Archives for April 2014

U.S. taxpayers may soon be on the hook for $100 million in the effort to resurrect the bankrupt city of Detroit, and Louisiana Sen. David Vitter says such a move wastes valuable resources and relieves city and state officials from having to make the tough decisions needed to restore solvency to the Motor City.

The Detroit Free Press reported this week that state and federal officials are in talks to give the city $100 million in federal money to help jump start blight removal efforts and ease the pain on pension recipients stung by the recent bankruptcy declaration.

“Detroit has been grossly mismanaged for years and that was a choice by Detroit citizens through their elected officials.  For all other federal taxpayers to now pay for it or partially pay for it to the tune of $100 million I think is just wrong,” said Vitter, who expanded on his assertion that generations of Detroit leaders and the people who repeatedly put them into office dug this massive financial hole.

“In Detroit and a lot of other jurisdictions, there’s been this conspiracy for years.  Public unions elected left-leaning elected officials and those elected officials push very expensive public pensions and other benefits for those unions.  That’s what’s been building for years and years in Detroit, in Illinois, in other very left-leaning jurisdictions, particularly those dominated by public unions.  That’s a big deal and a big part of what got Detroit into trouble,” said Vitter.

More than a year ago, Vitter tried to stifle any federal financial rescues such as this through his State Bailout Prevention Act.

“I introduced this bill because I saw this coming.  I knew that with Detroit, Illinois, perhaps others, there would be attempts for the federal taxpayer to have to bail out these mismanaged jurisdictions.  So this simply said that no federal authority, including the Treasury, including the Fed can have an authority to bail out these entities in bankruptcy,” said Vitter.  “Certainly that doesn’t prevent other funds that would ordinarily go to these jurisdictions from continuing.  But (there would be) no funds specifically to bail out these mismanaged jurisdictions.”

Advancing the legislation in a U.S. Senate controlled by Democrats is a challenge.  Vitter’s one attempt to enact the bill was defeated when he called for unanimous consent for its adoption.  While Vitter claims wide support for the plan, he says Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, both Democrats, formally objected and killed the resolution.

“I’m looking for other opportunities to move it forward but, unfortunately in Harry Reid’s Senate, Reid and other Democratic leaders are probably going to go along with this bailout idea,” said Vitter, noting his concerns the $100 million might not even come up for congressional authorization.

“I’m concerned that they’re trying to do this administratively.  I don’t think the Obama administration has the authority to do that, but that certainly hasn’t stopped them in similar cases in the past,” said Vitter.

The senator also applauds Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder for being one of the few leaders who doesn’t have his hand out to Washington.  Vitter says approving the $100 million could easily begin a slippery slope for more taxpayer dollars flowing into Detroit and actually hamper efforts to get the city on solid financial ground.

“I agree with the thought that if it started there, it wouldn’t end there and I think it may very well mushroom from there,” said Vitter.

“The more they’re bailed out by others, the less they’re going to make necessary tough choices.  It’s as simple as that.  So this is actually discouraging.  They’re making those tough decisions and getting management of the city on track.  I was going to say back on track but it hasn’t been on track for generations,” said Vitter.

In addition to his fears that Detroit could be a bottomless pit for federal bailout dollars, he fears setting such a precedent in Detroit could trigger a long line of cash-strapped states and cities to line up in Washington expecting similar aid.

“Absolutely.  Detroit’s not the end of it.  Illinois could be in line.  California could be in line.  So to set this sort of precedent is really dangerous,” said Vitter.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Eliana Johnson of National Review are encouraged to hear former DNC Chairman Howard Dean call for his party to embrace Obamacare and run on it in 2014.  They also discuss revelations that Lois Lerner discussed possible criminal prosecution for conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.  And they react to Anthony Weiner declining to answer whether he still engages in sexting.

President Obama is asking the U.S. Senate to confirm Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the next leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, but at least one veterans organization is vowing to do everything it can to block her path to the president’s cabinet.

