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Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison: So what’s to blame for joblessness in America: Look no further than the mammoth fortress of federal regulatory agencies

Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Unemployment now stands at a staggering 9.1 percent. For the past 30 months, unemployment has been at 8 percent or higher. Recent indicators point to jobless numbers even higher than 9.1 percent in coming months.

President Barack Obama last week cited “bad luck” as the reason that economic recovery is not happening. Does this mean the American people and their elected officials are merely helpless pawns, at the mercy of a stubborn strain of bad luck?

So what’s to blame for joblessness in America: bad luck or bad policies? Look no further than the mammoth fortress of federal regulatory agencies.

Though private businesses have struggled to create jobs, under Obama, one sector in particular has experienced explosive growth: the federal government’s regulatory agencies. In the past three years, the U.S. economy has grown at an anemic 5 percent. The budget growth for federal regulatory agencies, in contrast, was 16 percent.

“If the federal government’s regulatory operation were a business,” Investors Business Daily reported, “it would be one of the 50 biggest in the country in terms of revenues, and the third-largest in terms of employees, with more people working for it than McDonald’s, Ford, Disney and Boeing combined.”

Keep reading at Politico...

Rep Ted Poe: This team wants a new coach

Congressman Ted Poe represents Texas's 2nd congressional district.

We are worse off now than we were in 2008. The country is suffering through an economic recession with more long term unemployment than the Great Depression.

The economy was in bad shape, but this administration made it worse. The unconstitutional government-takeover of healthcare created a cloud of uncertainty for small business owners, stalling job growth. Our healthcare system was in trouble before, but this administration made it worse. 

Our country is spiraling towards a domestic energy crisis thanks to the administration’s insistence to punish U.S. energy companies. The price of energy was high before, but this administration has made it worse. Americans are becoming used to living with the word "crisis.” Under this administration, crisis has become the new status quo.

The president admits we’re on a bumpy road. Mr. President, this road is full of potholes. The national debt is expected to equal 101 percent of the economy in 10 years. Unemployment is hovering around 9.1 percent. Home sales have declined. The number of food stamp recipients has skyrocketed. 

Over the past three years, we have witnessed an administration set on entitling people, and paying them not to work as opposed to helping businesses hire people to work.  We are worse off now than we were before the president stepped foot at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We are stuck in this hole because the White House’s policies have been toxic to the country’s job creators. Businesses do not operate like the government does. They don’t function under short term budgets. They don’t plan for the next six days or six months, like our government does. Business owners want a plan. 

They want to know what will happen next. Under this cloud of uncertainty, businesses face Obamacare’s employer mandate and an onslaught of costly regulations. This leaves them with few choices: hold tight and wait it out, comply with government oppression and suffer, shutdown or move overseas.

Coming up on this bumpy road is a domestic energy shortage. The White House seeks to punish the energy of today and tomorrow in favor of the potential energy of after-our-lifetimes. An energy agenda that is synonymous with stall, obstruct, discourage and penalize will only devastate our economy further and force more businesses and jobs to leave.

We’ve seen the administration slow-walk the approval process for offshore drilling permits despite “lifting” the moratorium. The delays have been costly, so costly that three rigs have left the Gulf for foreign waters. When companies leave the U.S., jobs leave the U.S. never to return.  

The coming domestic energy shortage will be partly due to the White House’s desire to help foreign nations with their own domestic energy production instead of maximizing our own god-given natural resources. When the president told Brazil that America would help expand its offshore drilling operations and be one of its best customers, he sent a clear message: I don’t support U.S. oil, U.S. companies or U.S. workers. 

Each day that passes without a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline – a pipeline that would transport oil shales from our stable neighbor to the north right down to my congressional district – is another day that the White House pivots on U.S. energy jobs. Meanwhile, China is eager and ready to be Canada’s customer and will happily work with Canada if the president decides to turn down this golden opportunity of the Keystone Pipeline. 

The White House has a none-from-below mentality. We need an all-of-the above strategy that encourages use of our natural resources and puts Americans back to work.  The administration has mastered the art of turning a crisis into an opportunity to show unpopular policies through. Over a year after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the administration has come as close as it can to shutting down operations in the Gulf. The impact? 12,000 lost jobs. 
 
Are we better off today than we were in 2008? No. Our economy is still in a crisis of uncertainty. We’re in our third war, the latest an unconstitutional, unilateral action by the president that has cost over $700 million thus far.  Instead of blowing up Libya we should be building America.

The White House has operated in crisis management mode, but it’s made many of our problems worse. When your team is in trouble, you look to the coach for guidance, for inspiration and for leadership. Under this administration, crisis is quickly becoming the status quo. This team wants a new coach.

And that’s just the way it is. 

Rep. Pete Olson: To infer that the Tea Party was the reason behind this rating change is beyond preposterous - it's the spending, Stupid

Congressman Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, represents Texas 22nd Congressional District

It was probably predictable, but still troubling that the Obama Administration blames the downgrade of our nation's credit rating on the Tea Party. When his party controlled both chambers of Congress, we heard the blame-Bush mantra. When conservatives regained the House following the President and Democratic-led Congress’ two-year spending spree, the blame quickly shifted to Republicans and the Tea Party. President Obama owns this economy, but none of the fault lies with him.

