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Rep. Scott Tipton: Patients, not politics

Congressman Scott R. Tipton represents Colorado's 3rd congressional district.  

We must keep the promise to our senior citizens by protecting Medicare and Social Security.

Currently, Medicare is on an unsustainable path. If Washington fails to act, the Medicare Trustees — made up primarily of members of President Obama's cabinet — report that Medicare will be bankrupt by 2024.

I support a plan that ensures today's seniors and those a decade away from retiring receive all of their benefits in full, while strengthening and securing Medicare for future generations.

I have held town hall meetings focusing on Medicare and Social Security, visited dozens of senior centers, and formed a committee of local seniors from all backgrounds to gather thoughtful feedback and comments about Medicare.

The message of seniors in the Third District is clear: Any health care or budget solution should strengthen Medicare and secure it for future generations. I ensured that this was incorporated in the Republican Budget, which we passed in the House earlier this year. The Republican Budget keeps Medicare as it is for those 55 and older, while strengthening and sustaining the program for our children and grandchildren.

While the House has passed a plan, the Senate has failed to fulfill the promise to seniors for more than 850 days, refusing to pass a budget and put forward a plan to protect Medicare and Social Security.

The Republican Budget strengthens Medicare and increases affordability by targeting waste, fraud and abuse, which according to Medicare's chief actuary, costs as much as $150 billion each year. Our plan roots out the causes of waste, fraud and abuse, and fixes the problem.

Our plan expands access to care; giving future retirees the choice to select from competing health care plans that best meet their needs — offering the same options and choices as members of Congress.

When the president passed his health care plan last year, he said it would expand access and affordability to care. However, his plan missed this mark entirely.

The president's plan raided $500 billion from Medicare to fund his health care mandate at the expense of seniors. Not only did the president's plan fail to increase affordability, it restricts access to health care by empowering a board of 15 arbitrarily appointed bureaucrats to unilaterally decide when and how to cut Medicare funding.

Under the law, the president's appointees to the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) are guaranteed a six figure salary and terms longer than the president and members of Congress. This set-up ensures that those in charge of running what is essentially the president's “Medicare IRS” never personally feel the pain of the cuts they make.

There is no oversight from the courts, no appeals process, and no accountability for the 15 people in control of life-and-death decisions for hundreds of millions of Americans. They have the unilateral authority to decide what cuts should be made to Medicare, even to the extent of revising laws passed by Congress, without Congressional approval.

I'm concerned that IPAB will restrict patients' access to their doctors, and even make decisions that will limit access to important treatments and care. To add insult to injury, there is no requirement that the members of IPAB have medical backgrounds — placing decisions currently made between patients and their doctors in the hands of people with no health care experience.

Is this the future of American health care? Seniors in my district don't think so, and neither do I.

As we work to ensure that the promise to seniors is kept and that the future of Medicare is strong and secure, I will continue to fight to:

• protect seniors and those a decade from retirement, ensuring that they receive their promised benefits in full, • increase accountability, and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,
• provide choice for beneficiaries so that they have the same choices as Members of Congress,
• eliminate IPAB and keep critical health care decisions between patients and doctors.

We have an opportunity to work together in Washington to strengthen Medicare. I encourage the Senate to take up the Republican Budget, deliver on the promise to seniors, and secure Medicare for future generations.

On patriotism and the 2012 election

Kieran Conrad is a ConservativeHome College Columnist Winner.  He studied English at Middlebury College and Liberal Arts at St. John's College.

Patriotism (n): love for or devotion to one’s country.

What is patriotism? Since presidential hopefuls often talk about being patriotic, it is important to understand the meaning of the word. Let us carefully consider its definition in this instance: devotion means love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a cause; a country is a political state; political means, or relates to, government; and government means the system by which a nation is conducted. Patriotism, therefore, is the love for, or devotion to, one’s system of government. Unfortunately, most people neither know our system of government nor understand the philosophy of liberty upon which it is founded: The United States is a democratic, constitutional republic, where the people elect representatives who will dutifully carry out their oaths to the laws that were created to protect the natural rights of the people.

