, along with reducing the use of disposable bags by 50 percent in its first year of implementation.

Officials noted that the Swedish retailer IKEA implemented a 5-cent fee on plastic bags in 2007, resulting in a 90 percent reduction in their use.

Opponents of the measure include Ward 7 resident Trish Chittams, who said she thinks the money generated by the tax will diminish and the river won’t be cleaned up, especially without enlisting Maryland’s help.

“I’m going to shop in Maryland and Virginia, so not only am I not going to help but my tax dollars are going to go into Maryland and Virginia,” she said. “You’re kind of discouraged with them because they don’t give a hoot and a holler about the people.”

George Franklin, head of the Covenant Food Pantry and coordinator of the Ward 8 Food Pantry Collaborative, said many D.C. residents would be surprised by the new fee, particularly during difficult economic times.

He said his pantry uses bags donated after church members’ trips to the grocery store and is worried the new fee will diminish his supply.

“Members of the council are the only people who think its a good idea to impose a new useless tax on people in the middle of a recession,” Mr. Franklin said. “This just is not the right time for this.”

The legislation directs city officials to conduct a public information campaign about disposable bag reduction and form a public-private partnership to provide reusable carryout bags to city residents, particularly seniors and low-income households.

Mr. Franklin called the logistics of distributing free cloth bags “daunting” and expressed concern about what happens when the bags need to be replaced.

The measure does have the support of Bread for the City, the District’s largest food pantry.

Bread for the City spokesman Greg Bloom said that helping the poor and the economy can go hand in hand, and “we’ve been told that there will be a supply of bags available to us.”

Council member Kwame R. Brown – at-large Democrat who attached an amendment to the bill that would allow residents to purchase commemorative license plates to help fund the river cleanup efforts – acknowledged that 5 cents per bag could add up for some residents, but stressed the green impact of the tax.

“The No. 1 objective is to try to get the Anacostia River clean …,” Mr. Brown said. “You try to find a way and you try to be helpful to everyone.”

From The Washington Times

Opponents of the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor can take heart. Conservative leaders have found a constructive way to talk about a potential filibuster that’s fully in accordance with Senate tradition. It’s an approach worth considering if Senate Democrats try to ram through the nomination without adequate debate.

More than 120 conservative leaders outlined their idea in a letter to be delivered today to all Republican senators. The effort was organized by Manuel Miranda of the Third Branch Conference, an umbrella group concerned about judicial nominations. The high-toned letter, obtained in advance by The Washington Times, calls for a “great debate” on the nomination — not just within the Senate Judiciary Committee, but by the full Senate — for the public’s benefit.

The point, the letter says in so many words, is not personal destruction, but edification. The goal is to explain “the consequences of the two distinct judicial approaches to the Constitution, to our national character and to the lives of our children.” It is an “extraordinary educable moment that a Supreme Court confirmation process represents.” The public should beware “judicial nominees who will allow personal feeling and personal background to color their judgment with empathy for particular classes of litigants.”

The key, and welcome, contribution of the letter is to distinguish between a “Democratic filibuster” and a “traditional filibuster.” The former, a derailment of American tradition, uses a minority of the Senate to kill a federal court nomination. Mr. Miranda explains that the latter, with a rich and honorable history, is “intended to allow Senators sufficient time to inform themselves and to debate a matter before bringing something to a final vote.”

In other words, if Senate Democrats try to cram the nomination down Republican throats, conservatives and moderates of both parties should tell the Democratic leaders to cool it. A lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land merits calm deliberation, not hurried and harried political power plays.

The traditional filibuster would extend debate for a while but with the full expectation of allowing a “final vote” rather than stifling votes as the Democrats first did to Republican appeals court nominee Miguel Estrada in 2003. (Times editorial writer Quin Hillyer was the first in print to broach this traditional sort of filibuster in a May 29 column in the American Spectator.) Unlike Democratic filibusters, the traditional filibuster does not permanently undermine a president’s prerogative to appoint well-qualified people to the bench.

There is much in Judge Sotomayor’s record, on matters of race, property rights and gun rights, to give pause to any thoughtful person. That’s why the Senate would be justified, if needed, in pausing before a final vote.

Obama ducks promise to delay bill signings

From the Washington Times

It seemed among the easiest of his transparency pledges and is entirely under his control, but President Obama is finagling his promise to post bills on the White House Web site for comment for five days before he signs them.

Mr. Obama last week signed four bills, each just a day or two after Congress passed and sent it over to him.

