Campaign

Nine years before I was elected to Congress for the first of nine terms, I woke up from my last alcoholic blackout in a jail cell, under arrest for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. I am alive and sober today - almost 30 years later - only because I had access to treatment for my alcoholism. The same access drug courts provide every day across America.

Drug courts not only save lives; they save taxpayer dollars, reduce crime and recidivism, and address the alarming epidemic of addiction among our veterans returning from war.

The most conservative studies show for every dollar invested in drug courts, $27 is saved on healthcare, welfare and foster care costs, emergency room visits, property losses and criminal justice costs.

Two weeks ago, the House Appropriations Committee voted to reinsert language into the Agriculture appropriations bill to prevent funds for inspections - inspections that are required by law - of horsemeat, continuing a logic-defying policy that harms the welfare of horses, infringes on the rights of horse owners, and cripples the horse industry. Most of all, it prevents the immediate creation of hundreds of good, American jobs. The unemployment rate just hit 9.1 percent and both parties are blaming the other for it. In this instance both are to blame for killing the highly regulated horsemeat industry.

Before 2005, the horsemeat industry was a $65 million a year business. In 2003, the two Texas plants employed a total of 130 people to process 40,000 horses per year. One small business that shipped the meat noted in a 2002 letter that it employed twenty-one people, all of whom were heads of households. Their annual horsemeat airfreight exports generated $4 million for the airlines they used. These jobs are all gone.

As the owner of two family restaurants that cater to a daytime business clientele, I know a thing or two about serving up a good lunch. And, in the run-up to Wednesday’s Senate vote on the amendment to delay new rules limiting debit swipe fees, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that big banks were going to eat our lunch ... again.

But, to my surprise and delight - and thanks in large part to small business owners from Maine to Iowa to Washington State who contacted their Senators and make their voices heard - Wall Street bankers didn’t win this time. They didn’t eat our lunch.

While 54 Senators voted for the bank-backed amendment, it needed 60 to pass, and we had a broad bi-partisan show of support on our side. But I'm sure this fight isn't over, and that's why it's important to keep pointing out the facts of swipe fees and why small businesses need these new rules to take effect on schedule in July.

People often make mistakes when they write too hastily. That’s why computers have delete keys, and email software often provides a "spelling and grammar check" just to make sure there are no surprises hiding among the words. Sometimes, our legislative and regulatory institutions write laws or rules too hastily, and hit the equivalent of the "send" button without sufficient deliberation. When this happens, the result is not just a bit of embarrassment for the author - instead, millions of taxpayers, consumers, and businesses feel the pain. So it is with regulations on debit-card "interchange" fees being rushed to implementation barely six weeks from now.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced his bid for the presidency Monday morning. Below is the full text of his speech.

Thanks, Mary, for your very kind words and for your tremendous love and support. After serving eight years as Minnesota's Governor, I was very much looking forward to life with Mary, and our daughters, in the Midwestern home we love. But with Mary's encouragement and wise counsel, we came to a different conclusion. And that brings me here today with this announcement.

I'm Tim Pawlenty, and I'm running for President of the United States.

We live in the greatest country the world has ever known. But, as we all know, America is in big trouble, and it won't get fixed if we keep going down the same path. If we want a new and better direction, we need a new and better President. 

In his latest lecture to the Middle East, an ideologically purblind President Obama has again failed to acknowledge the facts on the ground, much to the detriment of American and Israeli strategic interests.

First, the President continues to confound "popular uprisings" with America's strategic interests. This fails to account for the inherent danger that such movements can be usurped - if not instigated and abetted by - radical elements bent upon usurping them for anti-American purposes, as is increasingly evident in Egypt. Providing the new Egyptian government billions in debt relief and loans without the conditions that the Camp David Accords must remain inviolable both in law and practice, is but the latest manifestation of this administration's Mid-East dumbfoundment.  

In times of intense budgetary pressures, consumers, businesses and governments must contend with difficult choices. When faced with spending cuts, it’s often easy to fall into the trap of failing to distinguish between costs and investments. Some cuts may deliver benefits to the bottom line in the short-term, but over the long-term yields a net loss because of the missed benefits of the foregone investment.

CompTIA’s recent 2nd Annual Government IT Purchase Plans research study indicates that governments of all levels increasingly see technology as more than just a cost center, but rather a means to address challenges on multiple fronts. According to our research of local, state and federal decision makers, government IT spending will continue to focus on measurable outcomes that place premiums on ensuring that work on behalf of tax payers ultimately can be done more efficiently, securely and cost effectively.  

Critics on both the left and the right are dismissing President Obama’s recent call for immigration reform, saying he offered nothing new. However, his El Paso speech on Tuesday, and recent events in some states gave hints of a possible winning strategy. Ironically, Obama may claim victory if conservative groups are at the forefront of the change—but reformers will have to scale back their ambitions to make it happen. 

The great stumbling block to reform is intense distrust of the federal government. Many citizens – as well as lawmakers – do not believe the government can control the borders or deal with the 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the country.  

When President Obama took office, he promised to lead a new era of government accountability. In fact, his administration was to be marked by an “unprecedented level of openness and transparency.” Yet recent signals from the White House raise serious questions about the president’s interest in transparency as a tool for responsible government and the potential that transparency will instead become a weapon of partisan political activity.
 
Weeks ago, the administration circulated a proposed executive order that would direct federal agencies to require contractors to disclose political expenditures before they are eligible to receive a contract. Compliance with this order will require federal contractors to solicit detailed information from their employees about their political affiliations and donations.

In short, the government will begin scrutinizing very private and personal information before awarding federal contracts.

Reality seems to have been flipped on its head in the debate over the administration’s draft executive order to require federal contractors to disclose more information about their campaign contributions.

It used to be that transparency was a solution, not a problem. But today, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is holding a hearing stacked with witnesses representing defense and aerospace contractors who oppose additional disclosure.

Chairman Issa, who is also the co-chair of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, now suggests that more transparency is dangerous. In desperate rhetoric, he warns that President Obama secretly wants to use this new information to create a “Nixonian type enemies list.”