Burwell is currently directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  During October’s partial government shutdown, Burwell made the call for the National Park Service to shutter it’s public attractions, including open air memorials in Washington such as the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial.

That decision made the World War II Memorial a flash point of controversy during the shutdown, as elderly veterans coming to the nation’s capital on Honor Flights were turned away by barricades.  Members of Congress and veterans groups soon began removing the barricades to allow veterans access to their memorials.  Eventually, the government allowed World War II veterans into their memorial, but the general public was left out.  The Vietnam and Korean memorials were closed to everyone.

“The only reason they reversed themselves (on the World War II Memorial) is because there was a public outcry,” said Special Operations Speaks Political Director Larry Ward, whose group was actively involved in the Million Vet March demanding the memorials be re-opened.

“The fact that there were flights coming in with 90-year-old men who served our country and saved the world, the Greatest Generation, were coming in to see the World War II Memorial, probably for the last time that they could in their lives, and they were turned away for political spite.  It’s one of the most reprehensible acts any commander-in-chief or any bureau head like, Sylvia ‘Barricade’ Burwell, has ever done in the history of this country.”

Ward says the whole episode shows the depths to which the Obama administration would sink to win a political debate, and whether Burwell or President Obama is ultimately to blame doesn’t really matter.

“The blame at the time went to the president, and rightly so.  (The orders) probably came from on high.  The fact of the matter is she was in charge of making the call.  It might have been her idea.  We do know that the barricades went up minutes after the government shut down so it was planned and it was reprehensible and idiotic.  Let’s call it for what it is,” said Ward.

“There was nothing to be gained by shutting down open-air memorials.  The government spent more money shutting them down and guarding them than they would have if they had just left them open and let our veterans go to their memorials,” said Ward.

According to Ward, whether Burwell ordered the memorial shut on her own volition or was simply following orders, she is unfit for higher office either way.

“She either has a lot of malcontent, has a lot of evil inside her or she’s just an Obamabot.  Either way, we don’t want that person representing the nation’s health care.  We need somebody who can stand on their own and make decisions that affect the entire country’s health and well being, not someone who is going to either have political payback for spite or for whatever reasons that they put these barricades up or just follow orders as the king on high declares,” said Ward.

While the exact strategy is being worked out, Ward says Special Operations Speaks is planning an aggressive opposition to the Burwell nomination.

“Absolutely, and you’ll hear this first,” said Ward.  “We’re planning on hosting a human barricade in front of the Senate at the time of her confirmation hearings.”

Ward adds that military veterans are very reticent to get active in politics but the members of Special Operations Speaks feel they have no choice.

“They’ve gotten political with this administration because of the reprehensible behavior they have towards our military and our veterans.  If need be, we’ll rip down barricades every single day and throw them at the White House the way we did at the Million Vet March,” said Ward.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Andrew Johnson of National Review are encouraged by new polls showing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker looking good in his re-election bid and Wendy Davis doing very poorly among Texas women.  They also shudder at the thought of Kathleen Sebelius possibly running for the U.S. Senate in Kansas.  And they react to Michael Bloomberg ramping up his efforts to elect pro-gun control candidates and stating his efforts will definitely get him into heaven…if there is a God.

The federal tax code is a complex, unintelligible mess and America needs to embrace the simplicity of a national consumption tax known as the Fair Tax, according to Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who is just one of many conservatives touting the idea as Americans rush to meet today’s federal income tax deadline.

“PROBLEM: folks sacrificing precious time, money and peace of mind on a broken complex tax code. SOLUTION: the #FairTax,” tweeted Price on Tuesday.  Fellow Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston also tweeted support for the Fair Tax and the abolishing of the IRS.

Price says the first thing Americans need to recognize is that our current tax system is a disaster.

“Our current system actually punishes the things that we say that we want as a society.  We say we want hard work.  We say we want success.  We say we want entrepreneurs, risk taking, investment and all those kinds of things.  yet our tax system punishes every single one of them.  So many of us believe that we need think more fundamentally and more creatively about it and come up with a tax system that doesn’t just massage what we currently have but puts in place a system that actually rewards those things,” said Price.

