Free Republic

The debt ceiling should really be renamed the default ceiling. This catastrophic game of chicken cost the U.S. our AAA credit rating and $19 billion when it was last employed in the summer of 2011 by House radicals who pretended their intransigence was a stand for fiscal responsibility. Now the default ceiling is looming again, promising yet another showdown between President Obama and House Republicans. But even Speaker John Boehner realizes that the 50 or so radicals on the far right of his own party—the Bachmann, Broun, Gohmert and King crew—are the greatest impediment to responsible self-government right now. That’s...

The Republican field in California’s competitive 7th District is poised to grow after Labor Day, with two prospective candidates planning to make announcements about the race. Former Rep. Doug Ose, a Republican who represented a large portion of the redrawn 7th District from 1999 until 2005, is expected to make an announcement on his plans for the race after Labor Day, according to a source close to Ose’s campaign. The source would not confirm whether Ose plans to run, but other operatives in the Golden State say Ose is likely to enter the race. Another Republican, Igor Birman, who currently...

The Honorable Daniel M. Ashe Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Re: Request for 90 day extension of comment period Dear Director Ashe: We write regarding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to list the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and the northern distinct population segment (DPS) of the mountain yellow-legged frog as endangered species, and the Yosemite toad as a threatened species. We request you extend the comment period by no less than 90 days to ensure that public input is maximized and the effects of this proposal are fully understood. These listings and the associated critical habitat will...

What possibly could inspire someone to leave behind the comfort and familiarity of home and the warmth of friends and relatives to seek the unknown alone in a foreign land? It’s a question Republicans should ask as a panicked posse presses us to leave behind our principles in order to appeal to the growing immigrant vote. Here’s a hint: The motivation is not a longing for big government. I arrived in the United States as a refugee from Russia in 1994 with my family, a few bags and a dream of life in liberty. After Russian police had torn apart...

I would like to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting and standing by me in this crucial election. I am glad to report that we were victorious on Election night by securing over 61 percent of the vote in my new district. Yet, with the election a few weeks behind us, we are now facing a serious challenge in front of us as we try to make some sense out of the disappointing presidential election outcome. One of the lessons that we should take from this experience is that capitulation on our values and principles...

Prop 30: Your Wallet or Your Kids. NO Either approve $36 billion in higher sales and income taxes or else Gov. Brown threatens to shoot the schools. Don't worry, the income taxes are only on the "very wealthy," but it turns out the "very wealthy" include many small businesses filing under sub-chapter S, meaning lower wages, higher prices and fewer jobs. California already has one of the highest overall tax burdens in the country and yet has just approved a budget to spend $8 billion dollars more than it's taking in. Moral of the story: it's the spending stupid. Prop...

Mr. Chairman: If the House is to live up to the promises the Republican majority made to the American people to bring spending under control, some tough choices are going to have to be made. But this amendment isn’t one of them. This is about the easiest choice the House could possibly make: to put an end to the so-called “Essential Air Service” that lavishly subsidizes some of the least essential air services in the country. This program shells out nearly $200 million a year – including $114 million of direct taxpayer subsidies – to support empty and near-empty flights...

Mr. Chairman: If the House is to live up to the promises the Republican majority made to the American people to bring spending under control, some tough choices are going to have to be made. But this amendment isn’t one of them. This is about the easiest choice the House could possibly make: to put an end to the so-called “Essential Air Service” that lavishly subsidizes some of the least essential air services in the country. This program shells out nearly $200 million a year – including $114 million of direct taxpayer subsidies – to support empty and near-empty flights...

Subsidizing Failure House Chamber, Washington, D.C. June 1, 2012 Mr. Chairman: This amendment saves nearly one and a half billion dollars by ending the failed Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program. If we’re serious about an “all of the above energy policy” we’ve got to stop using taxpayer money to pick winners and losers based on their political connections, and instead require every energy company to compete on its own merits as decided by the customers it attracts by offering better products at lower cost. For too long we have suffered from the conceit that politicians can make better energy...