However, today people believe that the proper role of government is paternalism, that it is government’s role to take care of the people. Citizens are reminded of this every four years when presidential elections occur. Candidates parrot the usual platitudes, the requisite partisan barbs, and the banal talking points. For “conservatives,” it is important to discuss lowering taxes, fixing healthcare and education, securing borders, strengthening national defense, and growing the economy. This is essentially what “liberals” say, too. Unfortunately, neither party wants to conserve the laws or philosophy upon which the federation was founded, nor do they truly believe in classical liberalism, which advocates the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals, including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and markets. Instead, candidates regurgitate the well-worn rhetoric of what they would do and what they would create, rather than saying what they would repeal and what they would abolish. While this would not be politically expedient, it would be patriotic.

What is patriotism, then? In our case, whether Republican or Democrat, a patriot is one who refrains from using the power entrusted to them by the people to impose their beliefs on others by use of force. The presidential race is looming, and two options remain for the candidates: whether to grow the government or the economy. One is grown at the expense of the other. It would serve every candidate and citizen well to remember history, and how the growth of government, whether through the loss of individual rights and freedoms, the broadening of economic and social control, or the expanse of militaristic imperialism and devaluation of currency, always ends the same, and it can happen here, too. If patriotism and conservatism are important, then it is important to contrast each candidate’s voting record with the system of government and philosophy of liberty we wish to preserve, and not choose candidates based on whom we believe will best use the power of government to force others to live the way we believe to be proper. Instead, the core issue should be the rate by which the government is growing and the economy is dissolving. Therefore, perhaps the only candidate qualified to fix the problems is the only one who predicted them.

            Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.

- John Adams, to Abigail, 26 April 1777

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...

39 GOP House freshmen: We are making the tough decisions necessary to ensure that we remain the greatest and most prosperous nation in the world - it's time for the Senate to join us

Rich Nugent (R-Fla.), Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), Austin Scott (R-Ga.), Bill Flores (R-Texas), Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), Rob Woodall (R-Ga.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), Andy Harris (R-Md.), Jeff Landry (R-La.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.), Robert Hurt (R-Va.), Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.), Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), Martha Roby (R-Ala.), Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), Allen West (R-Fla.), Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), Scott Rigell (R-Va.), Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.), Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), Frank Guinta (R-N.H.), Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), Diane Black (R-Tenn.), Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), Reid Ribble (R-Wis.), Sandy Adams (R-Fla.), Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and Steve Stivers (R-Ohio).

Just over a week ago, the creditworthiness of our country was officially called into question, for the first time since the United States’ “full faith and credit” was established in 1790.

Over the last few months, the House and the Senate have received the same dire warnings from Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and the other ratings agencies.

The House led by crafting solutions to our debt problem. Months ago, the House passed a budget that reduces short-term deficits by more than $4.4 trillion and addresses the unsustainable, long-term structural deficits that threaten this nation.

Just a few weeks ago, the House passed a bipartisan bill, “Cut, Cap and Balance,” that could have cut federal spending by $111 billion next year, capped future expenditures and required passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.

In doing so, the House twice met the requirements that Standard & Poor’s laid out to avoid a downgrade.

The Senate, on the other hand, did nothing. So far this year, the Senate has failed to adopt a budget or pass “Cut, Cap and Balance.”

In fact, it has been more than 850 days since the Senate passed a budget. Given the fiscal crisis we are facing as a nation, the Senate’s failure to act is unacceptable — both to our creditors and to all Americans, who must ultimately shoulder the burden of paying our debts.

Keep reading at Politico...

The media bias – circa November 2012

Stephen Kokx is a ConservativeHome College Columnist winner. He studied Business Administration at Aquinas College and received a MA in Social Justice and Community Development from Loyola University Chicago.

In an interview conducted several years ago, Barack Obama acknowledged that if the economy didn’t rebound by the time he was up for re-election he may be a one term President.

As poll numbers suggest, most American’s prefer a generic Republican to Obama in 2012. Although it’s premature to conclude that the GOP has the election in the bag, there is a record attached to Obama’s name – and it’s not pretty.