Fair Tax supporters call for the income tax and payroll taxes to be eliminated and replaced with a national sales or consumption tax in a move that would be revenue neutral and clear out all the confusion and bureaucracy from the system.

“The IRS goes away.  All the taxes related to income at both the business and the individual level go away and we would have a national retail sales tax that would replace that,” said Price.  “It would bring in the same amount of money, but what it would do is reinvigorate the economy and get the economy rolling in a big, big way because it would encourage jobs to come back from overseas.  It would encourage investment, encourage savings, encourage entrepreneurship, encourage hard work and reward success in big, big ways.”

Based on current consumption and levels and national revenue figures, the Fair Tax would be roughly in the 20-23 percent range.  Price says that may seem steep but it’s actually a good deal when you take out income taxes and consider one other important fact.

“Each and every one of us pays right now about a 23 percent tax in every single good or service that we purchase, but you don’t know about it.  It’s embedded in the system.  For example, businesses add into the price of their product an amount that’s about equal to 23 percent of the cost of the product to cover their taxes.  Businesses don’t pay taxes.  The consumers that use the businesses do,” said Price, who says once those business taxes go away, the retail prices will go down and we would pay about the same as we do now once the Fair Tax was applied.

Price says one caveat to installing a Fair Tax is not just the scrapping of the federal income tax but to pass a new constitutional amendment forbidding an income tax.  He says otherwise the Fair Tax could become a nightmare.

“What we don’t want is both a consumption tax and an income tax.  That’s the worst of both world’s.  So when you hear people talking about a Value Added Tax (VAT), that’s a consumption tax as well but it is in addition to income tax.  That would be a terrible prospect, because then you give the federal government even more money to expand the bureaucracy and create an ever-larger federal government,” said Price.

The most common Democratic complaint about the Fair Tax is that the rich and poor would pay the exact same percentage in taxes for the same items.  Price says that worry is unfounded.

“The way the current bill solves that is to provide everybody with what’s called a prebate, so the amount of monies that are felt to be needed for essential services like food, clothing and shelter, one would get a prebate to cover the cost of the Fair Tax on those items.  Everybody gets it, so that those at the lower end of the economic spectrum are actually benefited to a greater degree under the Fair Tax than they currently are,” said Price.

In late February, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp introduced his version of tax reform that includes fewer tax brackets and an attempted simplification of the system through closing loopholes.  Price says it’s a step in the right direction towards more of a flat tax system but doesn’t go far enough.

There is a House bill calling for the adoption of the Fair Tax, HR 25, but Price says there’s not nearly enough backing, even among Republican leaders and members, to advance the resolution right now.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review applaud conservatives for using Tax Day 2014 to push for smart tax reforms.  Charlie wonders why the Utah mom who murdered her newborn babies is any different from those who advocate for late-term abortions.  And we discuss Alex Sink’s decision not to run for Congress again.

Vladimir Putin wants all of Ukraine and the big question is whether he even be satisfied with that, according to former Reagan administration Pentagon official Frank Gaffney.

Gaffney, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy under President Reagan, is now president of the Center for Security Policy.  He says Putin is probing to see just how far he can go and is getting virtually no resistance from the United States.

Tension in Ukraine are on the rise again, with increasing reports of pro-Russian militants seizing police stations and other government buildings in eastern Ukraine, a region known to be sympathetic to Moscow.  Experts fear the Russians are stoking an artificial movement in that part of the country designed to trigger additional independence votes and eventual assimilation by Russia.  Gaffney says Putin’s strategy goes far beyond a little regional nibbling.

“The question is does he really want more than the whole thing of Ukraine.  The think the answer to that is probably yes.  I think he will insist upon, at the very minimum, that all of Ukraine once again is subject to Russian dominion, as it was under the previous President Yanukovych.  Whether his appetite extends beyond that to Trans-Dniester (Moldova) or to Latvia and Estonia or perhaps other former Soviet republics [that] have Russian populations is anybody’s guess,” said Gaffney.

