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Archive June 2010

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Earth to Obama: "Stop Spending!"

By Bill Wilson

CNBC commentator Rick Santelli has a very simple solution to the nation’s fiscal and economic woes for Barack Obama and Congress: “Stop spending!” Speaking on Squawk Box on Monday, Santelli noted the cool reception that Obama received this past weekend at the G20 summit in Toronto that sought to address the sovereign debt crisis.

Unfortunately, Obama is apparently the only leader on Earth who doesn’t think there is an overspending problem with government. Despite a $13 trillion national debt at home, he urged world leaders to ratchet up the deficit-spending — only to find that the world has gone chilly on the idea of “stimulus” in the wake of the debt crisis.

As Santelli stated, “[German Chancellor] Merkel’s done, Europe’s done, because the voting electorate has said they’re done.” On the domestic front, Santelli also pointed out that the American people want Congress to end “stimulus”, too: “[Government] did [step in]. And a couple of trillion dollars later, they’re done, because the taxpayers are the people voting, and they’re done.”

Now someone just needs to tell Obama.

In a June 16th letter to G20 leaders, Obama warned that governments must “learn from the consequential mistakes of the past when stimulus was too quickly withdrawn”. Instead, leaders fearful of default fortunately resolved to “avoid leaving future generations with a legacy of deficits and debt” and adopted a proposal by Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cut deficits in half by 2013.

Obama had touted a similar “commitment” in his letter to world leaders, although he’s comparing the 2009 increase in the national debt of $1.911 trillion to his proposed $1.117 trillion increase for 2013. Which is not at all reassuring when he talks about “setting a credible medium-term fiscal path”.

The truth is that it’s hardly credible.

The best Obama could get from the G20 was an acknowledgment of last year’s “big plan” for the world to spend its way to recovery — even as the statement went on to declare that that plan is all but dead. The G20 warned that if action is not taken, “fiscal deficits and debt in some advanced economies [will] reach unacceptably high levels.”

Obama settled on language that offered him some cover for his present political slush fund, which called for governments to “follow through on delivering existing stimulus plans.” In other words, not to divert the monies that already were committed. Which, for Europe, is no problem, since they’ve already run out of money.

The effect, however, was to reduce the leader of the free world to a meaningless footnote in an otherwise serious multilateral policy declaration, the substance of which aired on the side of fiscal consolidation. Everyone gets it but Obama. All he did was muddy up the language.

While the rest of the world is taking on the grave and growing problem of unsustainable sovereign debt, Obama calls for more spending. He has asked Congress for another $47 billion to balance state budgets this year, including $23 billion to bail out unsustainable public school spending.

Congress has not yet bitten, however, feeling the pressure of taxpayers. So, Obama whittled down the state education bailout to $10 billion, and wants it attached to a must-pass war supplemental. He still doesn’t get it.

Santelli is right. With the threat of default looming over the world’s economy, taxpayers are done — with deficit-spending.

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

Video: Reid Under Fire Over Chatigny

ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured video from Americans for Limited Government’s Andrius Vaitekunas, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has found himself in the crosshairs over his silence on the nomination of the controversial Robert Chatigny to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals:

ObamaCare is Bad for Business

By Rebekah Rast

ObamaCare will cost our nation more than $1 trillion. However, as Obama’s health care plan begins to unfold, it is clear it is going to cost our nation more than just red ink.

If the mandates and taxes in ObamaCare are left as is, it will cost America growth, innovation and jobs.

Victoria Braden and her team of experts work with small businesses as a human relations/employee benefits consulting firm. She is the CEO and President of Braden Benefit Strategies in Georgia. Braden is well versed in what is to come for her clients as they face benefit changes beginning Jan. 1, 2011 — when new mandates of ObamaCare kick in.

Tucked inside the 2,000-page law are new mandates that will affect business owners. ObamaCare has many of these businesses worried, confused and afraid. Some of her clients have already closed their doors for good.

“They are afraid,” Braden says. “They are not sure what’s coming. They hear all these things and they want to know what’s happening.”

Most of Braden’s clients are companies with 300 or fewer employees. Many of the new regulations in ObamaCare affect them. She is taking the changes one year at a time. “I am just taking it one step at a time. My clients are doing all they can to survive now,” she says.

