Author: Heritage

On 03.16.10 01:49 PM posted by Michael Franc

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/constitution031210.jpg"><imgsrc="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/constitution031210.jpg" alt="" title="constitution031210" width="375" height="325" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-28715" /></p>According to the official site of the House Rules Committee, “questions of privilege” relate to “matters affecting the safety, dignity or integrity of the House, or the rights, reputation or conduct of a member acting as a representative.”

House leaders are poised to use a procedural tactic of questionable constitutionality to move the single most consequential piece of legislation in over seven decades through the House without a vote. Here’s the idea: (1) pass a rule to bring to the floor a “reconciliation” measure that would detoxify certain provisions in the Senate-passed health-reform bill, and (2) insert in the rule a sentence that “deems” the Senate bill to have passed the House.

As Stanford law professor and former federal appeals court judge Michael W. McConnell <ahref="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704416904575121532877077328.html?m od=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion">explained in the Wall Street Journal:<spanid="more-28994"></span>

It may be clever, but it is not constitutional. . . . According to Article I, Section 7, in order for a “Bill” to “become a Law,” it “shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate” and be “presented to the President of the United States” for signature or veto. Unless a bill actually has “passed” both Houses, it cannot be presented to the president and cannot become a law.

To be sure, each House of Congress has power to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” Each house can thus determine how much debate to permit, whether to allow amendments from the floor, and even to require supermajority votes for some types of proceeding. But House and Senate rules cannot dispense with the bare-bones requirements of the Constitution. Under Article I, Section 7, passage of one bill cannot be deemed to be enactment of another.

That gets us back to the “questions of privilege” that are available to any House member who believes an action has maligned the “dignity” or “integrity” of the House, or the “reputation” of individual members. Because these motions are “privileged,” they preempt other House business and are brought up for debate and a vote immediately.

Has there been any proposed action in the House — ever — more likely to besmirch its dignity or integrity, or more likely to malign the reputation of individual lawmakers, than sidestepping the Constitution to enact such a consequential law? Never has it been more appropriate for an enterprising House member to defend the integrity and dignity of this hallowed institution. Will a majority of the House actually be willing to take ownership, not just of the substance, but of the dangerous precedent House leaders want to establish to achieve reform? I think not.

Raising such questions of privilege would be a dramatic procedural countermove and would require every member to let their constituents know in advance of the final vote exactly how they feel about this process. And there is precedent for it.

Roll the clock back to 1989. A commission had concluded that members of congress were woefully underpaid and required an immediate and eye-popping 51 percent raise. Thanks to a 1981 law, the proposed increase would take effect automatically — no vote required — unless both the House and Senate voted to rescind it. Knowing this, former speaker Jim Wright adopted a rope-a-dope strategy, keeping the House out of session during the period leading up to the February 9 deadline when the raise would take effect.

The Congressional Quarterly’s contemporary account makes for fascinating reading today:

Editorial writers pummeled Congress not only for the size of the pay hike but for skirting a vote. Mail flooded the Capitol.

Some of the most vociferous criticism came from consumer activist Ralph Nader and a network of radio talk show hosts around the country who gave people a forum for venting their against the raise. One station urged its listeners to send tea bags to congressmen with the slogan, “Read my lips: No pay raise.” Thousands did.

Democrats were in disarray. Their retreat to the swanky Greenbrier resort in early February turned into a public-relations disaster, thanks to hostile questions from reporters and an unruly sendoff at Union Station by boatloads of protestors. California Republican William E. Dannemeyer complicated matters for pay-raise advocates by drafting a privileged resolution to force an up-and-down vote on the pay raise. [Full disclosure: I worked for Mr. Dannemeyer during this period and participated in the development of this strategy.]

Things unraveled quickly for Speaker Wright upon his return from the Greenbrier. In a series of one-minute speeches Dannemeyer’s allies linked the nefarious process by which the pay raise would become law and the public outrage it had provoked to the reputation of Congress.

“Mr. Speaker,” one Republican railed, “by our participation in this shameful pay raise conspiracy, we have deservedly brought down on this House the disgust of the American people…Mr. Speaker, save…what remnant of dignity and integrity we collectively have left by providing us the opportunity to vote on this burning issue. Only you, Mr. Speaker, can save us from ourselves.” Another bemoaned that “we are viewed as scoundrels who resort to sneaking pay raises through, while we publicly protest and point our fingers at others.”

Democratic and Republican leaders mistakenly thought they could block Dannemeyer and run out the clock by quickly moving to adjourn the House. Normally, such procedural votes are party-line, with Democrats required to support their leaders and Republicans theirs. But this time 108 Democrats rebelled and the House voted 88–238 not to adjourn.

The pay raise was formally interred the next day.

Fast-forward to our present dilemma. Thanks in large part to the debate over health reform, the congressional disapproval rating has soared since January to as high as 80 percent (Fox/Opinion Dynamics). To put this in perspective, Gallup’s most recent survey found that, at 78 percent, the current level of public angst is the highest it’s been since 1974. Mailing tea bags to Capitol Hill has given way to a national and increasingly sophisticated Tea Party movement. State governments too have begun to rebel, passing laws and resolutions to exempt their residents from any new federal health mandates. For one branch of government to knowingly provoke an unnecessary constitutional crisis on top of all this turmoil will scald the body politic in ways that will take generations to heal.

Surely health reform does not warrant such scorched-earth tactics.

<ahref="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGE0MjJlOGE5MDNlNzk2ZDE4YjFjNDAxMTI4NDZiYjA">Cr oss-Posted at <ahref="http://corner.nationalreview.com/">The Corner

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…e-countermove/

On 03.16.10 09:30 AM posted by Rachel Sheffield

</p>President Obama’s budget outlines a plan to pay states to grow their welfare roles and eliminate efforts to fight family breakdown in low-income communities. Despite the fact that <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/tst040209b.cfm">low work hours and fatherlessness are two of the greatest contributors to poverty in the United States, the newly released budget provides incentives for states to<ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/wm2819.cfm"> increase the size of their caseloads and also wipes out funding for healthy marriage programs that aim to decrease the number of children growing up in single-parent homes.

Prior to 1996, the federal government increased a state’s welfare money as that state increased its caseload. Not surprisingly, this provided little motivation to help welfare recipients move into the workforce. The 1996 welfare reforms did away with this negative incentive and created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1620.cfm">leading to dramatic caseload declines and a decrease in the child poverty rate.<spanid="more-28949"></span>

Unfortunately, these successful reforms were undercut in a variety of policy moves and all but wiped out by last year’s stimulus bill that created the $5 billion TANF Emergency Fund. Once again, states are being paid to increase their caseload (80 cents on the dollar for every new case they receive beyond their numbers for 2007 or 2008).

Now President Obama is proposing $2.5 billion more to extend this supposedly temporary emergency fund. Although the President links the need for this emergency money to the current recession, the truth is that the 1996 welfare reform includes a $2 billion nest egg for tough economic times such as this. (And lest it be forgotten, the government <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr0067.cfm">already increased welfare spending for FY 2010 by $174.6 billion.) Moreover, the new funding would not even be dispensed to states based on their unemployment rates but merely doled out based on the size of their caseload.

Unfortunately, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) has jumped on the bandwagon, proposing an even greater expansion to the welfare system. His legislation would allow states to collect as much federal money as needed to support their growing caseload (provided that the state does not receive more than 50 percent of its annual TANF dollars). The cost of this would dwarf the President’s $2.5 billion request. Both Obama and McDermott are sending a clear message to states: increase your welfare rolls and you will be rewarded handsomely by the federal taxpayer.

Not only does the President plan to expand welfare, but he has also eliminated a program that aims to reduce the prevalence of single motherhood, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/family/upload/cda_0306.pdf">one of the greatest contributors to poverty in the United States. The Healthy Marriage grant program provides help to those from low-income communities to learn skills for building strong marriages. To replace this program, President Obama has introduced his “Fatherhood, Marriage, and Families Innovation Fund.” While this sounds similar in name, it is in fact just another jobs program, focused very little on fatherhood, marriage, or families.