That being said, it’s safe to assume that if the President fails to get re-elected, the far left will do everything in its power to protect his legacy. Assertions of intolerance and greed will surely be cited, but the American people are smart. That’s why, when liberal leaning editorial boards write their election summary in November of 2012, they will already know what’s going to be said. I imagine it will be something similar to the following paragraphs:

The victim of possibly the most heinous smear campaign ever, our nation’s 44th President, Barack Obama, has lost his bid for re-election. Like the brave Martin Luther King Jr. before him, President Obama led us to the Promised Land, but sadly, won’t be there to see it to fruition.

We all remember the support he had when he defeated John McCain four years ago. But the vicious, racially-tinged, character assassination launched by the Republicans – who took over Congress during the mid-terms – has proved too much for the nation’s first African-American President.

Perhaps this undoing could have been predicted. Remember in 2010 when the so called Tea Party broke onto the scene? Well, it wasn’t long after that we discovered the hatred tea drinkers have for socio-economic equality.

Meant to be an uprising against big government, the Tea Party was soon hijacked by mainstream conservatives who inculcated these middle-aged, intolerant sensationalists with the belief that affordable health care, alternative energy and an enhanced public school system were bad things.

Led by the likes of Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin, Newt “save our country from Socialism” Gingrich and Glenn “my mission in life is to ruin Van Jones” Beck, the Tea Partiers channeled their disgust for President Obama into a brainwashing campaign.

With ads portraying our former President as a communist and illegitimate citizen, the GOP crushed the hope that Barack Obama gave to so many underrepresented minorities. With the election of this President, their segregationist mindset has reached a tipping point.

Yes, there were some moderate Republicans in the GOP primary this year. But it is clear that the so called ‘Compassionate Conservative’ has been killed off for a more extreme view of America..

It was evident that the game plan for the GOP was to resist change the day they took over the House. By stalling and playing politics with the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill, hampering progress on immigrant rights, and holding a gun to the head of the American electorate by refusing to raise taxes, the Republicans made it their number one mission to stonewall any type of real progress.

It should be noted that as President, Barack Obama expanded healthcare to millions of people, secured a credit card bill of rights and fought for worker’s solidarity by enhancing the status of blue-collar union members. Let us never forget his legacy.

As we move forward, we need to re-enliven the progressive movement by demanding social and economic justice. Please support those Congressmen and Senators who still want to follow down the path President Obama laid forth. For, if we live in a democracy that supports the politics of fear over the politics of hope, we will never be able to fulfill our Democratic agenda.

Now, we have to fight, not with, but against, this President, and demand our beloved leader’s message of hope once again.

If ever in doubt, just remember “yes, we can”.

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...

Rep. Geoff Davis: We need a better solution to create jobs - more government is not the answer

Congressman Geoff Davis is the US Representative serving Kentucky's 4th congressional district.

In August 2010, Treasury Department Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote an op-ed for the New York Times titled Welcome to the Recovery.  One year later, as the economy teeters on the edge of a double dip recession, Americans are still asking: where are the jobs?

New unemployment data released last week revealed that only 117,000 jobs were created during July, short of the 125,000 new jobs needed every month just to keep up with population growth.  The national unemployment rate ticked down to 9.1%, but only because of the number of people who have given up looking for work or otherwise dropped out of the labor market.

To address this problem, President Obama announced last week that he will turn the focus of his administration to jobs.  This is the seventh time that he has claimed his administration will make such a pivot to jobs, but the problem is that his policies are not working.

For example, we were told the stimulus bill would create or save 3 million jobs and keep unemployment below eight percent.  Since the stimulus bill was signed into law more than two years ago, more than 1.6 million jobs have been lost.  Furthermore, the unemployment rate has been at or above eight percent for thirty consecutive months, the longest period since the Great Depression.

The last two and a half years have reinforced that we cannot spend, tax and borrow our way to economic prosperity.  And we only need to look at the example of Greece to see where we are heading if we continue to spend money we do not have.

We need a better solution.  More government is not the answer.  In order to foster a growing and healthy economy, Congress must enact policies that will increase our competitiveness, reward entrepreneurship and ingenuity.  

House Republicans are working to reverse course by passing bills to cut spending, and get government out of the way of our economic engines.  This will promote investment, encourage entrepreneurship and allow the private sector to grow and create jobs.  For these job creating bills to take effect, the Senate must pass them and the President should then sign them into law.