With many of the new taxes and mandates in ObamaCare being rather vague, it will be hard to know what kind of damage they will do to small businesses until they are enforced.

Braden says one big change in 2011 that will hit small businesses hard is employers will be forced to give the same benefits to everyone in the company. She gave this example: If a restaurant owner covers 90 percent of the health care costs for his managers, but only 50 percent of the costs for the rest of his staff, he will be forced to cover everyone at 90 percent or 50 percent. Every employee has to receive the same coverage and their W2 forms next year have to reflect how much their employer contributed to their health care plan.

“I’ve had several companies say that they are just going to drop employee’s insurance altogether because they can’t afford it,” Braden says. The problem is, ObamaCare coverage doesn’t kick in until 2014. Individuals who need health insurance and can’t get covered elsewhere have to be uninsured for at least six months before they can apply to receive the high-risk pool insurance coverage, which provides a buffer for the uninsured until ObamaCare coverage starts. However, even the high-risk pool insurance is underfunded and won’t cover everyone that needs insurance, including people with pre-existing conditions.

Regardless, starting in 2011, employers have to obey this mandate, which includes all full-time employees defined as those who work 30 hours or more.

“As a business owner, when you can’t make payroll, yours is the first to go,” Braden says. “We will see a whole bunch of 29-hour employees — especially in the fast food and retail environments — and an increase in seasonal workers.”

There are many more taxes and mandates that are harmful to the small business environment.
“Small business owners are on the front lines,” says Chief Economist Raymond Keating of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council). “They are skeptical and they should be that way.”

Does any part of ObamaCare help small business owners?

ObamaCare does offer a small business tax credit. But don’t be deceived. It is touted as a good and helpful tool for small businesses, but is rendered useless for many of them. There are a series of four tests a business has to go through before they can even qualify for a tax credit. It comes down to the size of your business —t he amount of health care costs you pay per employee and how many employees you have.

Dan Danner, president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), comments on this tax credit in a Wall Street Journal article.

“The credit, which is only available for a maximum of six years, puts small business owners through a series of complicated ‘tests’ to determine if they qualify and how much they will receive. Fewer than one-third of small businesses even pass the first three (of four) tests to qualify… More importantly, the credit is temporary, but health-care cost increases are permanent. When the credit ends, small businesses will be left paying full price.”

This doesn’t provide much incentive for a small business who receives a tax credit for only two years to increase its capital and hire new employees when it knows the growth will be short lived.

“ObamaCare is all negative for the small business economy,” says Keating. “Two-thirds of new jobs every year are created by small businesses.”

In this economy, there is nothing needed more than new jobs. The taxes and mandates in ObamaCare are on their way to further damaging our economy and job market.

Many of the mandates in ObamaCare are folded into the health care system over time.
One such mandates is an insurance fee. Overall it is an $8 billion tax — that escalates to $14.3 billion by 2018. This is a tax on insurance companies based on their market share with small businesses paying the bulk of the tax. This law excludes self-insured plans — plans most big businesses and labor unions offer. Therefore this tax will be passed onto plans that a majority of small businesses and individuals buy.

“This is just another tax on small businesses,” Braden says. With so much uncertainty of what 2011 holds for small businesses in regards to ObamaCare, she isn’t even telling her clients about this mandate yet — hoping things will change before it is enforced.

Why is this Administration killing the very engine that drives America?

“I feel like yelling, STOP!” Keating says. “So much damage has been done we need to go back and undo what’s been done. Stop the madness.”

Braden is equally as frustrated. “There are some really good ways to get out of it,” she says about the current situation of the economy and the negative effects of ObamaCare. “There are some great minds out there if we listened. They could figure it out if they’d get out of Washington and listen to the people,” she goes on to say about the leaders of our nation.

“Obama gives lip service to job creation, but his policies are destroying the American dream and the jobs created by small businesses,” says Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG).

Entrepreneurs are smart. Those small businesses waiting to see what will happen when more ObamaCare mandates go into effect will adjust to the changes — even if that means less growth and more Americans unemployed and unable to support their families. That would indeed be a new face of America — and not a pretty one.

Rebekah Rast is a contributing editor to ALG News Bureau.

