1. Trump's $10 Trillion Stimulus Plan - by FreedomWorks Senior Economic Contributor Stephen Moore via Investor's Business Daily
All of Washington seems to be in cardiac arrest over news reports
late last week that Donald Trump is planning a budget featuring $10
trillion in cuts over the next decade.
We can only hope and pray that the reports are accurate.
This is an enterprise that has been borrowing $1 trillion a year
for the past decade and is expected to continue to do so for years and
decades to come. The national indebtedness will soon exceed $20
trillion, and everyone in Washington is in denial about this
metastasizing cancer cell when they should be ordering radiation therapy
before it kills off the economy. Read more here...
2. Trump Gets Rid of the Stupidest Part of ObamaCare - via CNBC
Every government program makes promises that are a stretch. But few
policy promises stretched the levels of credulity more than Obamacare
did with the idea that America's younger and healthier citizens would
suddenly step up and buy expensive health insurance plans.
And now, President Trump has basically signed the death warrant for
the stretch of a policy known as the "individual mandate." He did that
by signing an Executive Order on Friday
that instructs the Health and Human Services Department to do all it
can to "grant exceptions from" or "delay" the enforcement of the
mandate. This is basically telling the bureaucracy to let it die from
neglect. Read more here...
3. The So-Called "Patient Freedom Act" Is Not an Alternative to ObamaCare - by Jason Pye
Earlier today, a quartet of Republican senators — Bill Cassidy
(R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), and
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) — introduced the Patient Freedom Act. The bill,
they say, is a comprehensive replacement for ObamaCare after it's
repealed, the process for which is currently underway in Congress.
Well, the Patient Freedom Act, as introduced, replaces ObamaCare
with...ObamaCare. Yes, you read that right. The bill would allow states
that maintain ObamaCare as it currently exists, including the costly
regulations and Medicaid expansion; develop their own health insurance
alternatives with "federal assistance"; or develop their own health
insurance alternatives "without federal assistance."
Before we go any further here, let's be clear: there is absolutely
nothing that would prevent states on their own from adopting ObamaCare
when it's repealed. That's really the beauty of federalism. Keep in mind
that ObamaCare was based on the 2006 health insurance law adopted in
Massachusetts under then-Gov. Mitt Romney. The law, of course, has
largely been a failure, much like ObamaCare. Still, if a state wants to
take that route, its lawmakers can do so without federal legislation
like the Patient Freedom Act. Read more here...
4. Pruitt Cool Under Fire at Senate Confirmation Hearing - via Competitive Enterprise Institute
On Wednesday,
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on the
nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to be
Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As expected,
several Committee Democrats attacked Pruitt for “litigating against the
EPA on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.”
President Trump nominated Pruitt precisely because of his
leadership in challenging EPA’s regulatory overreach. In effect,
Pruitt’s opponents say the Senate should reject him for the very reasons
Trump nominated him. They believe that regardless of who is president,
or which issues the winner campaigned on, the EPA administrator must
always be a bona fide ‘progressive.’
The ‘EPA is our agency’ crowd implicitly argues that elections
don’t—or shouldn’t—matter. Rubbish. Congress created the EPA to be run
by political appointees who serve at the president’s pleasure. Read more here...
5. Celebrating Copyright Week - by Dr. Wayne Brough
Copyright week memorializes the fight against SOPA (Stop Online
Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) five years ago.
Over 100,000 websites joined in protest against the overreach of these
bills, some going dark, others displaying banners of protest. While
piracy raises legitimate concerns, these heavy-handed bills posed a real
threat to innovation and economic growth of the internet community—one
of the most dynamic sectors of the economy. To further the debate and
encourage the development of copyright laws that serve the wider
community, Copyright Week highlights five areas of concern:
Public Domain and Fair Use: Recognizing this
important link between incentives and innovation, the U.S. Constitution
allows Congress the ability to provide “inventors and authors” limited
monopolies on the works that they create. While copyrights guarantee
exclusivity, the rights have always been tempered by the Fair Use
doctrine, which allows the use of copyrighted materials under certain
circumstances. Additionally, once copyrights expire, the material falls
into the public domain. To ensure robust innovation and creativity,
copyrights must work in conjunction with fair use and a robust public
domain. Read more here...
Jason Pye
Communications Director, FreedomWorks
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