Economy & Budget

The economic, energy, and national security benefits associated with building the Keystone XL Pipeline are clear. Construction of the pipeline would produce thousands of jobs, and gas prices, which are currently hovering at $3.78 per gallon in Ohio, would begin to decline. What is keeping the president from approving this critical project?

This month House Democratic Leadership has attempted to persuade the country that Washington does not have a spending problem.
 
House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that “it's almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem.”
 
Friends, this is laughable.
 
With the national debt at more than $16.5 trillion dollars and growing more every second, Rep. Pelosi is right, we do not have a spending problem — we have a spending crisis.

Since the enactment of the Budget Control Act, there has been almost unanimous opposition to sequestration and its meat-ax approach to deficit reduction. These automatic cuts come on top of $1.5 trillion in cuts already enacted through the BCA, with a large percentage absorbed by the Department of Defense alone. It’s clear that further cuts through sequestration would harm our defense industrial base and local economies; however, partisan gridlock and an unwillingness to compromise has made it difficult for Congress to reach a long-term and balanced solution.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is giving a bright green light to whistleblowers to come forward in her first Senate Banking Committee hearing.

Most media reports are focusing on Warren’s withering questioning of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Elisse Walter and Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry regarding their regulatory agencies seemingly axiomatic preference for settlement and consent decrees.

Walter defends SEC enforcement and litigation, calls attention to the limited penalties the Commission is authorized to impose and, in the end, concedes she will have to “get back” with specifics about the last time the SEC took big banks to trial.

Immigration is a hot topic in Washington, and for good reason: reforming our immigration policies will finally bring our laws in line with economic and societal realities. Embedded in every immigration reform proposal is a mandate for employers to use an electronic employment eligibility verification system, also known as E-Verify, on workers. Legislators looking at mandatory E-Verify proposals should proceed with caution: if implemented incorrectly, E-Verify could cause job losses to U.S. citizen and work authorized individuals, massive economic hardship, and lead to widespread workplace rights violations.

When in 2011 the Democratic Senate and the Republican House of Representatives could not agree on how to reduce federal spending and ever mounting unaffordable debt, the president proposed and Congress approved the “sequester” to break the impasse. It mandated budget cuts so unpalatable to both sides – entitlement cuts unacceptable to Democrats and national security cuts unacceptable to Republicans – that surely reason would prevail and compel the lawmakers to agree upon a far less painful alternative.

While hard-working taxpayers were worrying how the sequester will impact their communities, President Obama spent his Tuesday traveling on Air Force One trying to convince the American people that more tax increases are necessary. I simply cannot understand why the president would continue to play blame-game politics instead of meeting with congressional leaders during this crucial time. Government spending seems to be on everyone’s mind, except the president’s. According to the Congressional Research Service, Air Force One costs taxpayers more than $179,000 per hour. So why would the president opt to fly more than 150 miles instead of just picking up the phone?

After World War II, with millions of American GI’s returning home, President Harry Truman appointed General Omar Bradley to run the Veterans Administration. Bradley was a popular choice, and his steely approach to helping veterans was widely admired.

“We are dealing with veterans, not procedures; with their problems, not ours,” Bradley famously said.

You’ll find the same kind of commitment to today’s generation of veterans in the Congressional Veterans Jobs Caucus, a bipartisan group of 37 Senators and 27 Representatives brought together by the joblessness crisis among our returning military heroes.
 
More than two million Americans have served our nation in Iraq, Afghanistan and other post 9/11 missions around the world. Now, as these men and women return home, they are confronting yet another challenge – finding a job.

One of the worst winter storms in recent memory just pummeled the Northeast. The blizzard left parts of New England buried under as much as three feet of snow. Hurricane-force winds knocked out power for hundreds of thousands, and substantial snowfalls extended from New Jersey to Maine.

Fortunately, officials and businesses in the region knew the storm was coming and were able to prepare. Blizzard warnings were issued. Commuter bus and rail services were suspended. Flights were rerouted or cancelled. Parking on major thoroughfares was prohibited to make room for plows.

This Friday, the sequester is scheduled to kick in. The $85 billion in spending cuts includes $1.6 billion to the Department of Justice. While the budget crackup is not good for anyone, the Justice Department can use this opportunity to begin implementing a saner national criminal justice policy.
 
Last week, Attorney General Holder wrote to Senator Mikulski and the Appropriations Committee about the cuts. The letter left criminal justice advocates not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. The federal Bureau of Prisons would need to slash its staff by 5 percent plus suspend the opening of five new prisons. Holder says the consequences will be prison lockdowns and cuts to reentry programs. He goes on to say “[t]o be blunt, sequestration means less money, not fewer inmates” leading to a “dangerous situation” engendering violence in prisons. The sequester cuts would also require FBI and law enforcement to cut 1,000 agents and U.S. Attorney offices to prosecute 1,000 fewer cases.