The 1996 welfare reform encouraged individual liberty, promoting work and freedom from government dependence. Now, the current administration is moving backwards and pulling its most vulnerable citizens with it. True welfare should help everyone: the taxpayer, who is allowed to keep more of his or her paycheck, and the welfare recipient, who is lifted off the dole and up to independence.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…ning-marriage/

On 03.16.10 08:12 AM posted by Nick Loris

Last Friday, Van Jones <ahref="http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/478">debated Andy Morriss, Law Professor at the University of Illinois in The Economist on the topic of green jobs. Surprisingly, Morriss <ahref="http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/478">says, there’s one thing we can all agree on:

Van Jones and I agree that ‘the private sector, not the government, can and must be the main driver in creating green jobs.’ We agree that government subsidies for coal, oil and nuclear power are a serious problem.

With the exceptions of their sentiments on corn-based ethanol and the need for innovation, the agreement stops there. Van Jones’ solution to the problem of existing subsidies is piling more on instead of peeling them back. Morriss <ahref="http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/478">refutes, “Far from leveling the playing field, <ahref="http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/pdf/subsidy08.pdf">these new subsidies dwarf the old ones: solar and wind receive subsidies of over $23/Mwh compared with the $0.44/Mwh for conventional coal and $0.25/Mwh for natural gas.”

Worse, even with massive subsidies wind and solar make up a very small fraction of America’s energy supply. It’s plausible for renewable energy sources to help meet America’s growing energy demands, but it should be done absent of taxpayer assistance.
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Morriss goes on to give readers an important lesson in public choice and why once we go down the green jobs road, it <ahref="http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/478">will be very difficult to stop:

Special interests have the advantage because the benefits received are concentrated and valuable enough to make hiring lawyers and lobbyists to manipulate the legislative and regulatory processes worthwhile. The general public, on the other hand, loses too little on each subsidy to motive a lobbying trip to Washington. As I noted in my opening, we see this in Mr Jones’ field of alternative energy: the wasteful, environmentally damaging corn-based ethanol programme now deeply entrenched in our regulatory system is the result of the 1990s versions of the arguments for green energy Mr Jones makes now.”

Jones’ assertion that renewable energy creates more jobs and thus is good economic policy is a common claim made by advocates of green jobs legislation. He <ahref="http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/478">says, “There are simply more jobs per dollar and per kilowatt hour in producing clean energy and rebuilding for efficiency than there are in producing dirty energy and wasting energy.”

This logic supports Morriss’ argument than it does Jones’. It proves that clean energy sources are an inefficient use of human capital and these resources could be more useful in other sectors of the economy. NPR recently ran a piece called “<ahref="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124251060">The Jobs Of Yesteryear” which shows pictures and provides descriptions of obsolete occupations that disappeared because of improvements in efficiency and technology. Examples include an iceman and pinsetters at a bowling alley. If the goal were simply to create jobs we could rid the world of mechanical equipment and hire workers to dig our ditches. But the result would be a less prosperous United States and a lot of lost value creation which would ultimately destroy more jobs than it created. The same holds true for green jobs.

The stimulus money used to improve energy efficiency and weatherize buildings is failing to create the clean energy jobs the White House <ahref="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-green-jobs2-2010feb02,0,6156904.story">said it would – costing <ahref="http://abcnews.go.com/story?id=9780935">tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars per job created. Further, studies from the National Black Chamber of Commerce, The Brookings Institutite, the Energy Information Administration, the Congressional Budget Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, and The Heritage Foundation <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2009/09/23/panel-of-experts-see-no-economic-stimulus-from-cap-and-trade/">all agree that overall net effect of a cap and trade policy (aka: the ultimate green jobs plan) will be lost income, consumption and employment. The debate within these studies is the magnitude of the losses.

Van Jones said he shares “Mr Morriss’ preference for market-based solutions” but his entire arguments suggests quite the opposite.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…of-green-jobs/

On 03.16.10 05:25 AM posted by Rob Bluey

<ahref="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439191050?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwheritageor-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creat iveASIN=1439191050"></p>“Deeming” and “reconciliation” are hardly household words, but for the next week Americans will come to know them as key procedural maneuvers that could push Obamacare across the finish line. But while they might deliver a bill to President Obama’s desk, they will also make it easier to repeal the measure, says former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

On the road for his “<ahref="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439191050?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwheritageor-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creat iveASIN=1439191050">Courage and Consequence” book tour, Rove chatted with The Heritage Foundation about Obamacare, his defense of President George W. Bush’s conservatism, the growth of Tea Parties and anger toward government spending.

<ahref="http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/mp3/RoveBlueyInterview.mp3">Download the MP3 file.

Rove, who joined Heritage for the <ahref="http://www.myheritage.org/committees/san-francisco-bay/inaugural-dinner-featuring-karl-rove.html">launch of our San Francisco Community Committee last September, recalled how even in the heart of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) district, conservatives were teeming with energy and enthusiasm. Rove will appear at a Heritage Foundation community committee event in Naples, FL, next week.
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During the interview, he did not hold back his criticism of conservatives, particularly those who took issue with Bush’s support of No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and TARP. He also singled out conservatives, in addition to congressional Democrats, for the failure of Social Security reform in 2005.

Rove, however, has a positive vibe about the future of conservatism, particularly leaders such as Reps. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ); and Govs. Tim Pawlenty (R-WI), Mitch Daniels (R-IN) and Bobby Jindal (R-LA).

What follows is a partial transcript of the interview.

This is crunch time in Congress for Obamacare, and Rove said he was surprised at the procedural tactics Democrats are willing to use:

They’re going to use every tool at their disposal, no matter how weird and perverted its use will be. This idea that they’re going to take a major piece of legislation and use in the House what’s called deeming … is pretty extraordinary. And then for the Senate to use budget reconciliation—not to adjust the dials on spending and tax rates on existing law, but in essence to create new law—is an enormous perversion of the system.

If they pass this bill using these procedures, they will come to regret that because the procedures used to pass it may also be used to repeal it. And if they use 51 votes in the Senate to make a major substantive change in legislation, that’s going to be a problem.

Rove also debunked claims by liberals about reconciliation, specifically its use during the 2001 tax cut legislation signed by Bush:

We used reconciliation on the passage of the tax cuts in 2001. Well, guess what? One-quarter of Democrats in the Senate were supportive of the tax cuts, so there was bipartisanship. Reconciliation is generally used as a way to smooth the consideration of budget and tax measures that are changes in existing law. It was not designed and was never intended to be used to pass major, dramatic, big, huge, economy-affecting policy that the Democrats are trying to do in this instance.

Rove also spoke at length about Bush’s conservatism, specifically programs such as*No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and TARP, which have raised questions about his fiscal conservatism.

His defense of No Child Left Behind:

[Rep.] John Boehner and [Sen.] Judd Gregg were the two Republicans who worked with [then-Sen.] Ted Kennedy and [Rep.] George Miller and the administration to put No Child Left Behind into place. I believe it is conservative legislation. It says states are in charge. If you get federal money, a state has to have standards. We don’t care what those standards are; you just have to have standards.

The education oligopoly doesn’t like to be held to account. And having standards—expectations about what children are expected to learn and when they’re expected to learn it—is a conservative principle. …

What’s so odd to me is that a lot of conservatives have come to join with the teacher unions in objecting to children being tested. … Conservatives should not get in bed with the teacher unions and give them what they want, which is weakening or an end to a tool that gives parents and communities a chance to demand success and to blow the whistle on failure.

His defense of the Medicare prescription drug benefit:

We had two competing plans: We had an $800 billion Democratic plan that was government-run. The government set the formulary. It decided what drugs you got and set their prices. And it was not paid for. The Republican plan was free-market oriented and was scored by the CBO at $450 billion, and included other reforms of Medicare and the creation of health savings accounts.