The White House said it posted links from its Web site to Congress’ legislative Web site about a week before Mr. Obama signed the measures, but transparency advocates say that doesn’t match the president’s pledge to give Americans time to comment on the final version he is about to sign.

“He didn’t say, ‘When there’s a bill heading to my desk,’ or ‘When we’re pretty sure a bill will soon be passed.’ He said when a bill ends up on his desk – a strong implication that public review would follow the bill arriving at his desk,” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.

During the campaign and again during the transition, Mr. Obama said opening bills up for public comment was a way of fighting back against special interests’ control of the process.

“When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing,” Mr. Obama said in a major campaign speech laying out his goals for transparency.

Mr. Harper said that to him, the pledge means putting a copy of the bill on http://www.whitehouse.gov and then waiting five days to allow comments to roll in.

“That’s the only interpretation of this promise that delivers solid transparency,” he said. “Posting a bill late in the process doesn’t give the public a chance to review the final legislation – especially last-minute amendments, which are where a lot of congressional hijinks happen.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the clock starts ticking when a link is posted to bills when they are in their final version, such as a conference report, even if they haven’t passed Congress.

“A conference report, as you know, is an unamendable piece of legislation that has to be approved by both houses, language has to be simultaneous, it gets sent down here, and we sign it,” he told reporters Friday.

But that was not the case for last week’s bills, at least some of which weren’t in their final form until a day or two before being sent to Mr. Obama.

In the case of a Defense Department weapons acquisition bill, the White House posted its link to the Library of Congress Web site, http://www.Thomas.gov, on May 14, even though the conference report wasn’t done until May 20. Congress passed that bill on May 21 and Mr. Obama signed it the next day.

On the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act, the White House posted a link to Congress on May 14, but the Senate didn’t finish its work until May 19; the House agreed to the Senate’s version on May 20, and Mr. Obama signed it two days later.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a White House official said the link to Congress’ Web site allows readers to find every version of the bill and is more up-to-date.

“We link to Thomas pages that list the latest version, so once they were amended people could still read that latest version once it got posted, as opposed to us posting text that became outdated,” the official said.

The link the White House posts goes to a list of bills in various stages of the process. In the case of the military procurement measure, the White House listed two bills winding their way through Congress, because it couldn’t know which version would actually be presented.

Mr. Obama has exempted emergency bills from his promise and used that to justify his signing some major measures such as the stimulus spending bill before a full five days had elapsed. But there was no stated emergency for last week’s bills.

“They’re certainly not making it a priority to live up to the pledge,” said John Wonderlich, policy director at the Sunlight Foundation.

Sunlight is pressing for a waiting period for Congress, to prevent instances like last week, when House and Senate negotiators filed their final version of the weapons acquisition bill and put it to a vote in the Senate the same day. The House voted on it the next day.

Mr. Wonderlich said Congress is where the actual changes to a bill can happen. By the time it gets to the president, he can only sign or veto it. In light of that, Mr. Wonderlich said, some transparency advocates have questioned the value of Mr. Obama’s five-day pledge.

Mr. Harper, though, said the value will come if and when Mr. Obama enforces the rule.

“Members of Congress are very skilled political risk analyzers. When the president is enforcing this rule and they know their work is going to sit for five days before signing, they’re going to know they can’t slip in that last earmark,” he said.

He pointed to the language that allowed American International Group executives to claim bonuses as an example. That language was added in the conference committee between House and Senate negotiators, at the very end of the legislative process.

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GM cuts deal with workers union

General Motors and the United Auto Workers on Thursday reached a deal that enables them to enter into bankruptcy at the end of the month with a united front against thousands of bondholders and dealers, who are being asked to bear the brunt of the cost of GM’s monumental looming bankruptcy.

The massive restructuring of GM is shaping up to be historic not only for transforming the largest U.S. manufacturer in the nation’s most important industry, but in sealing a political deal that fuses the interests of the union and car companies with the environmental allies of the White House with the overarching goal of creating a “greener” fleet of cars in the future.

In exchange for endorsing the White House mandate for much more fuel-efficient cars, the main sacrifice from unions in the deal is the acceleration of job losses as GM shuts 16 plants employing about a third of its 60,000 workers by 2010. But retirees and workers who stay on the job would be rewarded with 39 percent ownership of the company while the government, which has lent GM $15.4 billion, takes a 50 percent controlling stake.

Bondholders, an assorted group ranging from individual retirees to gigantic pension and mutual funds that lent GM $27 billion, are offered only a 10 percent equity stake in the company – a paltry sum that most bondholders have already rejected. Their reluctance to go along with the plan ensures that GM will have to go to bankruptcy court to force them to relinquish their claims against the company.

