Stop me if you've heard this story before. Governors and state legislators are pleading poverty again and they are demanding tax hikes of every imaginable kind. More than half the states are facing bid deficits this year and they are mostly blue states like California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois and New York and Oregon.
These are the highest tax states with some of the deepest pools of red ink. There's got to be a message here. Read more here...
2. Failure to Renounce Paris Climate Deal Would Create Major White House Policy Conflict - via Competitive Enterprise Institute
On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would “cancel” U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement, a climate treaty largely conceived and aggressively promoted by the Obama administration. Trump now appears to be back-pedaling. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, and Trump’s daughter Ivanka “intervened to strike language” critical of the pact from a forthcoming executive order on climate policy.
The Journal also recalls that when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO of ExxonMobil, he “backed the Paris deal, and he broadly reiterated his support in his confirmation hearing, saying he thinks the U.S. is better served by staying in the accord rather than withdrawing.” Read more here...
3. Capitol Hill Update: February 27, 2017 - by Jason Pye
Schedule: The House and Senate are in session this week.
Joint Session:
The House and Senate will convene on Tuesday night for a joint session of Congress. While not a formal State of the Union address, President Donald Trump will address Congress on his legislative priorities for the year, which includes regulatory reform, the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare, and tax reform. The address will begin at 9:00 pm and should be carried by cable news outlets and CSPAN.
House:
Back from the Presidents' Day recess, the House will begin the week on Monday by taking several bills up under suspension of the rules, requiring a three-fifths majority for passage. Most of the bills on the suspension calendar have local implications for the sponsoring Members' districts. The House will also take up the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act, S. 442, sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act, H.R. 1033, sponsored by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.). Read more here...
4. White House Bets on Regulatory Reform to Kickstart Job Growth - via Competitive Enterprise Institute
This afternoon President Trump signed a new executive order titled “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda” with the goal of spurring economic growth and job creation by streamlining federal rules and reducing their overall burden. The order calls for every federal agency to appoint a Regulatory Reform Officer, who will function as a sort of counter-bureaucratic ombudsman. This matches up pretty well with recommendations my colleague Wayne Crews has been making for years – specifically his proposal to counter the overwhelming institutional bias in government agencies towards writing ever more rules by creating what he calls a “Federal Office of No”: Read more here...
5. Rep. Walberg's (R-MI) H.R. 999 Increases Savings for College - by Christina Herrin
On February 9, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) introduced H.R. 999 to amend the internal revenue code of 1986 to expand access to Coverdell education savings accounts. This bill has bipartisan support and will help millions of Americans struggling to pay for education. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means. Nearly, 66 percent of all student loans are federally subsidized. American students can’t afford college tuition, and they turn to the federal government who offers them loans, regardless of whether it is makes financial sense for them.
The bill affirms college tuition is on the rise, “in-State tuition at a public 4-year universities is 34 percent higher than it was a decade ago and more than twice as high as it was 20 years ago. The price of private nonprofit 4-year institutions has increased 24 percent during the last 10 years and 51 percent during the last 20 years.” Read more here...
Jason Pye
Director of Public Policy, FreedomWorks
No comments:
Post a Comment