Too Hot Not to Note: More spending not the answer

ALG Editor’s Note: The following featured editorial from the Denver Post hits the nail on the head as it relates to the worldwide debate over “stimulus” spending and the impending risk of sovereign default as a result:

More spending not the answer

As the Western world's leaders pledged to wean themselves from government stimulus programs this past weekend, President Barack Obama continued to call for expanded spending, claiming the economy cannot recover without it.

While there was an agreement among developed nations at the Group of 20 summit to halve their annual deficits within three years, Obama continued his expansionist call for spending. Yet his solutions for the economy are mired in spending money we don't have — running up the nation's credit card.

The president agreed with the spirit of cutting budget deficits in half by 2013. But he took issue with the calls for a return to fiscal austerity that were the hallmark of European leaders at the gathering, arguing that governments needed to attempt to "create jobs and growth today."

Certainly, more jobs are needed. The rate of unemployment is near 10 percent, and has been hovering there for months. But the Obama administration once predicted if Congress didn't pass the massive $863 billion stimulus package, unemployment could climb as high as 8 percent.

The administration also claimed it would begin reining in the alarming amount of spending once the financial bailouts and allotted stimulus spending ran their course. After all, total U.S. debt, including state and local obligations, is estimated to equal the Gross Domestic Product by next year. (Every man, woman and child's share of the debt is now $42,283.)

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeated a warning last week that the mushrooming debt is the nation's largest security threat. He noted the interest on the debt by 2012 — $571 billion — was as large as our defense budget, adding, "It is not sustainable."

Yes, left-leaning economists, such as The New York Times' Paul Krugman, warn that without more government spending the economy might enter a second recession or even a depression. (See his column below.) But many economists counter that greater government spending won't help, and would cause more harm, producing unsustainable debt loads, higher interest rates and defaults.

They note that President George W. Bush's massive tax rebates in 2008, which amounted to an average of $500 per family, didn't spur a recovery. (And yes, the present spending splurge began with Bush.)

So far, it's debatable whether Obama's spending has done much more than prop up state governments and create government jobs. Economists argue that stimulus programs don't work because they are, by nature, temporary. But deficit spending at this pace will lead to a debt this nation can't support.

Obama would serve the economy far better by signaling to the marketplace that government spending is about to be reined in. We had hoped he would begin to take steps this year to restructure the nation's finances and long-term obligations, such as Social Security. But these comments suggest he's not ready.

That's too bad. Hopefully lawmakers are hearing from those constituents who have had enough, and the purse strings soon will tighten.

We have yet to see proof that massive global spending can fuel a robust recovery. Why add more?

If this is not the time to stop, when will it be?

Massive Government Overreach in Dodd-Frank Financial Conference

By Robert Romano

This week, at least one house of Congress is expected to vote on the Dodd-Frank conference legislation. The bill threatens to take over the nation’s financial sector, redistribute wealth on a scale never seen, levy unlimited taxes, monitor finances, seize politically disfavored firms, and bail out favored ones, all without any vote in Congress or the right to judicial review.

Far from “reform,” it will not address any of the root, government causes of the financial crisis. Those include the easy money and loose lending policies of the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration, and the Department of House and Urban Development that fueled that housing bubble in the first place.

Despite the opportunity to work out troublesome provisions contained in the bill at the conference committee, nearly all of the most egregious usurpations of liberty and property remain. Conferees apparently took an approach to governing that does not include the representation of the people that oppose this sort of massive government overreach that is sadly endemic throughout the legislation — and has come to be expected under the Obama Administration.

ALG has updated two of its key summaries on the legislation, the first detailing the bailout and government takeover powers in the bill, and the second outlining the threat posed to individual privacy through the Office of Financial Research.

Under the bill, as before, any company — even non-financial companies — can be seized just as GM and Chrysler were under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Although they were only automakers that posed no systemic risk to the financial system and despite the fact that there were private sector alternatives to government assistance, government arbitrarily applied TARP to them.

The same thing will happen again under the Dodd-Frank bill. Only, this time, there will be no stop to the bailouts and takeovers, which will be financed under an unlimited “orderly liquidation fund”. The money will come from “risk-based” assessments levied by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on institutions totaling $50 billion or more in assets.