“The reality is that the direction of the auto industry restructuring is all about politics,” said Glenn Reynolds, analyst at CreditSights, an investor research group. “The political calculus says there is little risk in shafting bondholders. … All is fair in love, war, politics and apparently also bankruptcy” under the White House auto task force’s game plan, he said, noting that votes in Ohio, Michigan and other auto-producing states will be pivotal in upcoming midterm elections.

As the administration did with its successful gambit to quickly usher Chrysler into a bankruptcy reorganization biased in favor of unions and against creditors, the GM plan represents an “outright politically motivated wealth transfer” from lenders to unions, he said.

Mr. Reynolds contended that political goals motivated the White House to seek approval between unions and management ahead of the bankruptcy filing, along with a small but significant number of creditors who can help make a convincing case before the bankruptcy court that the reorganization is fair and should be expedited, Mr. Reynolds said.

While the administration won the support of Chrysler’s four largest bank lenders using the bargaining chip of bailout money the Treasury had provided, it gave much less to Chrysler’s other secured lenders and persuaded a Manhattan, N.Y., bankruptcy court to rule against them in key initial skirmishes. Only a small contingent of teacher and police union pension funds continues to fight against the Chrysler plan.

With GM, the White House is following much the same playbook, although GM’s bankruptcy is expected to be much bigger and more complex, analysts said.

The administration secured agreement ahead of time between management and labor in a deal that favors unions. Then, it aims to divide the company’s creditors by offering full reimbursement to GM’s secured lenders, who are owed about $6 billion, while offering very little to unsecured bondholders who are owed the biggest chunk of money.

Thousands of GM and Chrysler dealers, whose fates also are left up to the bankruptcy court, like the bondholders have the disadvantage of being dispersed and mostly unorganized, limiting their ability to sway the bankruptcy court.

The administration denied that its handling of the auto bailout is politically motivated or that it is treating bondholders unfairly.

“The president has been clear throughout this process that the government should engage in a fair and reasonable manner,” said an administration official. “Not a single creditor’s right has been unfairly altered during this process.”

In the Chrysler case, “the matter is now being managed in a bankruptcy court where all creditors have an opportunity to present their concerns,” the official said. “Even before the bankruptcy filing, the company’s restructuring plan was supported by a wide range of stakeholders, including the overwhelming majority of secured creditors.”

Another piece of the GM deal was put in place Thursday as the Treasury announced a $7.5 billion cash infusion for GMAC, the automaker’s financing arm. The Treasury said it expects to acquire more than one-third ownership in the finance company, which also is taking over financing for Chrysler’s dealers and customers.

“There is certainly a lot of politics behind these deals, in part because the unions did endorse Obama, and of course [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi is heavily involved with the environmental groups,” said Rebecca Lindland, auto analyst at IHS Global Insight.

Analysts said the political victory behind the deals is more obvious than their business sense. President Obama was able to bring together two warring Democratic factions – environmentalists and unions that had resisted raising fuel efficiency standards in the past – in a major political achievement.

But whether the buying public will go along with the pact is a big question – and that will be the key factor that determines whether the companies become viable and profitable again in the future, said Ms. Lindland.

The big increase in fuel efficiency will require a major downsizing of America’s car fleet. But American consumers continue to prefer large cars, sport utility vehicles and trucks – an appetite that was hardly dented by last year’s brush with gasoline prices over $4 a gallon.

“My colleagues and I have spoken often about the potential for unintended consequences if the government tries to dictate consumer choice regarding vehicle purchases, but it falls on deaf ears in much of Washington,” Ms. Lindland said.

“We have seen minimal demand for subcompact cars and only a moderate, steady demand for slightly larger compact cars. We also have not seen any sustainable demand for hybrid [gas-electric] vehicles, which continue to be about 2 percent of the light vehicle market and have been for about five years,” she said.

The saving grace for the administration is technological advances may make it possible to ratchet up the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks while still satisfying consumer demand for large, powerful vehicles, she said.

“We expect to see mild hybrids and downsized, turbocharged direct-injection engines that provide the consumer with the torque and power they expect,” she said. “Engines like the Ford Ecoboost have these types of characteristics, but of course this technology is not free and consumers will feel the impact in the price of vehicles.”

IHS expects the new technologies to drive the cost per vehicle up by $3,000 to $4,000, far more than the $1,300 estimated by the White House.