Subsidizing Failure House Chamber, Washington, D.C. June 1, 2012 Mr. Chairman: This amendment saves nearly one and a half billion dollars by ending the failed Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program. If we’re serious about an “all of the above energy policy” we’ve got to stop using taxpayer money to pick winners and losers based on their political connections, and instead require every energy company to compete on its own merits as decided by the customers it attracts by offering better products at lower cost. For too long we have suffered from the conceit that politicians can make better energy...

A defining aspect of the American tradition is that groups of citizens band together for a wide variety of civic purposes.  They recruit volunteers, raise funds and spend those funds to promote whatever project or cause brings them together. [Snip] We don’t apply a political test to these civic groups – we recognize the fundamental right of Americans to organize and to pool their resources to promote whatever causes they believe in...  [Snip] In order to be recognized as non-profit groups, these organizations must register with the IRS – a purely ministerial function that has, in the past, been applied...

After President Clinton took a drubbing from voters in the 1994 Congressional election, he realized his policies weren't working. He promptly declared, "The era of big government is over," and he then went about making good on that declaration: • He reduced spending by a miraculous 3 1/2 percent of GDP. • He attacked entitlement spending and abolished the ballooning open-ended welfare system. • He signed what amounted to the biggest capital gains tax cut in American history. • He delivered the only four budget surpluses in four decades. • And he produced a period of prolonged economic expansion. President...

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. October 26, 2011 M. Speaker: The government’s continuing failure to address our nation’s gut-wrenching unemployment stems from a fundamental disagreement over how jobs are created in the first place. We are now in the third year of policies predicated on the assumption that government spending creates jobs. We have squandered three years and trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth on such policies, and they have not worked because they cannot work. Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy until it has first taken that same dollar OUT of the economy. True, we can...

I want to welcome this groundbreaking scientific expedition to the savage lands of the Left Coast. You are here in California to answer an important theoretical question and now you have your answer. Yes, this is what Barack Obama’s second term would look like. Study it. Fear it. And then go home and make sure that it never happens to the rest of the country. Of course, in spite of all of its problems, California is still one of the best places in the country to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a...

welcome...to the savage lands of the Left Coast. You are here in California to answer an important theoretical question and now you have your answer. Yes, this is what Barack Obama’s second term would look like. Study it. Fear it. And then go home and make sure that it never happens to the rest of the country. ... the tale of how, in the span of a single generation, the most prosperous and golden state in the nation became an economic basket case. ... The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of...

Michael Reagan has ruled out a candidacy, and Republicans are still looking for a challenger to Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein next year. . . . Could the GOP have a chance, even in this bluest of blue states?

Rep. Dan Lungren has decided against challenging fellow Republican Congressman Tom McClintock and instead will run in what is a swing district that extends from Elk Grove to Folsom, his campaign manager said today. "Unless something changes, he will run in the 7th Congressional District and is confident in doing so," Lungren adviser Rob Stutzman told The Bee. Lungren had toyed with running against McClintock, the more conservative of the two, in the 2012 GOP primary for the 4th Congressional District.

Federal spending has ballooned 28 percent during the Obama Presidency while the government has amassed more debt than it acquired from the first day of George Washington’s administration to the last day of George H. W. Bush’s. Our nation is racing toward a fiscal cliff. Yet, as Sen. Jim DeMint noted, instead of hitting the brakes, Congress and the President just set the cruise control. “The Budget Control Act of 2011” offers an object lesson in exactly the sort of empty compromise that has gotten our nation into its present mess. Faced with the devastating consequences of unprecedented and unsustainable...

The following twenty-two House members stood firm and opposed the Boehner bill, which is nothing more than a vehicle which will be sent to the Senate, reworked by Harry Reid into something even worse than it already is, and then returned to the House. Boehner will dutifully bring it up and the Tea Partiers who voted for it will then vote against it, but it will not matter. Boehner and Reid will pass the Bill in the House with Democrat votes and Obama will sign it. The votes today cast by conservatives, many of whom are good people, are very...

A California congressman says voters, Congress and the courts all have cleared Barack Obama's eligibility to be president. The comments come from U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, whose e-mail to a constituent with a question about the eligibility issue was forwarded to WND. He said, "The Constitution is the starting point for determining eligibility to serve as president. The Constitution requires that to be eligible to serve as president an individual must be a natural born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years old, and have been a permanent resident in the United States for at least 14...