| Rep. Dave Brat on Why Rescission is a Must |
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| By Rep. Dave Brat Via The Washington Times Conservatives are horrified by the staggering $21 trillion in debt as well as the trillion dollar deficits we are running each year as a result of the latest omnibus bill and spending trajectory. Last month, my office’s phones were ringing off the hook with constituents dismayed that Washington is once again dramatically growing the size of government and their kids’ debt bill. Adhering to the principles that I ran on, I voted no on the bill. As we learn more about what’s in the omnibus, the conservative outcry has been vindicated. The bill is stuffed with pork projects, wasteful expenditures and inappropriate spending levels. By threatening to veto the omnibus spending package, the president showed us he understands that the American people have deep reservations about government spending levels. But, as he explained, the president felt forced to sign it because it fulfilled a central campaign promise to rebuild the military. Fortunately, there is a way to keep the president and Republicans happy about the military budget and still cut some of the most glaring line items that made it into the final bill. READ MORE HERE |
| Lost Amid All the 'Noise' Over Scott Pruitt Is the Damage Obama's EPA Did to Rural Communities |
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| Via Fox News The far left will stop at nothing in their efforts to derail the presidency of Donald Trump. Still bitter about the outcome of 2016, the left claims much of their outrage toward the president is driven by his unpredictable personality, but ideological opposition to his administration’s reform-minded agenda is the real root of their anger. Nowhere is this more evident than the furor surrounding Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Trump’s opponents have seized on a number of recent unflattering news stories involving Pruitt and his agency. While admittedly not the best public relations for Pruitt, his “real sin is that he is one of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive reformers,” as the Wall Street Journal editorialized last week. President Trump expressed a similar sentiment over the weekend when he tweeted praise for his EPA chief’s “bold actions” and “record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars.” Since taking office last year, Pruitt has boldly carried out the president’s campaign promises. In October, he moved to repeal Obama’s Clean Power Plan regulations, ending the War On Coal and providing a shot in the arm for coal country that had been decimated. READ MORE HERE |
| The Weekly Fix: Sen. Kamala Harris vs. The Rule of Law |
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| By Adam Brandon Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) claims to be a dedicated fighter for justice, and a voice for the voiceless. However, her records as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general tell a very different story. As San Francisco district attorney, Harris was reprimanded for failing to turn over critical information to the defense. In 2015, a judge removed the entire Orange County district attorney's office from a high-profile death penalty trial after prosecutors repeatedly failed to turn over critical evidence to the defense, and placed the defendant in a cell directly next to a jailhouse informant. To give the D.A.’s office a free pass, then-Attorney General Harris appealed the decision. READ MORE HERE |
| Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist George Will on the Desperate Need for Entitlement Reform |
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| Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will sits down with Jason Pye to talk about the desperate need for entitlement reform and their shared love of the game of baseball. WATCH HERE |
| Sen. Ron Johnson Discusses the Success of Right to Try and the Demise of ObamaCare's Public Option |
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| Senator Ron Johnson sits down with Jason Pye and talks about the end of ObamaCare's backdoor to a public option and the ongoing battle to give terminally ill Americans the Right to Try. WATCH LIVE |
| ALEC-FreedomWorks Legislator of the Week |
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| Via ALEC This week, ALEC and FreedomWorks introduce South Dakota State Representative Taffy Howard. Representative Howard is a proud veteran, mother, and community leader. She comes from a military family, moving around the country for her mother’s active duty career in the U.S. Army, and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Airforce after graduating college. Representative Howard is part of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force at ALEC and believes that the hard-working people of South Dakota deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money. Rep. Howard and her husband have two sons and have been business partners in several local ventures. READ MORE HERE |
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| On this week's episode of the Regulatory Update, Patrick Hedger discusses welfare reform, the fight to reel in the CFPB, Ajit Pai's fight against censorship, an update on the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, and much more! WATCH IT HERE |
| The President's Trump Card for Spending Restraint |
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| By Stephen Moore via Townhall The White House is seriously considering a strategy to cancel tens of billions of dollars of wasteful spending in the $1.3 trillion budget signed by President Donald Trump last month. It's a great idea, and Republicans should welcome a high-stakes budget showdown with congressional Democrats, given the unpopularity of the omnibus budget. Trump has a potent tool at his disposal to not spend money. It is called rescission authority -- a power created by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Here's how it works: The president submits a proposal to cancel unnecessary funds. Both chambers of Congress must affirmatively agree to the proposal within 45 days; otherwise, the funds must be spent as appropriated. Because rescission requires affirmative consent from Congress, the House or Senate can ignore the request without a vote. READ MORE HERE |
| Congress Has a "Second Chance" for Bipartisan Conservative Justice Reform |
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| By Jason Pye and Ed Chung via The Hill The two of us are about as far apart politically as you can get — in fact, we agree on very little. And yet, for the last few years, we have agreed to work together on common-sense criminal justice reforms that safely reduce our bloated prison population. With April as “Second Chance Month”, we are taking the opportunity to make sure everyone knows that our partnership isn’t going anywhere. It’s true that we have different perspectives, and different reasons for engaging in this important work. FreedomWorks remains deeply concerned about throwing good money after bad — enormous spending on long sentences that continue to result in high recidivism rates; meanwhile, the Center for American Progress is extremely troubled by the racial disparities in our system, and the generational incarceration that has obliterated poor and disadvantaged communities. But the bottom line is that both of our organizations believe in more freedom and opportunity for all Americans. We believe that reforming absurd mandatory minimum sentences and expanding reentry policies that will help better prepare those currently incarcerated to successfully return to society are both necessary components to a more effective, efficient and fairer justice system. And we’re both concerned about the rhetoric surrounding the opioid crisis and the Trump administration’s proposal to pursue the death penalty for drug dealers, which is both bad policy and unconstitutional. READ MORE HERE |
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