“But I think that the heavy betting should be on he’s going to continue to go for as much as he can because he senses no real opposition from either the administration here in Washington or from the Europeans,” he said.

The Obama administration says the president will likely speak to Putin soon about the latest instigation of unrest in Ukraine.

“I can assure you that Russia’s further provocations and transgressions will come with a cost,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Gaffney says that kind of response will yield little to nothing.

“This isn’t the first time that that’s been said, by the president, by Secretary of State John Kerry, let alone by the White House press spokesman. I think it’s been completely discounted by Vladmir Putin because he knows our capacity to impose greater costs is considerably limited by both the condition of our own military, our economy, not least our leadership, and because we’ve failed to take any appreciable steps to date ,” said Gaffney.

“The extent of our support for Ukraine to this point has been to provide meals ready to eat to a country ready to be eaten.  This is hardly a disincentive to Vladimir Putin and I think he’s behaving accordingly,” said Gaffney.

The Obama administration is also responding to news that a Russian warplane recently buzzed an American Navy ship in the region, with Carney calling it “provocative and unprofessional.”

“This is the kind of thing that can lead to conflagrations because one suddenly one finds that the response is mandatory and no longer elective.  I’m worried that the president’s failure, as is so often the case, and this is what the lessons of history teach us, things get worse the longer you defer acting on them,” said Gaffney.

Gaffney further asserts that the brewing tension with the Russians is another facet of the larger battle for freedom in the world.

“I believe the war we’re in is best thought of as the war for the free world and whether the assaults against the free world by the Islamists or by the Chinese or by the Russians or by Hugo Chavez and his successors or anybody else, to think that it doesn’t matter to U.S. security when other parts of the free world or aspirants to being part of it are lopped off at the hands of thugs who have very bad intentions toward us as well is the worst sort of shortsightedness.  I shows an ignorance of the hard lessons of history that should cause all of us to realize that we are poorly led and it is exposing us to great dangers,” said Gaffney.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Charlie Cooke of National Review react to Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer failing to ask Rep. Elijah Cummings a single question about the IRS scandal just days after Cummings was implicated in wrongdoing.  They’re also appalled that President Obama refused to spend 10 minutes with victims of the 2009 Ft. Hood shootings to hear their concerns about government failing to keep its promises to them.  And they comment on Jay Carney’s house featuring two posters extolling the Soviet era.

President Obama has been accused of a weak response to the Russian annexation of Crimea.  Now, the Capitol Steps provide us an exclusive look inside Obama’s deliberations in their new parody, “Ukarine Parts Keep Fallin’ to the Reds.”

Former IRS official Lois Lerner may soon be facing a contempt of Congress citation and even criminal prosecution for her role in directing unlawful scrutiny towards conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status, but the biggest bombshell of the week is the revelation that Lerner’s office shared sensitive tax information with the top Democrat on the committee investigating the scandal.

However, the president of the grassroots organization at the center of this alleged collusion says even this development is only one step in discovering just how high this goes in the Obama administration.

This week, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee revealed an email chain showing the IRS passed along confidential information from True the Vote to the office of Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.  Cummings then launched his own investigation of the group through his position on the committee, even though the committee cannot lawfully investigate a private organization.

True the Vote President Catherine Englebrecht says this episode is further proof of how corrupt our government is becoming.

“It’s like the wild wild west up there in D.C.  Anything goes.  It’s open season on any group that is considered to be ideologically opposed to the politics of the administration.  The rules don’t matter.  The ends justify the means in their minds,” said Englebrecht.

Englebrecht says it is difficult to pinpoint when Cummings launched his scrutiny into her group, but the first contact she received from him came in September 2012.

“It was so bizarre.  When this all started, it was in the throes of the final weeks before the 2012 election when True the Vote was at its peak of operations, helping to train citizens and getting them ready to serve inside of the polls for the elections,” said Englebrecht.  “Out of nowhere, we go this letter from Elijah Cummings.  He asserted that we were engaging in criminal activity and that he was going to open an investigation and he was subpoenaing all of our documents.  These letters came to us on the letterhead of the Committee for House Oversight and Government Reform.  His was the only signature on it, but the letter itself carried with it what felt to be a pretty weighty backing.”

