FREEDOMWORKING 06/05/2016 EXPANDING SOCIAL SECURITY IS A 'DISASTER PLAN'

The Case for Impeaching IRS Commissioner - by Congressmen Jim Jordan and Ron DeSantis via FoxNews Last week the House Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on whether to impeach Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen for obstructing justice, providing false testimony to Congress, disregarding Congressional subpoenas, and stonewalling a congressional investigation. Civil servants like Mr. Koskinen have historically been held to a higher standard than private citizens because they have fiduciary obligations to the public. Under Mr. Koskinen’s leadership, the IRS has breached these basic fiduciary responsibilities. Read more here... FreedomWorks' Congressman of the Month: Rep. Mark Sanford - by Neil Siefring FreedomWorks is pleased to name Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) our Congressman of the Month of May 2016 for his steadfast commitment to conservative principles. Just last month, Rep. Sanford took on Washington’s corporate interests on behalf of the taxpayers. Rep. Sanford identified a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would cost taxpayers over $300 million to benefit one company, New Balance. He introduced an amendment to thwart the egregious earmark, but the House Rules Committee did not allow him to bring it to the floor for a vote. The NDAA debated by the House last month proposes to reverse previous policy and grant New Balance a virtual monopoly on footwear for service members. Read more here... Sticking to Principles with Rep. Mark Sanford ObamaCare is Coming After Your Craft Beer - via Townhall Listen up Bernie Sanders supporting hipsters: Obamacare is coming for your craft beer. According to the Brewer's Association, craft brewing contributed $55.7 billion to the U.S. economy and provided more than 440,000 jobs in 2014, a significant impact in a still sluggish economy. But a regulation buried in Obamacare could change craft brewing and not for the better. Read more here... Insurer Sues Feds Over Shortfall in ObamaCare Payments - via The Hill Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is suing the federal government over certain ObamaCare payments that it says it is owed. The move is a sign of growing calls from insurers to recoup the funds they say they are owed under ObamaCare’s “risk corridor” program.  That program was designed to cushion insurers from heavy losses in the early years of the law by redistributing money from insurers with low claims costs to those with high claims costs. But not enough money came into the program, and the government was only able to pay out 12.6 percent of what insurers should have received. Blue Cross of North Carolina follows Moda Health in Oregon earlier this week, and Highmark last month, in suing the federal government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to try to get the money it says it is owed. Read more here... The Structure of the Federal Reserve Peter Schiff sheds light on monetary policy, an important area of economics that few Americans actually know anything about. This lesson offers a crash course in how the Federal Reserve Bank operates, how it came to be in the first place, and how it has become more powerful and more dangerous over the hundred years of its existence. Read more here... Expanding Social Security Makes Its Problems Worse - via Reason With blatant disregard for any type of basic math, President Obama recently called for an increase to Social Security benefits. Millennials, who pay into Social Security without realistic expectations of receiving their promised benefits, should be furious that neither the president nor the presidential candidates will tell the truth about Social Security's broken finances. As President Obama argued in his June 1 speech in Elkhart, Indiana, "We can't afford to weaken Social Security. We should be strengthening Social Security. And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term health, it's time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that today's retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they've earned." There are two main problems with these claims. First, unless Americans are fine with possibly paying a 31 percent payroll tax (up from 15 percent today), entitlement programs cannot afford to maintain their current course—much less be expanded. Second, retirees receive far more than they pay in from the program commonly known as the "third rail" of American politics. Jared Meyer of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research details the many ways Obama's proposal is terrible. Read more here... Supreme Court Decision Underscores Growing Concern Over Regulatory Overreach - by Ashley Nicole Baker Given the harassment and everyday burdens that federal bureaucrats subject small businesses and families to, it seems obvious that decisions could be challenged by the basic process of judicial review. This right, however, was apparently not entirely evident. The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously in favor of property owners in a decision that weakens the EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act. The ruling in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc gives landowners and businesses the right to go to court when federal regulators trample their rights to property and due process. Read more here... The Unreasonable Opposition to Justice Reform in the Senate - by Jason Pye Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) gave a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington, in which he offered his case against the justice reform effort in Congress led by conservatives like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho). Apparently unaware of the efforts of more than 30 states, including several traditionally Republican states, Cotton ridiculously labeled the federal push as "criminal leniency." FreedomWorks has already responded to some of Cotton's hyperbolic statements on justice reform. Unfortunately, even after proposed legislation was improved to address the concerns of a handful of senators, Cotton doubled down on his opposition in his speech. Some of the more egregious comments from his speech are in italics below, immediately followed by a response to set the record straight. Read more here... FreedomWorks in Action Sign up for the FreedomWorks Morning Update If you want an update like this newsletter twice a week, be sure to sign up for the FreedomWorks Morning Update! The Morning Update is your tool to keep up-to-date with all the threats to your freedom. Sign up here. Make freedom work, Jason Pye Communications Director, FreedomWorks