Auto workers in Michigan were relieved about the pact with GM, which must be ratified by the rank and file. Details of the agreement were not released by the union, but it is thought to give the union a 39 percent equity stake in the reorganized company in exchange for forgiving $10 billion of its debt to a retiree health care fund.

Also, like Chrysler’s compact with the union last month, the deal is thought to suspend performance and Christmas bonuses this year as well as eliminate cost-of-living adjustments through 2011. Laid-off workers would no longer receive nearly full pay but instead would get 65 percent to 70 percent of their base pay for a year or longer, depending on seniority.

“This is good news. It’s been long awaited. Now, everybody can take a breath. Not a deep breath, but a breath,” said UAW Local 652 President Mike Green, who represents about 2,000 auto workers in the Lansing, Mich., area.

“This is exactly what we have been working toward for months now,” Mr. Green said. “It tells me we are going to be in business. … Hopefully it isn’t going into bankruptcy, so I’m hoping this deal puts a lot of this behind us. We want to go back to focusing on building cars and doing the right things for the economy.”

Frankingstein

From the Washington Times

Americans are cutting back on their household expenses in this tough economy, but members of Congress want an 83 percent increase in the franking budget to pay for their mail next year. The request should be returned to sender.

It’s no coincidence that 2010 is an election year. The taxpayer subsidy of congressional mail is nothing more than a campaign contribution to help incumbents get re-elected.

The franking privilege is the deal Congress gives itself so members can use their signatures – known as franks – in place of a stamp, and government pays for the mailing. The House of Representatives’ chief administrative officer has requested $35 million. That’s a $16 million boost, so you will get more junk mail and pay more for it, too.

The franking surge is part of a $90 million budget increase Congress is giving itself next year for staff salaries, travel and office expenses. Congress members increase the franking budget every other year, which conveniently corresponds to the election cycle. Essentially, the taxpayer is underwriting the costs of incumbents’ direct-mail campaigns.

Jeff Ventura, communications director for the chief administrative officer, said the increase is “merely accommodating” spending trends by congressional offices. “It is based on the historic record of usage in even years and what they need in [mail] funding,” he told The Washington Times yesterday.

The origin of free mail for lawmakers dates to the 17th-century English House of Commons, according to the U.S. Senate’s Web site. The first U.S. Congress wrote it into law in 1789. After the Civil War, rubber stamps became the precursor to today’s electronically printed envelopes and the era of intense abuse began. Mail franking was banned by Congress in 1873, only to be reinstated gradually by 1891.

In this economy, Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to appreciate that belt-tightening should begin at her House. It is an abuse to use taxpayer funds for election-year propaganda. The archaic practice of franking all lawmaker mail should be ended, and members should pay for their extra election-year mailings out of their campaign coffers.

If they don’t want to save money, perhaps they could vote to save the paper-producing trees. Alternatively, they could e-mail interested voters. It worked well for President Obama.

Memo exposes global warming dispute

From the Washington Times

A memo released Tuesday shows an agency within the Obama administration objected to a landmark Environmental Protection Agency ruling on global warming, arguing that it was not based on sound science and could prove costly to businesses.

The dispute concerns the EPA’s so-called “endangerment finding,” in which the agency has tentatively found carbon dioxide is dangerous enough as a greenhouse gas to warrant regulation under the Clean Air Act – a ruling that could force federal action to address climate change even if Congress fails to act.

Critics, including some within the administration, argue that the Clean Air Act is not an appropriate vehicle to deal with climate change and say the finding sets the stage for harmful regulations on businesses and industry.

Republicans seized upon the memo as evidence that President Obama has broken his pledge to follow science rather than politics in making policy. But an administration official said the objection came from a single office that is headed by a Bush administration holdover.

Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, revealed the memo at a Senate hearing where he waving a copy at EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “It’s here, nine pages. This is a smoking gun,” he said.

The memo has comments from several federal agencies that reviewed the EPA’s decision. It includes a complaint that the EPA’s finding “rests heavily on the precautionary principle, but the amount of acknowledged lack of understanding about basic facts surrounding [greenhouse gases] seem to stretch the precautionary principle to providing for regulation in the face of unprecedented uncertainty.”

The White House defended the science EPA used and denied there was a policy split within the administration. The comments were compiled by the White House Office of Management and Budget as part of a standard interagency review process, and OMB Director Peter R. Orszag said that OMB agreed with EPA’s initial finding.

“The bottom line is that OMB would have not concluded [the] review, which allows the finding to move forward, if we had concerns about whether EPA’s finding was consistent with either the law or the underlying science,” he wrote.