True the Vote is dedicated to making sure that only those who should be voting are casting ballots in an election.  The group is actively working to get states to update their voter rolls and purge the names of people who died or moved.  It also advocates for voters to be required to present a photo ID, an idea vigorously opposed by the Obama administration and other Democrats who liken the requirement to Jim Crow era restrictions on voting.

Given True the Vote’s ambitious work leading up to a very close presidential election, Englebrecht does not believe the timing of the letter was coincidental.

“I do think they are concerned about any organization that is going to try and take a hard look at the legitimacy of elections and legitimacy of process.  Eighty-plus percent of Americans favor photo voter identification, but the administration is going state by state and suing states that are trying to implement these very common sense measures to make sure that elections are free and fair for everyone, regardless of political party affiliation,” said Englebrecht.

“It begs the question why.  Why is there such a push against bringing a process that meets with standards of others.  We’re the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t use photo voter identification as its standard and it makes you wonder why,” she said.

Englebrecht says the latest discoveries go a long way to explain why congressional Democrats quickly shifted from outrage over the IRS scandal to outrage that Republicans still want answers.

“Elijah Cummings, months and months and months ago, went on television and said, ‘Case closed.  There’s nothing to see here, people.  Keep moving.’  Our own president came out and said there’s not a smidgen of truth to any of this.  It’s a sad day, but it’s where you are that you can’t believe the hype,” said Englebrecht.  “They will say and do anything to obfuscate, to put out a smokescreen to keep people from recognizing what really is happening.”

Englebrecht is pleased with the House actions of the past week that will likely lead to a contempt of Congress citation against Lois Lerner and possibly a federal prosecution, but she quickly cautions that this scandal still goes much higher than anyone implicated thus far.

“It’s a step in the right direction but it’s only a step.  I think that we’ve got to look at the actions of Elijah Cummings and the actions of Lois Lerner, actions taken by two people in a much bigger organized effort.  I think we’ve got to keep the push on no matter how deep and ugly this rabbit hole is.  We have got to be steeled enough and firm enough in our resolve to follow it wherever it leads.  I think it is going to lead to the highest offices in the land,” said Englebrecht.

The government did more than launch investigations and saddle Englebrecht with paperwork.  She says federal agencies began showing up to inspect her private manufacturing business with great regularity.

“Over the course of the last three years, we’ve been visited by a whole alphabet soup of agencies, from the FBI to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, OSHA.  There’s a Texas branch of the EPA, an environmental group that came out and visited and certainly the IRS.  So we’ve had our fair share of agency interest,” said Englebrecht.

She admits each government agency had a plausible reason for its visit and her company fully complied with all of the inspections.  However, Englebrecht says once again the timing of all this cannot be an accident.

“Nothing changed in our business.  We’d been in business to that point for 16 years and had never seen any government agency take an interest in us.  Then I filed for non-profit exemption.  All of sudden, over a period of three years, we have now, at last count, 25 either audits or investigations or inquiries from five different government agencies,” said Englebrecht.  “At some point you have to ask yourself what is the statistical probability that none of this is connected?  I just don’t think you can make the case.  Now we are seeing, in fact, that we know at least the executive branch and the legislative branch were colluding to single us out.”

Despite the frustration suffered through her business and her political activism, Englebrecht says this saga can serve as an alarming wake-up call to people who cannot believe our own government would treat a law-abiding citizen this way.

“Because of the good nature of Americans, it’s our natural inclination to not even be able to wrap our heads around the thought that citizens might be being targeted.  That stands in direct contrast to everything this country represents.  I’m here to tell you it is happening.  It is happening and we’ve got to keep pushing for the truth,” she said.  “There are a lot of layers to peel back.  Elijah Cummings is only a very small supporting character to a much bigger production.”