That’s taxation without representation, as they will occur without any vote in Congress as is constitutionally required. It’s a hefty tax, too, for the American people. According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of a similar bank tax proposal by the Obama Administration, “the ultimate cost of a tax or fee is not necessarily borne by the entity that writes the check to the government. The cost of the proposed fee would ultimately be borne to varying degrees by an institution’s customers, employees, and investors, but the precise incidence among those groups is uncertain.”

One provision that was added in conference also provides for a $19 billion “financial crisis special assessment” fund that includes even more assessments on banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, and other institutions. The costs of which, too, will be passed on to the American people.

Making matters even worse, the bill still includes an Office of Financial Research (OFR) that empowers the office, to “collect, validate, and maintain all data necessary” to maintain the “financial stability of the United States.” That information would be “obtained from member agencies, commercial data providers, publicly available data sources, and financial entities.” That is data on every financial transaction in the country the Office says that it needs to monitor, giving rise to grave privacy concerns.

According to the bill, the OFR would “require the submission of periodic and other reports from any financial company for the purpose of assessing the extent to which a financial activity or financial market in which the financial company participates, or the financial company itself, poses a threat to the financial stability of the United States.” The bill even grants the Director of the OFR subpoena power to require “the production of the data requested … upon a written finding by the Director that such data is required” to maintain financial stability.

Such are just some of the many overreaches in the Dodd-Frank bill. But, as bad as what the bill contains is what it does not. Specifically, the bill does nothing to rein in the root, government causes of the financial crisis.

For instance, although it was contained in the House version, the conference bill does not audit the Federal Reserve, whose easy money, low interest lending policies fueled the housing bubble. As noted by Stanford economic professor John Taylor stating that “the Fed's target for the federal-funds interest rate was well below what the Taylor rule would call for in 2002-2005. By this measure the interest rate was too low for too long, reducing borrowing costs and accelerating the housing boom.” Without the Fed’s easy money, the financial crisis could not have happened.

That is not all. The bill will not address federal housing policy that created the legal framework for all of the bad loans to be given in the first place. Last year alone, there were 3.9 million foreclosure filings, with another 4 million expected this year, all evidence of the gross miscalculation that was made by federal policymakers, who have a de facto monopoly on housing finance.

According to research by former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae, Ed Pinto, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weakened mortgage underwriting standards and mislabeled high-risk mortgage-backed securities, defrauding investors. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lowered down payments on mortgages. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Reinvestment Act regulations and “affordable housing goals” reduced lending standards and forced banks to give loans to lower-income Americans that could not be repaid.

All of these entities and policies emerge unscathed by the Dodd-Frank conference report. The bill even goes so far as to prohibit the liquidation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Apparently, Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Barney Frank — the great GSE apologists — realized that under previous versions of the bill, regulators could have made a systemic risk determination on Fannie and Freddie. That conceivably could have resulted in their liquidation without any Congressional approval.

And Dodd and Frank couldn’t have that.

All of which tells the American people everything they need to know about this legislation. Government wants to rein in the activities of everyone and anyone — except for the government entities that and the policymakers who created the crisis in the first place. Including Dodd and Frank.

Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of ALG News Bureau.

For Self Defense

Change to Win Union Coalition Now a Major Conduit for SEIU Donations to ACORN

By Kevin Mooney

ACORN and its number one union benefactor, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), both see great value in operating under different names as part of a larger effort to avoid criticism and foster financial partnerships.

An internal memo The Politico recovered last year from ACORN’s California branch shows that the organization’s leadership has recognized for some time n ow that its tarnished name could complicate fund raising efforts and undermine support on Capitol Hill.

“Sadly there is a growing list of reasons why the name ACORN may make it harder for us to advance the issues and goals of our organization, members and communities across the state,” the memo acknowledges. “The name ACORN has been dragged through the mud and we are coming across a number of people and groups who want to work with us, want to support the work we have been doing, but feel that they can only do so, if we change our name,” the memo says.

Known in full as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, the ACORN network proceeded to rebrand its state and national affiliates with generic sounding names in response to on-going scandals. The idea here is to re-establish ties with foundations and corporations that distanced themselves from ACORN last year.

