As
one of our more than 6.9 million FreedomWorks members nationwide, I
urge you to contact your congressman and senators today and ask them to
support the resolutions disapproving of the EPA's new power plant
regulations, H.J.Res. 71 & 72, and S.J.Res. 23 & 24, and to
co-sponsor the resolutions if they have not already done so.
The EPA rules in question would impose
draconian changes on the U.S. energy sector. In addition to enforcing
regulatory cap-and-trade requirements and renewable energy mandates on
existing power plants, these rules would also set unreasonable CO2
standards for new coal-fired power plants; standards which even existing
plants wouldn't be able to comply with. As a result, these regulations
would essentially act as a ban on the construction of new coal-fired
plants, because there would be no commercial or economic viability in
building them. Read more here...
2. Capitol Hill Update, 2 November, 2015 - by Josh Withrow
House/Transportation: The House will
spend the greater portion of this week considering H.R. 22, which will
be the legislative vehicle for long-term funding of federal
transportation projects. This bill funds highway projects in the states
for six years, at a cost of $325 billion. Most importantly, this bill
does not fix the structural problems with the current federal Highway
Trust Fund, meaning that the fund will continue to require periodic
bailouts. The offsets to the new spending in the bill are also very
questionable.
A more rational way of dealing with highway
funding would be the Transportation Empowerment Act, introduced by Rep.
Ron DeSantis in the House as H.R. 2716 (also in the Senate by Mike Lee,
S. 1541). The TEA act would devolve transportation funding back to the
states of several years, leaving states to decide how best to fund their
highway infrastructure without a federal bureaucracy taking their own
slice of the pie.
In any case, the House will vote on many amendments to the transportation deal on Tuesday and Wednesday, so stay tuned for possible key votes regarding the amendments. Read more here...
3. Tax Reform on the Comeback - by FreedomWorks Senior Economic Contributor Stephen Moore via the Washington Times
The Budget Control Act of 2011 was the one
real victory for fiscal conservatives since President Obama has been in
office. Modest though they were, the BCA's across-the board cuts at
least slowed down the government's ever-increasing spending.
This bill increases spending over the next
two fiscal years by $80 billion in on-budget spending, along with an
additional $16 billion in new off-budget wartime military spending. The
bill's supporters claim that the spending is fully offset by cuts and
reforms elsewhere, but just like the Ryan-Murray deal of 2013, the new
spending happens now while the cuts take place much later. Read more here...
4. Insurance Premiums Would Be Nearly 25 Percent Lower If ObamaCare Hadn't Become Law - by Jason Pye
Much of the recent news covering the
failures of ObamaCare have focused on the collapse of the nonprofit
cooperatives authorized by the law. Just last week, for example, Utah's
cooperative became the tenth to fail. Billions of taxpayer dollars were
spent to get these insurance cooperatives off the ground, a compromise
for Democrats who wanted a single-payer option, and they have proven to
be unsustainable. But another failure of the law is rising insurance
premiums on the individual health insurance market.
In June 2007, during in his first campaign
for the White House, Senator Barack Obama, promised that insurance
premiums would fall by $2,500. Promise broken. Premium hikes on the
individual market have been well documented since before the first
ObamaCare open enrollment period began in 2013. Read more here...
Following President Barack Obama's approval
of a two-year budget deal that blows through the spending caps he
previously supported, FreedomWorks commented:
"This White House has proven, once again,
that its promises are meaningless. More than four years ago, President
Obama signed the Budget Control Act into law and pledged to veto any
attempt to undermine the spending caps. In fact, the spending caps were
proposed by his advisers."
"Congressional Republicans also deserve
criticism for their complete surrender on the Budget Control Act.
Republican leaders like to pat themselves on the back for restraining
spending under this White House, but the days of $1 trillion deficits
are not behind us, as entitlement programs and debt service begin to
consume greater shares of the federal budget." Read more here...
Adam Brandon
President & CEO, FreedomWorks
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