Because it was based on free-market principles, in which private companies competed to deliver the benefit, guess what? The program is costing one-third less than what CBO anticipated. … Why? Because it’s based around markets and markets have a wonderful way of lowering prices and increasing benefit. …

It’s the only government-sponsored health program in the history of the country which has come in under its original estimates. …

I understand if a conservative says to me, ‘I think we ought to repeal Medicare and it ought to be gone. And I, therefore, object to a Medicare prescription drug benefit.’ I salute them as being consistent. But if Medicare is going to exist, then we need to have Medicare driven by market forces and we need to have it as modern as possible. …

It was a wise decision for conservatives to say, while we have this moment—a Republican President, a Republican House, a Republican Senate—let us pass a conservative, market-oriented version of this benefit, rather than allowing them to pass a much more expensive, much larger, big government, price-fixing form of service.

On the use of TARP I, supported by Bush, and TARP II, supported by Obama:

The difference between those two are clear: We have one where a Republican, conservative president said, I don’t like doing this, but if we’re going to have to do this to save the economy, we better make certain the taxpayer is protected and at the end of the day we get made whole and we make money. And we have a Democrat president who says, I’ve got a big pot of money, let me use it to reward my friends, punish my enemies and engage in industrial policy.

What went wrong in the Social Security reform debate of 2005:

When it came to Social Security reform, we had problems on the left and the right. The political left in Congress was not the same as thoughtful liberals like [the late Sen.] Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said we better repair the safety net before it breaks. We had no political support among Democrats. …

Let’s be candid about this. Republicans applauded when Bush talked about this in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and there were a lot of reformers like [Sens.] Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Jim DeMint who got elected to the Congress by talking about this. But when it came time for the rubber to meet the road in 2005, there was little enthusiasm among Republicans for taking this up, and particularly striking among some conservative leaders whom you would’ve thought would’ve understood the special moment we had and the responsibility we had to save this program, who said, nope, sorry, not going to do it.

The role of Tea Party groups:

I don’t want them to become an adjunct of the Republican Party. I think they are far more powerful and influential if they remain as they are today, which is a movement that holds the feet of elected officials in both parties to account for what they do on spending, deficits, debt and powers of government.

The best reporter to cover the Bush White House:

I hate to sound like I’m flacking for my friends at Fox, but the Fox reporters were always good in that they were tough but fair. I thought also, surprising enough, that Jake Tapper, who is an ABC reporter, who is a lefty, was nonetheless reasonably fair and tough. You could count on him to ask you tough questions.

Rove’s thoughts on those who call Obama a “socialist”:

We’ve got to be very careful about our language in order not to give our adversaries cheap shots to make at us, while at the same time making the case against President Obama and liberal policies. …

President Obama wants things to remain in the hands of private owners and operators. It’s just that he wants them to be subjected to a level of regulation, scrutiny and restraint by government that would be stifling.

We have to remember our target: It’s not our fellow conservatives. Our object here is to say things and make the case to people whose ears and eyes are open, but who don’t necessarily view themselves as conservatives.

How technology is changing politics:

We need to as a movement avail ourselves of all these channels because they are ways to reach people, particularly younger people who are otherwise not available to us. Just remember this, 2008 in the presidential election, it’s the first election in history that more people said they got their information about the election from the Internet than from local newspapers.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…ormal-process/

On 03.16.10 05:31 AM posted by Conn Carroll

In theory, the federal government has $2.5 trillion stashed away in a nondescript office building in the sleepy little town of Parkersburg, West Virginia. That is where the Treasury Department keeps stacks of nonnegotiable Treasury bonds payable to the Social Security Administration. But as the <ahref="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100314/ap_on_bi_ge/us_social_security_ious">Associated Press reported yesterday, for the first time since the 1980s, the federal government will not be adding to that stack. Thanks to an aging population and slow economy, Social Security will pay out $29 billion more this year than it takes in. And the Congressional Budget Office reports that after small surpluses in 2014 and 2015, the program is projected to be in the red from 2016 until forever.

But what about Al Gore’s Social Security “Lock Box?” Can’t we just spend that $2.5 trillion in the Social Security Trust Fund? As Heritage experts David John and Brian Reidl <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Commentary/2004/11/Social-Securitys-Fictitious-Trust-Fund">explain, since 1939 federal law has required Social Security to “invest” its extra money in Treasury bonds. Those bonds are really just IOUs from the government to the government. The feds already spent that $2.5 trillion long ago on programs such as education, foreign aid and defense. Add the $2.5 trillion Social Security obligation onto our other obligations and our current national debt* stands at $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. And it will only get worse under <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/03/Obama-Budget-Raises-Taxes-and-Doubles-the-National-Debt">President Barack Obama’s Budget. It would: 1) borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010; 2) leave permanent annual deficits that top $1 trillion as late as 2020;* and 3) dump an additional $74,000 per household of debt into the laps of our children and grandchildren.<spanid="more-28912"></span>

Responding to such unsustainable borrowing, Moody’s rating agency <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503465.html">announced Monday that the United States needs to make deep spending cuts or risk losing its AAA credit rating. From the <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503465.html">report: “growth alone will not resolve an increasingly complicated debt equation. Preserving debt affordability at levels consistent with AAA ratings will invariably require fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion.”

Losing our AAA rating would send interest rates higher, increase our borrowing costs, and send the percentage of GDP we spend servicing our debt sky rocketing.<ahref="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0a8xAghPS8I"> Bloomberg adds: “the U.S. will spend more on debt service as a percentage of revenue this year than any other top-rated country except the U.K., and will be the biggest spender from 2011 to 2013.” The message from Moody’s was clear: the U.S. federal government must change direction on spending or face economic disaster.

The leftist majorities in Congress and the White House are not listening. Instead of reining in federal spending and tackling our existing Entitlement crisis, they are locked in an all out push to create a <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/02/The-Presidents-Health-Reform-Proposal-More-Like-25-Trillion">brand new $2.5 trillion health care entitlement. The President may say his plan is deficit neutral, but<ahref="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/march_2010/57_predict_health_care_plan_will_hurt_the_economy" > the American people do not believe him. And they are wise not to. The President tries to pay for his plan with over half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts over the next decade. The president’s own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services <ahref="http://enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=85899 a92-a646-4bca-87b6-81ae629e7533">reports that these cuts would cause one-fifth of all health care providers to go bankrupt. Congress would never allow those hospitals to go out of business. Congress will never actually make those Medicare cuts. So already Obamacare is half a trillion dollars in the red, and we haven’t even tacked on the hundreds of billion of dollars the <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2009/11/18/morning-bell-doc-fix-digs-debt-deeper/">doc fix adds on.

Reducing our entitlement obligations is the only way to prevent our nation from becoming another Greece. <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/11/To-Control-National-Debt-Congress-Needs-to-Tackle-Entitlements">We need to: 1) to show these programs’ long-term obligations in the budget; target these programs to only who that need them; and strengthen personal responsibility by making it easier for people to build personal retirement savings and use health care savings accounts. But first we must avoid the fiscal insanity that is Obamacare.

Quick Hits:

• Finance ministers from the 16 nations that use the euro <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503642.html">failed to produce a detailed bailout plan for the $74 billion Greek budget deficit.
• Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told leftist bloggers yesterday that <ahref="http://www.openleft.com/diary/17836/meeting-with-speaker-pelosi-wrapup">the Senate health bill does contain a public option (18 million more Americans placed on Medicaid) and <ahref=" http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/nancy_pelosis_strategy_for_pas.html">said of passing the Senate bill: “Once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.”
• Speaking of those 18 million Americans Obamacare would place on Medicaid (a welfare program), <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/health/policy/16medicaid.html?ref=todayspaper">The New York Times reports that: “With states squeezing payments to providers even as the economy fuels explosive growth in enrollment, [Medicaid] patients are finding it increasingly difficult to locate doctors and dentists who will accept their coverage.”
• The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is set to <ahref="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-rates16-2010mar16,0,7870063.story">jack their consumer’s electric bills up between 8.8% and 28.4% in order to pay for a solar plan and a 20% renewable energy mandate.
• According to <ahref="http://www.gallup.com/poll/126716/Environmental-Issues-Year-Low-Concern.aspx">Gallup, Americans are less worried about each of eight specific environmental problems than they were a year ago and are worried least about global warming.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…n-entitlement/

On 03.16.10 06:33 AM posted by Chuck Donovan

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/kathleen_sebelius090219.jpg"><imgsrc="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/kathleen_sebelius090219.jpg" alt="" title="Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS)" width="300" height="450" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2678" /></p>Ever since the U.S. Senate voted in December to provide new funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers in its version of health care reform, analysts have <ahref="http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/NRLCmemoCommHealth.pdf">pointed out that these monies are not covered by the Hyde Amendment, the measure dating from 1976 that sharply limits federal financing of abortion. As a consequence, these new funds appropriated by the Senate bill, which is now being moved through the House of Representatives by an extraordinary legislative device, are available without statutory limit to underwrite elective abortions.