SEIU, which has donated more money to ACORN than any other union organization going back to 2005, is applying a similar technique with the Change to Win coalition, which came together in 2005. Although it was sold as a launching pad for innovative organizing strategies that would benefit the labor movement as a whole, Change to Win has evolved into a front group for the SEIU.

“Despite being a coalition of several unions, Change to Win has been of material benefit to one union only, and that is the SEIU,” Glenn Spencer, the executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative with the Chamber of Commerce has observed. “SEIU still views Change to Win as a useful mouthpiece and it can use it as a pathway to funnel money to shady groups like ACORN without putting its own name on the check.”

All told, organized labor has contributed over $10 million to ACORN since 2005, with SEIU contributing about $8.7 million of this sum. That includes over $222,000 in 2009 alone, according to Labor Department records.

Meanwhile, Change to Win was responsible for one of the single largest ACORN donations in 2009 in the amount of $181,355, which was funneled into the California affiliate for representational activities, Labor Department records show. It also donated $40,000 to an affiliate in Washington State.

It is difficult to overstate how closely connected ACORN remains with organized labor. The Teachers – AFL-CIO Local Union 2 donated over $300,000 to the ACORN office in Brooklyn, over $20,000 to an office in Baltimore and $25,000 to the Washington D.C. affiliate.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which is also part of the Change to Win coalition, plowed over $60,000 into ACORN and its affiliates throughout 2009.

Going forward, Change to Win is likely to remain an important conduit for union organizations that are allied with ACORN, most especially the SEIU.

Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to ALG News Bureau and the Executive Editor of TimesCheck.com.

Too Hot Not to Note: Sessions - "Candor is needed" from Kagan

ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured statement, Senator Jeff Sessions lays out a compelling case against the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court:

Sessions: “Candor is needed” from Kagan

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered the following opening statement at the nomination hearing of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court:

“Ms. Kagan, let me join Chairman Leahy in welcoming you here today.

This nomination is certainly a proud day for you, your family, and your friends—and rightfully so. I enjoyed very much our meeting a few weeks ago, and appreciated the chance to talk with you.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your work on this nomination. As I have pledged, Republicans are committed to conducting this hearing in a thoughtful and respectful manner. It is not a coronation, but a confirmation. Serious and substantive questions will be asked. Ms. Kagan will be given ample opportunity to respond.

Ms. Kagan certainly has numerous talents and good qualities, but there are serious concerns about this nomination.

Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least fifty years. It’s not just that she has never been a judge.

She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which real understanding occurs.

Ms. Kagan has never tried a case before a jury.

She argued her first appellate case just nine months ago. While academia certainly has value, there is no substitute for being in the harness of the law, handling real cases over a period of years.

What Ms. Kagan’s public record does reveal, however, is a more extensive background in policy and politics, mixed with law.

Ms. Kagan’s college thesis on socialism in New York seems to bemoan socialism’s demise there.

In her master’s thesis, she affirmed the activist tendencies of the Earl Warren Court, but complained that they could have done a better job of justifying their activism.

President Obama’s nominee started her political career in earnest as a staffer on the presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis.

She took leave from teaching at law school to work for this committee under then-Chairman Joe Biden to help secure the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg—a former chief counsel for the ACLU and now one of the most activist justices on the Supreme Court.

Professor Kagan left teaching law to spend five years at the center of politics, working in the Clinton White House, doing—as she describes it—“mostly policy work.”

Policy is quite different than the intense legal work involved, for example, in the Office of Legal Counsel and other divisions of the Department of Justice.

During her White House years, the nominee was the central figure in the Clinton-Gore effort to restrict gun rights—and, as the dramatic 5-4 decision today in McDonald shows, the personal right of every American to own a gun hangs by a single vote.

Ms. Kagan was also the point person for the Clinton Administration’s efforts to block Congressional restrictions on partial-birth abortions.

Indeed, documents show she was perhaps the key person who convinced President Clinton to change his mind, from supporting to opposing legislation that would have banned that horrible procedure.

During her time as Dean of Harvard, Ms. Kagan reversed Harvard’s existing policy and kicked the military out of the recruiting office in violation of federal law. Her actions punished the military and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting two wars overseas.