For years, and to be fair, under both parties’ rule, Washington increased spending beyond any reasonable limit. In 2009, with our economy crashing, a newly elected President Obama ignored this important wake-up call, and instead escalated the spending spree. And in order to preserve the status quo, President Obama and Senate Democrats insisted on tax hikes to feed their appetite.

As the Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, in 2008 spending was only 20.7 percent and debt held by the public was only 40.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), which is the calculation of everything our economy produces annually. In one year, under complete Democrat control, federal spending increased to 25 percent of GDP. The debt to GDP ratio also climbed to 53.5 percent in 2009, 62.2 percent in 2010, and is estimated to hit a record 72 percent this year.

This escalation is the reason for the downgrade to our nation's credit rating. To infer that the Tea Party was the reason behind this rating change is beyond preposterous.

Keep reading at the Fort Bend/Sugar Land Sun...

Sen. John Thune: For the president to hold trade opportunities hostage to a demand backed by his union base leaves us with nothing but missed opportunities

Sen. John Thune serves as the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and ranking member on the Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness.

In November 2006, the United States signed a free-trade agreement with Colombia, paving the way for better access to millions of consumers there. This was a big win for our trade negotiators — and they followed it up with similar agreements with Panama and South Korea in June 2007.

And then — nothing. For the deals to go into effect, the president must officially submit them to Congress for consideration. But Democrats in Congress blocked any possibility of a debate on the agreements until President Barack Obama took office. Now he has refused to send them down Pennsylvania Avenue to Congress. Instead, the White House is insisting that the agreements must include new spending on an expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.

At a time of budget austerity, programs with new spending should be considered separately and on their own merits — without preconditions.

Keep reading at Politico...

Rep. Tim Scott: Pivoting to jobs, Mr. President? Start by not killing them in my district

Congressman Tim Scott is a freshman Republican serving South Carolina's first congressional district.

Since the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to sue the Boeing Co. for opening a new assembly line in my hometown of North Charleston, S.C., countless people have approached me regarding the situation. I want to share three numbers that go a long way toward showing what is threatening jobs - not just in South Carolina, but across our country.

c $60.7 million: The president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) stated in May 2009, “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama - $60.7 million to be exact - and we’re proud of it.”

c 6.9 percent: The percentage of our nation’s private-sector work force that belonged to a union in 2010.

c 11,000: The number of direct and indirect jobs the presidentially appointed NLRB is threatening to kill by suing Boeing in a misguided attempt to protect Big Labor.

If you are like me, you look at the numbers above and shake your head. Despite dwindling numbers, Big Labor drives a significant portion of work-force politics and policy decisions in our nation. Labor leaders are able to do so through a well-honed system of influencing workers and requiring many workers to accept membership in a union as a condition of employment, with fees ranging up to $800 annually. This amounts to more than $8 billion in membership dues annually in the private sector alone. Yet only 10 percent of current union employees voted to unionize in their workplace.

Keep reading at the Washington Times...

Negroponte, McLarty, Jones and Mosbacher Jr.: Approve the free-trade agreements

John D. Negroponte, a deputy secretary of state and director of national intelligence in the George W. Bush administration, is chairman of the Council of the Americas. Mack McLarty, a former special envoy for the Americas and White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, is president of McLarty Associates. Jim Jones, a Democratic former U.S. representative from Oklahoma, was White House appointments secretary in the Johnson administration. Rob Mosbacher Jr., the president of Mosbacher Energy, was president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation during the George W. Bush administration. All are members of the Council of the Americas’ trade advisory group.

The U.S. economy needs swift approval of the pending free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Yet a week after the release of a disappointing employment report, procedural disagreement over a program that has provided benefits to American workers for almost 50 years is stalling the entire trade agenda.

Deficit reduction is an urgent task requiring intense scrutiny of spending measures. But it is counterproductive to delay long-overdue trade agreements that finally have a chance of passing over a relatively inexpensive assistance program designed to smooth out the rougher edges of the global economy.

 Republicans have argued in the debt-ceiling negotiations that economic growth, rather than higher taxes, is key to raising revenue. At the same time, they understand that the United States will not achieve such growth without the benefits of international trade. Given political realities, the cost-benefit analysis should be clear: better to incur the fiscal cost of renewing the Trade Adjustment Assistance program than to lose the much greater benefits of free trade with three important trading partners.

Keep reading at the Washington Post...

Rep. Randy Forbes: The decline of small business optimism

Congressman Randy Forbes represents Virginia's 4th Congressional District.

Ants. They are the unwelcome summer guests. The plight of the summer picnic. One tiny mistake - one lemonade left unfinished, one cookie crumb fallen on a checked blanket - is the surest way to put a damper on any summer afternoon. They appear slowly, one carefully making its way across the blanket to the fated leftovers, another following close behind. With careful calculation, the others follow suit working their way across the blanket and onto the once pristine spread. Left unchecked, they slowly take over, as if one is an invitation for another - until there are so many ants that the picnic is effectively ruined.