Yesterday the Obama Administration issued a <ahref="http://www.lifenews.com/nat6119.html">internal memorandum from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) attempting to undercut this conclusion. The memo states that even in the absence of the statutory prohibition contained in the Hyde Amendment, longstanding regulations in place at HHS would “prohibit federal funds from being used for abortion services.”<spanid="more-28936"></span> The memo notes that “[t]he president and Secretary [of HHS Kathleen] Sebelius have repeatedly stated their strong commitment to ensuring that health insurance reform does not change the status quo on abortion policy.”

The HHS memo has little or no status as a matter of law. It amounts to the issuance of another promise that legislators and citizens can evaluate on the merits. Because the regulations cited in the memo would be applied voluntarily by HHS to any funds not included in a future appropriations measure containing the Hyde Amendment (the FQHC funds appropriated by the Senate bill cover five full years of spending), HHS would not be obligated to apply the standards of the Hyde Amendment to these funds. The flexibility of federal agencies to expand or limit reasonable interpretations of the law has been demonstrated both in the context of abortion policy in <ahref="http://www.answers.com/topic/rust-v-sullivan">federally funded family planning clinics and in the Obama administration’s <ahref="http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090309/obama-publishes-proposal-to-rescind-conscience-rule/index.html">rescission of conscience regulations last March.

The Obama administration’s argument also relies on a press release from the National Association of Community Health Centers, which asserted that these centers “do not plan to, nor are they seeking to, become providers of abortion.” While the release may have been issued in good faith, it has no policy force with respect to the nation’s 1,250 FQHCs. These centers, moreover, are under intense public scrutiny at a moment of decision on the President’s “signature” domestic policy issue. It is more instructive to look to their views when that scrutiny was largely absent.

In 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama <ahref="http://www.maryscenter.org/">paid her first visit to a nonprofit organization in the nation’s capital – choosing a clinic network called Mary’s Center. The Center is an FQHC and it focuses on promoting “healthy pregnancies, improv[ing] birth outcomes, and reduc[ing] infant mortality.” While Mary’s Center does not publicize a policy on providing abortion, its President/CEO Maria S. Gomez <ahref="http://www.maryscenter.org/PDF/Maria%20Gomez%20Bio%20March%202009.pdf">proudly lists on her official biography her receipt of the 2002 “Champions of Choice” Award from Planned Parenthood of Washington, D.C., a major area abortion provider. The award is given each year to an <ahref="http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ppmw/10-27-2009-27006.htm">advocate of “choice,” a standard locution for abortion.

More significantly, key personnel from Mary’s Center were participants in a 2001 National Consortium convened by the National Abortion Federation. The Consortium issued a report titled <ahref="http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/about_abortion/increasing_access.pdf">“Increasing Access to Abortion for Women in Diverse Communities.” The report issued formal recommendations for policy changes. The singular domestic policy change: repeal of the Hyde Amendment. The report described this recommendation as “the universal consensus at the Consortium.” With passage of the Senate bill and signature by the President, the Consortium will be well on its way to that goal.

You can read Part One <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/08/a-piecrust-promise-from-pelosi-and-reid/">here.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…ises-part-two/

On 03.16.10 07:56 AM posted by Lindsey Burke

</p>Last week Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), along with co-sponsors Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Robert Byrd (D-WV), and George Voinovich (D-OH) filed an amendment to the tax extenders bill to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is currently being phased-out by Congress and the Obama administration. The amendment however, was blocked by Senator Reid, despite the Nevada Senator having pledged over the summer of 2009 to give Lieberman’s reauthorization measure floor time.

Lieberman is continuing to push for an opportunity to have his amendment considered. The next bill on the Senate floor is the FAA reauthorization bill. In a floor statement on Tuesday in support of his amendment, Senator Lieberman <ahref="http://wwww.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/220809">stated:<spanid="more-28941"></span>

[The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program] is supported by the chancellor of the school system, Michelle Rhee, and by Mayor Fenty. It is warmly endorsed by the families of the students who have benefited from this program as it literally changed their lives. Yet it has run into opposition in Congress, I fear from people who are committed to defending a status quo that is not working…

“Chancellor Michelle Rhee is working so hard to reform the school system of our Nation’s Capital…And she said, I think with great strength and conviction and honesty—and she is the head of the public school system here—that until she can tell these parents that their children will get a good education in the public schools of the District of Columbia, she cannot in good conscience oppose this plan that will basically enable these children a lifeline while she is fixing the DC public schools—a lifeline to a better education, a better career, a better life.

Lieberman’s amendment would reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for five years and increase the amount of the scholarships – which have not increased since the program’s inception in 2004. Scholarship amounts would increase from $7,500 to $9,000 for students in grades K-8 and $11,000 for students in grades 9-12. Lieberman’s proposal would maintain the so-called “three-sector” funding approach, providing money for the scholarships as well as additional funding for D.C. public schools and public charter schools. Each of the “three sectors” would receive $20 million.

Lieberman concluded:

The DC voucher program has proven to be the most effective education policy evaluated by the Federal Government’s official educational research arm so far.

That is an awful lot to be able to say. So the path this bill has followed, the opposition to it, has been so frustrating. People say this is money that is coming out of the public school budget. The whole design of this original program was to add money in equal parts to the DC public schools—money it would not otherwise have received. It was a kind of compensatory balance: the same amount to the charter schools, which are doing very well here in Washington, and then the same amount to the opportunity scholarship program. So money not from the public schools, but an education opportunity for poor kids in Washington now going to schools designated as unable to educate them, and instead giving them the opportunity to go to better private or faith-based schools.

The next test for the Lieberman amendments should come during this week.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…uchers-take-2/

On 03.16.10 08:49 AM posted by Brian Darling

Yesterday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) <atitle="http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2010/03/15/pelosis-march-madness/" href="http://realclearpolitics.blogs.time.com/2010/03/15/pelosis-march-madness/">endorsed the rumored <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/the-slaughter-rule-yet-another-reason-obamacare-will-be-unconstitutional/">Slaughter Rule to send the Senate passed Obamacare bill to the President without a direct up-or-down vote in the House. Don’t believe those on the left who are trying to argue that because Republicans used deeming resolutions when they were in power, it is ok for Democrats to use a similar tactic to pass legislation without a vote.

Under this procedure, the House would vote on a rule setting up debate.* The House would then skip a vote on the Senate passed version of Obamacare and move directly to a vote on reconciliation amendments to that Senate passed bill.* If reconciliation passes, then the House will deem the Senate bill to have passed the House without a direct vote.* As Michael McConnell wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, this is <atitle="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/the-slaughter-rule-yet-another-reason-obamacare-will-be-unconstitutional/" href="../2010/03/15/the-slaughter-rule-yet-another-reason-obamacare-will-be-unconstitutional/">yet another reason Obamacare would be unconstitutional.

Pelosi <atitle="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/16/pelosi-plan-pass-health-care-traditional-vote-riles-critics/" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/16/pelosi-plan-pass-health-care-traditional-vote-riles-critics/">explained the need for this procedure yesterday: “I like it, because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.”* Many Democrats could vote for the rule and claim that they are against the Senate bill.

A <atitle="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123512773070080.html?u tm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign =Heritage%2BHotsheet#printMode" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123512773070080.html?u tm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign =Heritage%2BHotsheet#printMode">Wall Street Journal Op Ed today, points out that this procedure is unprecedented because never before has Congress passed a comprehensive reform bill using this tactic:<spanid="more-28957"></span>

As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, “The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form.” If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison’s core checks and balances.* Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, “Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills.” They’ve also been used for amendments such as to a 1998 bill that “would have permitted the CIA to offer employees an early-out retirement program”—but never before to elide a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.

Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states, “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States.”* If the House does not have a direct vote on the legislation, this seems to be a violation of the explicit language of the Constitution.

Many on the left are relying on a <atitle="http://www.rules.house.gov/Archives/98-710.pdf" href="http://www.rules.house.gov/Archives/98-710.pdf">Congressional Research Service Report (CRS) for the proposition that the Slaughter Rule has been used on numerous occasions. According to CRS, self-executing rules are a “two for one” that describes “when the House adopts a rule it also simultaneously agrees to dispose of a separate matter, which is specified in the rule itself. *For instance, self-executing rules may stipulate that a discrete policy proposal is deemed to have passed the House and been incorporated in the bill to be taken up.”* Now many times this has happened to incorporate amendments before a bill receives an up or down vote or it can be used to get a bill to conference.

The self-executing rule can be used to deal with bills containing amendments added by the Senate.* The CRS report cites a few examples of self-executing rules to “enact significant substantive and sometimes controversial propositions.”* The first example CRS identifies is that “on August 2, 1989, the House adopted a rule (H.Res. 221) that automatically incorporated into the text of the bill made in order for consideration a provision that prohibited smoking on domestic airline flights of two hours or less duration.”* The legislation to prohibit smoking on domestic flights was made part of another bill, then that other bill received a vote.* This is very different, because the health care reconciliation measure will not be incorporated into the Senate passed version of Obamacare and the reconciliation measure will be sent to the Senate for separate consideration.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders are readying the Slaughter Rule and the American people should watch this process closely.* The left will try to say that because Republicans have done it in the past, then they can do the same.* The Constitutional question is on the table and there is no direct precedent for the House to pass a reconciliation measure which deems a massive health care bill to have passed without a direct vote.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…out-precedent/

On 03.16.10 10:30 AM posted by Morgan Roach

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/iranpres0911042.jpg"></p>As censorship in Iran continues to increase, more journalists are being detained, tortured, and sentenced to long prison terms and in some potential cases, execution.* According to a <ahref="http://cpj.org/2010/03/with-52-journalists-in-jail-iran-hits-new-shamefu.php">report released by the <ahref="http://cpj.org/">Committee to Protect Journalists, Iran has hit a new high in the detainment of journalists.* There are now 52 journalists in jail, making Iran the top jailer of press in the world.* China comes in second place with imprisoning 24 journalists and Cuba follows closely behind with 22.

In response to this crackdown on free press, at least a hundred journalists have fled the country and at least 80 are in hiding in Turkey.* This has led those journalists who are still reporting from Iran to go underground, a sort of “guerilla journalism” as characterized by <ahref="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Iran-leads-world-in-journalist-arrests/H1-Article1-518012.aspx">Reza Valizadeh, who used to work for the state run television and radio.* Journalists are now writing under pseudonyms and communicate information without revealing their identity to media outlets outside of Iran.* Despite facing charges of “propagation against the regime,” insulting authorities, disrupting order and even heresy that if convicted carry the death penalty, journalists continue to speak out on the atrocities committed by the country’s regime.* <spanid="more-28970"></span>The belief among <ahref="http://cpj.org/2010/03/with-52-journalists-in-jail-iran-hits-new-shamefu.php">those brave enough to continue the fight is that Iran has “entered a state of permanent media repression, a situation that is not only appalling but also untenable…The Iranian government will eventually lose the war against information.”* This optimism, however, is not without sacrifice.* Each day another journalist is arrested the regime becomes more brutal in its tactics to suppress Iranian freedoms.

It is highly regrettable that the Obama <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Iran/wm2494.cfm">administration was so late in its condemnation of the human rights abuses during and after the June 12, 2009 elections.* More so, it is even more appalling that no action has been taken to defend those risking their lives in the name of free speech and governmental reform. The United States must condemn and expose the Iranian government on abuse of human rights and isolate the regime from the international community.* Standing silent will only make the people of Iran resent the United States.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/16/…f-journalists/

On 03.15.10 10:00 AM posted by Nina Owcharenko

Congressional liberals are working overtime. In case you missed it, hidden behind the non-stop news coverage of the health care debate, the Senate-passed extenders bill includes several health care provisions that follow the same flawed policies of the big Stimulus Bill. Once again, these provisions *move the health care system in the wrong direction.

• COBRA or Nothing. The bill would give premium relief only to those unemployed workers who opt for COBRA coverage. It is well documented that COBRA coverage is one of the most expensive options available to those who lose their jobs. Workers would be better served if they were able to decide whether to use this temporary assistance on COBRA or another more affordable option, including policies available in the individual market.
• Another Medicaid Bailout. The bill would continue to use federal taxpayer funds to bailout state Medicaid programs. While state budgets are crippled by Medicaid, the solution is not to transfer the cost on the federal taxpayers. Instead, Congress should get serious about Medicaid reform and grant states the flexibility they need to fix the program.
• More Delay on the Doctor Fix. The bill would delay automatic Medicare reimbursement cuts to doctors. Cleverly, Congressional leaders removed this costly fix from their health care overhaul and instead have kicked the can down the road one more time. This will enable them to say that the health care legislation is deficit neutral. Senate Congressional leaders should get serious about a permanent fix of the Medicare reimbursement for doctors once and for all, and find some way to offset its cost, rather than adding the additional costs to the deficit.

This bill is a good reminder that even if the massive health care overhaul fails, health care is not dead. Ill-advised health care proposals gain support in different forms, and can be enacted in bite-sized bits.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…xtenders-bill/

On 03.15.10 11:00 AM posted by Dean Cheng

Even as the US continues to debate how it will sustain a manned presence in space, China made yet another major announcement about *its manned space program. In an announcement from the Chinese Ministry of Defense, it was declared *that the newest class of Chinese astronauts included two women. Unlike their male counterparts, these are drawn from the ranks of China’s transport aircraft pilots (presumably because the People’s Liberation Army Air Force [PLAAF] has no female fighter pilots).

The announcement serves as a reminder, not only that China’s interest in manned space is unabated, but that its manned space program is a function of the military, not civilian, authorities. This would suggest that the PLA retains its interest in space despite the announcement that China’s defense budget would be rising by “only” 7.5%, the first single-digit rise in over a decade.

It would also suggest that the announcement that China’s new spacelab (Tiangong-1) would be delayed by a year is more likely a refection of actual technical difficulties than budgetary concerns. During these delays, the United States should step up its efforts and use the additional time wisely.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…omen-in-space/

On 03.15.10 11:14 AM posted by Nick Loris

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) still cannot determine what caused the unintended acceleration of a Toyota Prius last week in which a police officer was able to assist in bringing the vehicle to a stop without injury to anyone. In fact, when Members of Congress grilled Toyota representatives in several hearing, one of the reoccurring questions from Members was: Why didn’t you address the problem sooner. A legitimate question given the volume of complaints over the years but there are some trends that may shed light into what some are calling a serious lack of response. Theodore Frank, president and founder of the Center for Class Action Fairness writes that:

“The Los Angeles Times recently did a story detailing all of the NHTSA reports of Toyota “sudden acceleration” fatalities, and, though the Times did not mention it, the ages of the drivers involved were striking. In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).”

The Los Angeles Times article is available here. Megan McArdle adds:

“Here’s what else you notice: a slight majority of the incidents involved someone either parking, pulling out of a parking space, in stop and go traffic, at a light or stop sign . . . in other words, probably starting up from a complete stop. In many of the other cases, we don’t really know what happened, because there were no witnesses of exactly when the car started to run away.

In fact, it’s a little hard to be sure that some of the cases were sudden acceleration incidents, because the witnesses to what happened in the car were all killed; the family is trying to reconstruct what happened from their knowledge of the deceased. Obviously, most people are going to err on the side of believing that the car was at fault, rather than a beloved relative.

At any rate, when you look at these incidents all together, it’s pretty clear why Toyota didn’t investigate this “overwhelming evidence” of a problem: they look a lot like typical cases of driver error. I don’t know that all of them are. But I do know that however advanced Toyota’s electronics are, they’re not yet clever enough to be able to pick on senior citizens. Unfortunately, that won’t help Toyota much. It will still face a wave of lawsuits, and all the negative publicity means that it may be hard for the company to get a fair trial. Even if it does, the verdict in the court of public opinion will still hurt their sales for some time to come.”