House Republicans passed legislation to repeal the President’s job destroying takeover of health care which would prevent over half a trillion dollars in tax increases and cut hundreds of billions in spending, in addition to easing the burden of PPACA on employers.

The House has directed ten committees to review existing, pending and proposed regulations to identify the effect on jobs and the economy.  We also plan to pass the REINS Act, legislation I introduced to require Congressional approval of any new regulations that have a significant impact on the economy.

Affordable energy is critical to job growth.  The House has passed four bills that would increase American energy exploration in Alaska and off of our coasts to increase supply and keep prices low.  We also passed the Energy Tax Prevention Act to prohibit the EPA from instituting a backdoor cap and trade program through regulation.

We have been calling on the President repeatedly to send Congress the three pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.  To date, he has not done so.  Finalizing these three agreements would create an estimated 250,000 American jobs by opening new markets to our goods and products.

Finally, as Standard and Poor’s downgrading of our credit rating last week confirmed, we need to continue to cut spending, reduce our debt burden and make the tough choices necessary to live within our means.  While the House has taken some first steps in the right direction, and successfully changed the conversation in Washington from whether to cut to how much to cut, there is much more to be done.

If the White House and Congressional Democrats are serious about getting America back to work, they should join Republicans to pass these commonsense proposals to get our fiscal house in order and get the government out of the way of job creation.  Only then will Americans stop asking, where are the jobs?

Rep. Mike Turner: National Security cuts a cause for concern in final debt deal

Congressman Mike Turner is the US Representative for Ohio's 3rd congressional district.

For months, Congress has been debating how to deal with the economic questions surrounding an increase in our debt limit. At a time when foreign nations own nearly $4.5 trillion of our $14.2 trillion debt – proposed cuts in the recently passed deal could have serious implications for our national security.  That’s why I was concerned that national security funding would be subject to an initial $175 billion cut in the final version of the Budget Control Act of 2011 that has been passed by Congress and signed by the President.

Throughout this debate I have advocated for our government to cut current spending and cap it at a responsible level so that we may balance our budget. We must remember though that in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the founding fathers empowered Congress to: "Provide for the common Defense… To raise and support Armies … (and) To provide and maintain a Navy." Fulfilling that obligation and meeting our budgetary responsibilities are not mutually exclusive. As a nation we should be able to provide for our defense and balance our budget. One should not come at the expense of the other.

This is a critical moment for both our nation and our armed forces. We have servicemembers deployed overseas in support of a number of military and humanitarian operations including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Those operations over the past 10 years have taken a toll on our forces. Currently, the Army needs $25 billion to reset its force right now, while the Marines need $12 billion. Our men and women in uniform are not only being asked to make further sacrifices with additional deployments, but in some cases they’re relying on equipment which is often older than they are. For example, Navy ships and light attack vehicles, on average, were built 20 years ago. In addition the Air Force is relying on bombers averaging 34 years in age and is refueling aircraft with tankers that are nearly 50 years old. 

An additional point of concern is that further cuts to defense are being used as a bargaining chip in a yet to be named Congressional “super-committee.” Twelve members of Congress from the House and Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, are required to find an additional $1.8 trillion in cuts. If the committee deadlocks on an agreement, or fails to complete its work by November 23^rd of this year – then $281 billion in additional defense cuts automatically take effect. These cuts are unspecified and are an arbitrary number chosen to pressure the “super-committee” members into crafting an inadequate deal in fear of these cuts being enacted. I voted against this bill because I could not support a process which circumvents the normal legislative process and gambles with our national security.

Our military remains strong and morale among servicemembers remains high, but we cannot continue to operate with a strained force or we will not be able to meet the obligations of the future. In fact, the Vice-Chiefs of Staff of each of our braches of the military echoed this same sentiment at a hearing before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. General Philip Breedlove, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force stated that some components of the Air Force “are right at the ragged edge.”  Furthermore, additional proposed cuts of $281 billon in the bill would result in a "fundamental restructure of what it is our nation expects from our Air Force."

Our national defense has always been a bipartisan issue in the halls of Congress. Members from both sides of the aisle recognize the role our military plays in both protecting this nation, and advancing the goals of our foreign policy. Subjecting this integral piece of our government to cuts, without thorough debate in committee and on the House floor, sets a dangerous precedent.