As someone who feels the burden of sending such young men and women into harm’s way—and who spent much time drafting and redrafting legislation to ensure military recruiters were treated fairly on campus—I can never take this issue lightly.

Dean Kagan also joined with three other law school deans to write a letter in opposition to Senator Graham’s legislation establishing procedures for determining who was an “enemy combatant” in the War on Terror. She compared this legislation to the “fundamentally lawless” actions of “dictatorships.”

Most recently, the nominee served as Solicitor General for a little over a year.

But, her short tenure has not been without controversy.

In her first appellate argument, Ms. Kagan told the Court that the speech and press guarantees in the First Amendment would allow the federal government to ban the publication of pamphlets discussing political issues before an election.

I would remind my colleagues that the American Revolution was—in no small part—spurred on by just such a political pamphlet, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” To suggest that the government now has the power to suppress that kind of speech is breathtaking.

Also as Solicitor General, Ms. Kagan approved the filing of a brief before the Supreme Court asking that it strike down provisions of the Legal Arizona Worker’s Act, which suspends or revokes business licenses of corporations which knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, even though Federal law expressly prohibits such hiring.

She did this even after the liberal 9th Circuit had upheld the law.

This is an important legal issue that the Court will resolve during its next term.

And, despite promises to this committee that she would “vigorously” defend the Congress’ “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law if it were challenged in court, the actions she has taken as Solicitor General appear to have deliberately and unnecessarily put that law in jeopardy.

Importantly, throughout her career, Ms. Kagan has associated herself with well-known activist judges who use their power to redefine the meaning of the words of our Constitution and laws in ways that, not surprisingly, have the result of advancing the judge’s preferred social policies for the country.

She clerked for Judge Mikva and Justice Marshall, each a well-known liberal activist judge. And she has called Israeli Judge Aharon Barak—who has been described as the most activist judge in the world—her hero.

These judges don’t deny activism; they advocate it. And they openly oppose the idea of a judge as a neutral umpire.

Few would dispute that this record tells us much about the nominee. In many respects, Ms. Kagan’s career has been consumed more by politics than law. This worries many Americans.

In the wake of one of the largest expansions of government power in history, many Americans are worried about Washington’s disregard for limits on its power.

Americans know that our exceptional Constitution was written to ensure that our federal government is one of limited, separated powers, and part of a federal-state system, with individual rights reserved to our free people.

But we’ve watched as the president and Congress have purchased ownership shares in banks, nationalized car companies, seized control of the student loan industry, taken over large sectors of our nation’s health care system, and burdened generations of Americans with crippling debt.

This all sounds a lot like the progressive philosophy, which became fashionable among elite intellectuals a century ago—and which is now seeing a revival.

They saw the Constitution as an outdated impediment to their expansive vision for a new social and political order in America.

Even today, President Obama advocates a judicial philosophy that calls on judges to base their decisions on empathy and their “broader vision of what America should be.” He suggests that his nominee shares that view.

Our legal system does not allow such an approach.

Americans want a judge that will be a check on government overreach, not a rubber stamp.

No individual—nominated by a president of either party—should be confirmed as a judge if he or she does not understand that the judge’s role is to fairly settle disputes of law, and not to set policy for the nation.

Broad affirmations of “fidelity to the law” during these hearings will not settle the question. One’s record also speaks loudly. Indeed, it is easy to pledge fidelity to a law when you believe you can change its meaning later if you become a judge.

Ms. Kagan has called previous confirmation hearings “vapid” and “hollow,” and has argued that nominees for a lifetime position owe a greater degree of candor and openness to the committee.

I agree that candor is needed, and I look forward to that kind of exchange this week.”

Troops' Funding Held Hostage by Public Sector Union Politics

By Bill Wilson

A $33 billion war supplemental to fund ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is being held up by House Democrats who want to attach $10 billion for bankrupt states like New York and California that refuse to cut unsustainable education funding in these troubled economic times.

Basically, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Appropriations Chairman David Obey are holding back critical resources from our fighting men and women on the front lines so they can swindle another $10 billion from taxpayers for a public teacher union bailout.

House Democrats know the bailout is an unpopular measure, which is why they would prefer to attach it to a must-pass war-funding bill. They have even slashed the proposal from an original $23 billion to placate Blue Dog Democrats who do not want to be tied to the measure in what promises to be a brutal election season featuring a debt-weary public.