More time will yield more information and hopefully more answers to the problem of unintended sudden acceleration. The good news for Toyota and consumers reaping the benefits of generous incentive packages is that the public appears to be standing behind the automaker. Sales in the United States are up 40 percent in the first ten days of March compared to the same time frame a year earlier.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…oyota-so-long/

On 03.15.10 12:00 PM posted by J.D. Foster

The White House has indicated it intends to nominate San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen as Vice-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

The White House has said the top candidates for the two remaining Board slots are the relatively unknown attorney Sarah Raskin, Maryland’s Commissioner on Financial Regulation, and Peter Diamond, a well-known Social Security specialist from MIT.

Yellen’s appointment is logical. A highly regarded macroeconomist who previously served as a member on the central bank’s board she is expected to perform the traditional roles of the Fed Vice-Chair representing the Board at numerous international fora and more importantly watching the President’s back as the Fed balances a desire to see the unemployment fall on the one hand and inflation remain contained on the other.

Likewise, given the Fed’s renewed focus on financial regulation, the Raskin appointment makes some sense. The truly odd choice of the three is Peter Diamond. As with the other two, his political leanings certainly agree with the President’s but he appears to have expressed little or no previous interest in matters of monetary policy or much of anything else under the Fed’s jurisdiction. His published papers deal with tax policy, pension policy, and especially Social Security; important topics all, but hardly the Fed’s focus.

Perhaps least surprising and most disconcerting, the three appointments together suggest a new bloc of votes on the policy setting Federal Open Market Committee for dovish monetary policies, i.e. those less concerned with containing inflation than reducing unemployment. As discussed elsewhere, though Chairman Bernanke has expressed a very credible intent to resist a return to higher inflation, his own remarks and those of other Fed officials already provide grounds for worry that they may, once again, be late in heading off trouble.* With a new flock of doves winging their way to the Fed, inflation worries have only gotten worse.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…ng-to-the-fed/

On 03.15.10 12:41 PM posted by James Gattuso

There’s more going on in Washington this week than health care reform. Giving up on efforts to get a bipartisan deal on financial regulation, Senate Financial Services Committee chair Chris Dodd today released his own plan – sans GOP support – for “fixing” the financial system. The goal, according to the plan, is to create a financial system that will not only prevent another financial crisis, but one that “works for and protects” Americans. It’s a fine sentiment, but there’s one problem: the new regulations being proposed will make the financial system worse, not better. And while claiming to make financial bailouts a thing of the past, it would actually make them more likely, in effect creating a permanent TARP program.

Among the key provisions of Dodd’s plan:

1. A new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to be located within the Federal Reserve Board bureaucracy. While not technically independent, the new agency would be largely autonomous, virtually guaranteeing conflict with other regulators focused on the safety and soundness of financial markets. Moreover, the new agency would do little to actually help consumers, instead limiting their options and increasing their costs.

2. A new $50 billion fund that is to be used in “emergencies” to settle the affairs of failing financial institutions. This fund is virtually certain to be used for bailing out politically significant financial institutions, and is nothing less than a permanent TARP program. And, although Dodd argues that this fund will be financed by fees on financial firms, not taxpayers, the real cost will doubtless be passed on to American consumers.

3. A powerful Financial Stability Oversight Council, made up of nine existing agencies, with power to “draft” financial institutions into a regulatory structure, and then to order any financial institution to break itself up, stop selling certain products, or even to go out of business. The bill would give the new regulator almost unlimited power, and is likely to stifle innovations and increase costs for consumers.

This is the wrong approach to fixing our financial markets. Bigger government and pre-funded bailouts will not fix the system. Instead, the focus should be on establishing an effective bankruptcy system for large financial firms to allow failures to be addressed in the same way failure is addressed in other industries. Congress should go back to the drawing board to get this right.

Co-authored by David John.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…-old-problems/

On 03.15.10 01:00 PM posted by Conn Carroll

As written, the current health care bill before Congress already is guaranteed to face serious constitutional challenges on enumerated powers, 5th Amendment, racial discrimination, and unequal state treatment. Now the White House seems determined to add a whole new reason courts will throw out Obamacare on sight. Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and former-federal judge Michael McConnell explains:

To become law—hence eligible for amendment via reconciliation—the Senate health-care bill must actually be signed into law. The Constitution speaks directly to how that is done. According to Article I, Section 7, in order for a “Bill” to “become a Law,” it “shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate” and be “presented to the President of the United States” for signature or veto. Unless a bill actually has “passed” both Houses, it cannot be presented to the president and cannot become a law.

To be sure, each House of Congress has power to “determine the Rules of its Proceedings.” Each house can thus determine how much debate to permit, whether to allow amendments from the floor, and even to require supermajority votes for some types of proceeding. But House and Senate rules cannot dispense with the bare-bones requirements of the Constitution. Under Article I, Section 7, passage of one bill cannot be deemed to be enactment of another.

The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form. As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of New York (1998), a bill containing the “exact text” must be approved by one house; the other house must approve “precisely the same text.”

These constitutional rules set forth in Article I are not mere exercises in formalism. They ensure the democratic accountability of our representatives. Under Section 7, no bill can become law unless it is put up for public vote by both houses of Congress, and under Section 5 “the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question . . . shall be entered on the Journal.” These requirements enable the people to evaluate whether their representatives are promoting their interests and the public good. Democratic leaders have not announced whether they will pursue the Slaughter solution. But the very purpose of it is to enable members of the House to vote for something without appearing to do so. The Constitution was drafted to prevent that.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…onstitutional/

On 03.15.10 02:12 PM posted by Derek Scissors, Ph.D.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and others today ran front-page stories on economic and political disagreements the U.S. has with China. The headlines mostly distract from the real issue.

China is nowhere close to a global military power but it is becoming a global economic power. It is therefore almost inevitable that the U.S. and PRC will clash more often over economic matters. The goal in managing those disputes must always be more open international markets, or the result will be that both sides lose.

The next month in particular is going to be a loud one for Sino-American economic relations. On the front end we have a press conference today by Premier Wen Jiabao, number three in the Communist Party hierarchy. Among other things, Wen repeated what are now standard Chinese accusations of American trade protectionism.

On the back end, exactly a month from now a report is due from the Department of the Treasury determining whether any American trading partner is manipulating its currency. The likelihood that the PRC will be cited is the highest in over a decade.

Wen’s remarks in Beijing were tired and often hypocritical. Chinese diplomacy seems to have degenerated into finding new excuses for harmful policies. China’s trade surplus with the U.S. last year again topped $200 billion. If the U.S. is being protectionist, it is doing a remarkably poor job.

At the other end, the Treasury decision is being granted far too much importance. The value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, is just a symptom. The illness is broad Chinese government intervention in the market, led by subsidies for state firms. From mid-2005 to mid-2008, the yuan appreciated 20 percent against the dollar and the bilateral trade deficit still rose 50 percent. Forcing a yuan revaluation will likely yield nothing at all.

Nonetheless, it is true that China’s broad state-led development often hurts its economic partners. What is not true is that American protectionism is a solution.

A hefty tariff on Chinese goods will not create American jobs. Instead, production will just move out of China to Vietnam, Mexico, Bangladesh and elsewhere. With less Chinese competition due to the tariff, other producers can safely raise prices, making goods more expensive here. Protectionism is just households paying more than they should in order to subsidize companies. Seems like we’ve had enough of that the past 18 months.

A much better alternative is to use the June meetings of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue with the PRC. The U.S. should put forward a few, very explicit American demands for less Chinese government intervention in the market. By then, the U.S. would do well to have demonstrated resolve on its runaway budget deficits, something that legitimately concerns the Chinese and much of the rest of the world. This could increase American access to the Chinese market while strengthening the domestic American economy. Not as satisfying as sticking it to Beijing, but far better for the United States.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…nd-what-might/

On 03.15.10 04:25 AM posted by Conn Carroll

The Heritage Foundation unveils our <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/">redesigned website this morning with a modern look and feel, better organization of our policy research, greater integration of our multimedia products and our blog, The Foundry.