Small businesses are facing a similar plight. Only the unwelcome guest at the proverbial picnic is the federal government and small businesses are left feeling the effects.

The National Federation of Independent Business, an organization that regularly surveys small businesses across America, reported a decline in small business optimism for the third straight month. Nearly two-thirds of small business owners responding to the survey said it was a bad time to expand their business operations.

Small businesses employ half of our nation's private work sector, creating almost two-thirds of all net new jobs over the last 15 years. The idea that "as small business goes, so goes the economy" is no surprise. Small businesses are the anchors of Main Street USA. They are the backbone of our economy. When small businesses are not optimistic, they are hesitant to invest, grow, and create jobs. And when they do not invest, grow, and create jobs, it impedes our nation's economic growth

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Rep. Tim Huelskamp: America’s Spending on Trial

Congressman Tim Huelskamp represents the First Congressional District of Kansas.  He serves on the House Budget, Agriculture, and Veterans’ Affairs Committees.  He is in his freshman term, and prior to coming to Washington, he served in the Kansas State Senate for 14 years.  Follow Congressman Huelskamp on Facebook, Twitter (@conghuelskamp), YouTube, and his webpage.

If this were a legal case, lawyers would be delighted in the amount of evidence that keeps appearing.

Not only have three major credit rating institutions threatened to downgrade the United States' credit ratings as a result of the nation's debt crisis, but now the top evaluator of Washington's spending patterns has weighed in. It does not bode well for Defendant Washington.

This week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest long-term budget outlook. It enhanced existing evidence that already has said America cannot afford unchecked government spending. Notably, this CBO report affirmed what many private organizations have been saying for months and what ordinary Americans have known for years: America is about to reach a debt breaking point. The day of reckoning will be here soon if immediate action is not taken. 

CBO says that if the current trajectory prevails, in the course of only one decade, publicly-held debt will exceed the entire size of America’s economy.  That’s right – Washington’s reckless debt habit will be larger than the measured value of the work of every American for an entire year.  This is entirely unacceptable and unsustainable, and one that scares job creators.  American businesses and workers know this – when Washington runs out of foreign creditors to bail us out, they will come knocking on our door for massive tax increases.

Unlike Greece, which is facing considerable economic turmoil, America should not have to learn a lesson the hard way. There is still time to right the ship of state – and sail America back into prosperous times. It is for that reason that this week I signed a pledge to "Cut, Cap, and Balance" as a condition to raising the debt limit. This is a pledge to the people of Kansas who sent me here to restore fiscal sanity to Washington. 

This pledge has been also signed by several other members of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Signatories pledge to their constituents that they will not raise the debt limit unless deficits are cut, future spending is capped, and future budgets are balanced. These actions are reasonable – and frankly it is what ordinary families, successful businesses, and responsible states do in America every day. 

This pledge to Kansans – and ultimately all Americans – recognizes that evidence is mounting against Washington's reckless behavior.  And without adoption of cut, cap and balance and soon inside the Beltway, I fear that America’s spending will be put on trial.  And the verdict then will not be in doubt – our politicians will have failed our country. 

Reps. Marsha Blackburn and Scott DesJarlais: There is plenty of blame to share for how we got into this economic mess, but what is clearer than ever is that deficit spending has to stop

Rep. Marsha Blackburn represents Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District. Rep. Scott DesJarlais represents the Fourth Congressional District.

In the coming weeks, Congress will consider a measure to raise the federal debt limit. Put simply, government expenditures exceed revenues, and we have maxed out the credit card to cover the difference.

If government is to operate at current or even reduced levels, Congress will have to authorize an increase in the debt limit. The latest assessment of our debt indicates it will reach 109 percent of GDP in the next decade. The daily interest payments on our debt to China are sufficient to allow them to purchase several fighter jets per week. There is plenty of blame to share for how we got into this mess, but what is clearer than ever is that deficit spending has to stop.

We believe Congress must use this opportunity to end the deficit spending habit that got us into this mess in the first place. Further, we must end it in a way that ensures the generations who ran up the $14 trillion debt are the ones to pay it off.

Keep reading at The Tennessean...

Sen. Marco Rubio: Every day that politicians delay action on important economic issues, Americans feel the pain

Senator Marco Rubio is a Republican freshman from Florida.

Last week, President Obama touched down in Miami to raise money for his reelection campaign, just a year after his administration kicked off its “Recovery Summer” campaign to celebrate the failed trillion-dollar stimulus spending bill.

Today, Florida struggles with a 10.6 percent unemployment rate, far higher than the national average of 9.1 percent. The jobless rate in my state is far higher than 8 percent — the level that the president promised his stimulus would keep unemployment from exceeding.

All in all, nearly 1 million Floridians are looking for work. Tragically, millions across America have lost all hope of finding a job and simply given up.

This economic malaise is not a “bump in the road” for my constituents. It is a direct result of the anti-growth, Washington-centric policies that are fueling uncertainty for those who wish to start a business or expand an existing business. And it has real-life consequences for the future of our nation.

Keep reading at The Daily Caller...