Although it had been widely expected that the supplemental would be brought up last week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer cancelled Friday business — probably because House Republicans promised to vote “present” if the $10 billion states bailout was attached. Without Republican support for the supplemental, Hoyer would have needed liberal Democrats — who oppose the war — to vote for the supplemental.

House Republican Leader John Boehner is to be praised for standing against the bailout for unions, which want the funds in order to keep the flow of dues money liquid. Those dues finance Democrat political operations in key districts. So, the relentless drive for this money is to keep Democrats in the game for the elections.

The American people are rightly incensed by the ongoing bailouts made by Pelosi’s House to Democrat constituent groups like the public sector unions while everyone else has to tighten their belts. She may want to force taxpayers from solvent states to pay for government jobs for which there is no revenue in insolvent ones. But the bailout is really not much more than a cynical ploy to have taxpayers fund Democrat machine politics — and the people know it.

Meanwhile, the nation’s servicemen and women are being held hostage until the unions get what they want. It is little more than blackmail.

Defense Secretary Bob Gates is so anxious over the state of the supplemental that he testified to the Senate that he is “becoming increasingly concerned” by the delay. As reported by The Hill, “If Congress does not approve the funding by July 4, he warned, the Pentagon would have to start scaling back defense operations.”

“We begin to have to do stupid things if the supplemental isn’t passed by the Fourth of July recess,” The Hill reports Gates saying at the June 16th hearing. How stupid? The Defense Department would be forced to pull money from other operations in the base defense budget, causing more disruptions.

“[W]e could have a situation where we are furloughing civilians and where we have active-duty military we cannot pay,” Gates said.

With fresh concerns over the strategy in Afghanistan, Democrats must consider whether they really want to hold back war funding over an unpopular domestic policy priority — bailing out bankrupt state governments like New York and California. After all, it is a measure that could easily be voted on up-or-down separately.

The choice is theirs, but now is not the time to play politics with the war supplemental and the security of our troops in harm’s way. To do so is to play with fire.

Bill Wilson is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

A Cheeky ObamaCare Discovery

By Rick Manning

Your head is tilted back, you can hear the drill whirring, and that faintly sickening smell of enamel burning is coming from your mouth, as you try to accommodate a suction tube and the mirror wielding Shaquille O’Neil sized hands of your dentist.

Well open up wider because a government-sized tooth fairy is getting ready to join the party.

That’s right, Nancy Pelosi’s award winning statement that, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” is coming back with a vengeance as analysis of the ObamaCare bill reveals that the federal government wants to know about every cavity that you have.

This cavity search can be found at Section 4102(d)(2) of the minty fresh health care law, which directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “develop oral healthcare components that shall include tooth-level surveillance for inclusion in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.”

“Tooth-level surveillance”?

The law goes on to define this “tooth-level surveillance” as “a clinical examination where an examiner looks at each dental surface, on each tooth in the mouth.”

To be fair, the regulations have not yet been written, so the extent of this oral intrusion is still unknown. While currently, the law appears to just expand and fund a nationwide oral health care sampling of Americans, it is easy to see how overzealous regulators could expand the reach of the law to require each American to subject themselves’ to having each tooth in their mouth examined, chronicled and reported to the Feds.

But who knows, maybe future generations will be able to look up how many cavities that Aunt Mabel had in a special Bicuspid wing of the Library of Congress, or better yet view photos of her mouth right on line at Ancestry.com. After all, future generations deserve to know whom they should blame for that problematic family overbite.

On a serious note, taxpayers will be paying for Marv Albert loving government bureaucrats to be ensconced in their cubicles pouring over millions of bite marks and dental x-rays to determine the average dental health of Americans by every income category, age and ethnic group. All this effort and cost expended to produce government reports that will helpfully be made available to the fine people in the hygiene industrial complex, so they can develop, and most importantly market, that ever important ethno-centric toothpaste, mouthwash and pre-rinse.

It used to be fashionable to demand that the government stay out of the bedroom, perhaps now in this brave new world that catch-phrase should be updated to “keep the Feds out of our heads.”

Rick Manning is the Director of Communications for Americans for Limited Government.

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