The redesigned website is a significant step forward for Heritage. It presents an innovative new platform for a varied tapestry of people — from Capitol Hill legislators to our more than 600,000 members — to have greater access to our best-in-class conservative policy research.

More than a year of planning and development went into the creation of the new <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/">Heritage.org. We interviewed key constituents on Capitol Hill, members of the media, coalition partners, and most importantly, Heritage supporters like you. The feedback we received drove the new design and direction of the new <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/">Heritage.org.

While the look and feel of the site is dramatically different from the previous website, we will continue to carry out our traditional mission of offering sound solutions to contemporary problems.
Heritage staff worked with professional experts in visual design, user experience and content management to build the new site. Some cornerstone pieces include:<spanid="more-28801"></span>
1. Simplified navigation that allows users to quickly access the content they are seeking. We now have tabs for both <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Issues">Issues and <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research">Research in the navigation, giving you the option to browse by public policy issues or, for the more familiar <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/">Heritage.org user, by the type of content.

2. The visual design showcases the strength, credibility and stature of The Heritage Foundation, our people and our work, while also encouraging users to explore our site. This is reflected in the multi-tonal Heritage blue color palette, uniform bands of content throughout the site and the introduction of visual icons that work in tandem with the new navigation.

3. An improved search function and new way of organizing our research should make finding content faster and easier. We’ve taken these two major steps to in response to feedback from our users. The new search engine is more robust and allows visitors to filter content by issue, paper type, author and more. In addition, we’ve introduced a comprehensive structure for organizing all of this information, allowing us to expand the number of issue areas from about 100 on the old website to nearly 1,000 and growing.

4. Our <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia">multimedia section features Heritage <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/Video">videos, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/InfoGraphic">info graphics and <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/Audio">audio in one place. Whether you’re looking for one of our original productions such as <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/Video/2009/10/Let-Me-Rise">“Let Me Rise” or a <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/Video/2010/03/Stimson-on-FNC-3-5-10">recent TV appearance of a Heritage analyst, you can now find it easily by clicking on the links above the search on each page.

5. We’ve introduced customized audience pages for the <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Conservative-Movement">conservative community, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/For-Government-Staff">government staff, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Press-Media">press and media, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/About/Jobs">job seekers and <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/About/Young-Leaders">young leaders. By tailoring our content to these groups, we hope to better serve their needs. You can access these pages in the footer of every page.

6. The new footer gives Heritage an opportunity to showcase some of our signature research papers and communications products on the bottom of every page. Given the large amount of traffic Heritage.org received from search engines, we realize that not everyone entering the site is coming through the homepage.

These improvements are similar to ones we recently made on <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/">The Foundry, where we made navigation easier, added features, connected with social media and improved content to make the online experience more enjoyable for all who visit. With nearly 150,000 subscribers to the <ahref="http://www.paramountcommunication.com/heritage/index.aspx">Morning Bell, it is evident that our daily dose of conservative analysis is an important part of your day. We trust that the new <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/">Heritage.org will provide you even more opportunities to engage with our team.

Please navigate and explore the new <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/">Heritage.org. This site is built for you, our readers, members and researchers. Its launch marks an exciting moment for The Heritage Foundation as we continue to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

If you have questions or comments, please send us a note at [email protected].

Quick Hits:

• Minutes before midnight on Sunday, House Democrats released <ahref="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/86681-house-democrats-release-reconciliation-healthcare-bill">a 2,309 “reconciliation” bill that the Budget Committee will pass early this week. The bill is a replica of the bill reported to Ways and Means last year, except with a government takeover of the student lending industry tacked on. This entire shell of a bill will be scrapped and replaced with the real reconciliation bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is writing behind closed doors.
• Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) outlines <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/14/AR2010031401388.html">“what real health reform should look like” in today’s Washington Post.
• Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) is expected to <ahref="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703457104575122023705041834.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection">introduce his financial legislation bill today.
• At least 10 House members are spending <ahref="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34391.html">more than $1,000 a month in taxpayer money to lease cars.
• Despite President Barack Obama’s self-professed commitment to openness and transparency, a <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/us/politics/15open.html">National Security Archive report released Sunday finds “progress slow and erratic” while the <ahref="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-web13-2010mar13,0,1749979.story">Government Accountability Office found information released “missing or unreliable.”

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…-heritage-org/

On 03.15.10 05:56 AM posted by Lindsey Burke

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/DeptEducation.jpg"></p>Over the weekend, the administration released its <ahref="http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/">“blueprint” for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The blueprint provides the administration’s vision for reauthorizing ESEA, in its current iteration known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), due for reauthorization since 2007. The plan to tackle the reauthorization of NCLB marks the most significant undertaking in the realm of federal education policy since the law was originally crafted in 2001. For the education policy world, this is huge; for the Obama administration, this offers a prime opportunity to reshape the course of American education.

Despite the historic opportunity, the administration’s blueprint offers what will likely be more lip service to reform and flexibility than actual freedom from federal red tape, which most states desperately need to improve academic achievement during a time of fiscal duress. States like <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/01/How-No-Child-Left-Behind-Threatens-Floridas-Successful-Education-Reforms ">Florida have shown that the real promise of educational success lies at the state level. However, there are some major changes afoot if the law is reauthorized in accordance with the blueprint. Among other changes, the new federal plan would require the following:<spanid="more-28819"></span>

• Adequate yearly progress (AYP) would no longer be used to measure the achievement of schools and districts. Instead, states would have to show that students are “college and career ready” by the year 2020, with the goal of having the United States rank first in the world in the percentage of students who complete college.
• While the NCLB 2014 proficiency deadline would be effectively eliminated, states would be expected to adopt new college and career ready standards to meet the 2020 “college and career ready” goal. States would be expected to set proficiency benchmarks against their new standards.
• The administration’s proposal aims to provide more latitude in how states intercede in failing schools and includes a provision for differentiating consequences for low-performing schools. States would choose one of four turnaround models to improve what the administration has deemed “Challenge schools” – those schools that are among the lowest 5 percent of performers.
• Schools that are deemed among the next lowest 5 percent would be placed on a “warning list”. States would be required to improve schools placed on the warning list, but would not be required to use one of the administration-prescribed turnaround models.
• Under the new blueprint, states would be required to take over a school’s Title I funding if a school has not worked toward successfully closing existing achievement gaps after three years time.
• The new blueprint calls for increased funding equalization among schools, and will move toward “comparability in resources between high- and low-poverty schools.” Further, the administration writes that “over time, districts will be required to ensure that their high-poverty schools receive state and local funding levels (for personnel and relevant nonpersonnel expenditures) comparable to those received by their low-poverty schools.” Equalizing inputs has long been a goal of liberal education policy, though <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2008/09/Does-Spending-More-on-Education-Improve-Academic-Achievement ">increased spending has not been shown to correlate with increased achievement.
• The blueprint calls for not only funding equalization but also equalizing teaching resources, noting that “states will also be required to develop meaningful plans to ensure the equitable distribution of teachers and principals that receive at least an ‘effective’ rating.”

While these are major changes to the current law, there are a few requirements that would not change. For instance, states will still be required to tests students annually in grades 3 – 8 and once again in high school, as currently required by NCLB. However, new federal funding will be provided to help states craft assessments that are aligned with new college and career-ready standards.

Many of these reforms effectively reset the clock on accountability. And the common standards language leaves reason to believe that states will still be susceptible to the perverse incentives created by NCLB – namely watering down their tests to meet the new 2020 deadline.

The administration’s promise of increased flexibility for states is admirable, but even the blueprint – let alone what a full-blown reauthorization bill would contain – increases the federal role in education and stands to further bind the hands of already overburdened states. The primary shackles will come with the strong incentives to adopt common standards, and indeed, the blueprint refers to the newly drafted standards numerous times. The administration will give funding priority “to states that have adopted common, state-developed, college- and career-ready standards.” The blueprint builds on Race to the Top by incentivizing states to adopt reforms that improve student achievement, which the administration believes include common standards.