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal review process, said the comments challenging the science came from a single office, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy.

The office, an independent arm of the administration whose current chief was named by President George W. Bush, is charged with looking out for small-business interests as the federal government writes rules and regulations.

Still, Republicans said the memo exposed a rift inside the administration.

“The disclosure of this OMB memo suggests that a political decision was made to put special interests ahead of middle-class families and small businesses struggling in this recession,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

“It is unacceptable that this critical information was withheld and the regulatory process was abused in this fashion.”

At the hearing, before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Mrs. Jackson disputed Mr. Barrasso’s characterizations, saying the EPA finding had been drafted under the Bush administration but held under lock and key until Mr. Obama took the White House. She said she reviewed and approved the finding.

She also said the finding doesn’t guarantee carbon dioxide would be capped under the Clean Air Act.

“It does not mean regulation,” Mrs. Jackson said. “I have said over and over, as has the president, that we do understand that there are costs to the economy of addressing global warming emissions and the best way to address them is through a gradual move to a market-based program like cap-and-trade.”

The cap-and-trade proposal would set an overall ceiling for greenhouse-gas emissions and allow businesses and other polluters to trade emission permits under the cap.

An EPA spokeswoman said Mrs. Jackson would consider the dissenting views from within the administration when drafting a final “endangerment finding.”

“As we do with any proposed rule, EPA takes these interagency comments under advisement,” said EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy.

In making the initial finding, EPA acted in accordance with a court order, which said the agency must determine whether carbon dioxide was dangerous enough to deserve regulation under the Clean Air Act.

The Obama administration has walked a fine line with the finding – playing down its potential for regulating carbon dioxide while supporters have heralded it as a backup plan should climate legislation fail. Mr. Obama’s team has consistently said EPA regulations would be a dull tool and prefers that Congress come up with a solution.

House lawmakers are weighing a plan to address climate change through the “cap-and-trade” system, but the proposal is facing early opposition in a House committee.

The memo was first reported by Dow Jones Newswire, and the intra-administration dispute could give opponents ammunition for a legal challenge to EPA’s finding.

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Congress OKs $3.6 trillion Obama budget

From the Washington Times:

Kara Rowland (Contact)

Congress signed off on President Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget largely along party lines Wednesday night, handing him a legislative victory that paves the way for a health care overhaul.

The Senate cleared the plan by a vote of 53 to 43 after the House passed it 223 to 193. Not a single Republican in either chamber voted for the measure. Democratic defections included Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Pennsylvania’s former Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, all of whom joined 17 House Democrats in voting no.

The budget – a nonbinding resolution meant to guide congressional spending – includes a fast-track provision that would block a Senate filibuster on Mr. Obama’s bid to transform the health care system, as well as his plan to change student lending.

In remarks prepared for his evening news conference, Mr. Obama said the budget “builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last 100 days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity.”

House and Senate budget chiefs trimmed Mr. Obama’s original $3.6 trillion budget proposal, leaving out certain items, such as additional bailout funding, and scaling back his “Make work pay” tax cut. Lawmakers also opted against reducing the level of charitable tax deductions taken by wealthy Americans.

But the blueprint preserves many of Mr. Obama’s initiatives and tees up efforts by congressional committees to expand government-subsidized health care. It also implements an administration-backed plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions, though it stipulates that the final budget specify how to finance both reforms. Because health care was included under a procedural mechanism known as “reconciliation,” Mr. Obama’s health care plan will require only 51 votes to pass the Senate.

“I think it’s a good beginning,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said after the vote. “I do think it is putting us on the right trajectory in the first five years and we have captured the president’s major priorities.”

However, North Dakota’s Mr. Conrad noted, lawmakers must pass tax and entitlement reform “if we’re going to get the country on a sustainable course.”

The budget aims to cut the deficit from an expected $1.2 trillion this year to $523 billion by 2014. The total national debt would skyrocket from $11.2 trillion to $17 trillion.

Republicans, who have used reconciliation in the past to push through the Bush tax cuts and other items, protested its use for health care. They also seized on the budget’s overall spending level, saying it threatens future generations.

“I don’t want a legacy of stealing opportunity from my grandchildren or anybody else’s,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, who described the plan as “an escape from responsibility.”

A deal on the budget was only reached after Democrats agreed to demands from conservative Blue Dogs to consider legislation, known as pay-go, to help control spending. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland have pledged to do so in a letter, while Mr. Obama has reportedly promised to help push the cause in the Senate.