The National Governor’s Association, Council of Chief State School Officers, and the administration have contended for more than a year that the common core standards being drafted by the NGA and CCSSO are voluntary. To date, 48 states have signed on to adopt the common standards even though a final draft is not expected to be unveiled until April. While the $4.35 billion Race to the Top grants created a strong incentive for states to sign on to the standards, two states, Texas and Alaska, have so far chosen not to adopt the “college and career ready” standards for fear of increased federal intervention and red tape. The administration went a step further last month, suggesting that Title I funding – money for low-income school districts – could be contingent on the adoption of common standards. The ESEA reauthorization blueprint leaves an even greater impression that the choice to adopt common standards is becoming less and less voluntary. The blueprint states:

Following the lead of the nation’s governors, we’re calling on all states to develop and adopt standards in English language arts and mathematics that build toward college- and career-readiness by the time students graduate from high school… States may either choose to upgrade their existing standards, working with their 4-year public university system to certify that mastery of the standards ensures that a student will not need to take remedial coursework upon admission to a postsecondary institution in the system; or work with other states to create state-developed common standards that build toward college- and career- readiness.

The blueprint tightly ties some funding to the adoption of common standards and corresponding assessments:

States will receive formula grants to develop and implement high-quality assessments aligned with college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics that accurately measure student academic achievement and growth, provide feedback to support and improve teaching, and measure school success and progress…Beginning in 2015, formula funds will be available only to states that are implementing assessments based on college- and career-ready standards that are common to a significant number of states.

While the administration’s blueprint for ESEA reauthorization claims to increase flexibility for states, strong language about the adoption of common standards and tests, equalizing funding for schools and the distribution of effective teachers suggests that states will see an increase in federal red tape. The blueprint’s various references to the administration “providing a cradle through college and career continuum” suggest that flexibility will be lost for states and students alike.

There are cheerleaders for the new reforms. Writing that the blueprint is tight on means and represents a dramatic change in the federal role in education, <ahref="http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/ ">Fordham claims the new federal role is “one that would be more targeted, less prescriptive, and use a lighter touch on the vast majority of America’s schools.”

But one of the most glaring indications that the proposal will further enshrine the Washington-directed status quo rather than empowering parents is the elimination of supplemental education services (SES) for students in failing public schools. <ahref="http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/13/25esea.h29.html?tkn=WWXFeFCKZztDmrgZs0JttUg6TmD36U fOEWp5&cmp=clp-edweek">Education Week writes:

In an important policy shift, schools that failed to meet achievement targets would not be mandated to provide school choice or supplemental educational services, known as SES. Mr. Duncan had already signaled that the tutoring and public-school-choice provisions under NCLB were not acceptable to him…The proposal could meet with opposition in Congress, particularly among Republicans.

“It’s disappointing to see [tutoring] and school choice removed from the parental toolbox, particularly because it appears the focus is shifting to the needs of schools rather than the needs of students,” said Alexa Marrero, a spokeswoman for Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee.

It will be an unfortunate turn for the administration to further consolidate federal power over education while weakening parents’ options. Early signs – moving toward common standards and funding equalization among the most glaring – indicate that federal control would increase as a result of this reauthorization proposal.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…ral-overreach/

On 03.15.10 07:09 AM posted by John Ligon

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/taxes.jpg"></p>In an attempt to solve the nation’s current economic woes, legislators remain fixated on a single solution: federal stimulus spending. This is the wrong solution, regardless of the sweet rhetoric used by some Washington lawmakers, and is <ahref="../2009/11/23/how-unemployment-taxes-and-obamas-stimulus-are-killing-jobs/">no economic stimulus.

Two days ago the <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031000324.html">Senate passed (62 to 36) another round of stimulus (this time dubbed a “jobs bill”) which, among other items, extends unemployment benefits for up to one additional year. **Unemployment benefits will now extend to two years under federal law which begs the question: *<ahref="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2010/0310/Senate-jobs-bill-the-perils-of-extended-unemployment-benefits">Are these benefits becoming a de facto welfare program?

Moreover, states and businesses have been bracing for the pain of financing these changes for a while now; State governments are already drawing on ‘loans’ from the federal government.

<ahref="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2010/0310/Senate-jobs-bill-the-perils-of-extended-unemployment-benefits">By 2012, States unemployment trust funds are expected to be fully depleted—at which time the federal government will have to replenish these funds with approximately $90 billion.

States are also turning to higher tax rates faced by employers in those states to cover the costs of these extensions.* <ahref="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35799155/ns/business-small_business/">States like Hawaii are floating a tax-rate hike as much as 600 percent, and 35 states will likely raise the unemployment tax rates faced by businesses. *Also, it will force many businesses, especially small businesses, to <ahref="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121464074">defense against rising costs at a time when the economy could be looking at an upswing.<spanid="more-28828"></span>

Washington lawmakers have shown no restraint in financing stimulus programs with bloated deficit spending. These types of federal spending (or ‘stimulus’) programs have unintended consequences, notably, that they produce severe constraints on state budgets and higher tax rates faced by businesses. <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/economy/cda08-13.cfm">And, as Heritage scholars, James Sherk and Karen Campbell, posit:

Extended UI benefits reallocate resources within the economy; they do not create wealth or spur economic growth.* Increasing the debt burden on future taxpayers may have the appearance of a stimulus, but unless it increases GDP by more than is spent, it is not… Pumping debt money into the economy may appear as a stimulus while it is being spent because it eases some liquidity constraints—but 75 to 83 cents of every dollars of that spending is lost. Therefore, once the spending stops the bubble bursts because the increases in GDP were artificial.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…s-on-business/

On 03.15.10 08:00 AM posted by Rep. Anh Cao

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Cao.jpg"></p>The United States Trade Representative announced that negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership will begin this month, March 2010. Prompt conclusion of this agreement could be critical to the President’s export initiative, in which Mr. Obama intends to double U.S. Exports over the next five years. While the stimulus plan has had mixed results, increasing exports could help move our economy out of recession.

Increasing exports can have a dramatic effect opening up new markets for U.S. goods and services. My district, which includes the Port of New Orleans, has benefited greatly from previous free trade agreements. The North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”) generated $798.1 million in new exports through New Orleans in 2006 and $607.0 million in the first half of 2007.

The Trans Pacific Partnership will create trade relationships between the United States and seven countries: Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei, Australia, Peru, and Vietnam. When a bilateral free trade agreement with just one of the potential Trans Pacific Partners Australia, was implemented, Louisiana’s exports to that country increased by 23%.<spanid="more-28834"></span>

Just as with previous free trade agreements, protectionists in Congress will try to kill this and other future trade agreements. I think it’s important to distinguish the tactics used by that group with the genuine concerns that many free trade Members have regarding liberalizing trade relations with countries that have poor human rights records like Vietnam.

I have been vocal about labor, human rights and religious association violations in Vietnam. Brunei and Peru have been criticized for similar offenses. Because we have pre-existing relationships and trade frameworks with some of these nations, we have a moral obligation to use these tools to encourage them to become more democratic.

Another potential sticking point in negotiations is ensuring that U.S. businesses have open and fair access to markets in the participating countries. The United States has been a marginal participant in existing frameworks and agreements in the Asia-Pacific region. In December, China and 10 other countries began creating an East Asia trade bloc. There are estimates that the impact of this bloc could cost this country at least $25 billion in annual exports if the United States does not gain substantial access to the market.

This is why it is critical that the USTR and the negotiators set clear benchmarks for complying with this agreement. They should address the labor and human rights concerns that have contributed to the delay of other agreements in addition to ensuring fair access for U.S. businesses. If these negotiations are carried out swiftly, the Trans Pacific Partnership will be an important first step in a creating a trade platform which creates jobs through trade, promotes U.S. businesses abroad, and sends a clear message to our new trade partners that we only do business with countries that respect basic democratic principles.

Representative Cao (R-La.) is a member of the House Republican Trade Working Group and Co-Founder of the Congressional Engagement Caucus.

The views expressed by guest bloggers on the Foundry do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heritage Foundation.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/15/…c-partnership/