Obama's EPA and the 2012 Elections

From Hugh Hewitt

Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 8:47 AM

First, read Fred Upton and Tim Phillips very important article in today's Wall Street Journal on the push by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grab control over almost every aspect of American life.

Congressman Upton is the incoming chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Phillips is the president of Americans for Prosperity. (Chairman Upton will be my guest on Thursday's show as I continue to interview key chairmen of House Committees in the new Congress.)

The EPA's raw power grab is without precedent and built on the thinnest of rationales --a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that said the Clean Air Act could provide the EPA with the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions if certain "findings" were made. Obama's EPA made those findings and now is pushing forward the first wave of regulations that could end up with an EPA bureaucrat on overwatch of every carbon dioxide-emitting business, home, motor, machine and process in the country.

EPA is a serial job-killer, and this extreme regulatory agenda is contrary to every promise the president has made
to focus on job creation.

The first wave of rules targets power plants and oil refineries, and the public may be tempted to shrug and say "Who can argue with emission restrictions on such plants?"

EPA says it will be guided by reason, but this is Team Obama we are talking about, allied with the hard left edge of the environmental movement. Recall that the "mini-EPA" of Southern California, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, started out promising common sense and ended up attempting to regulate backyard barbeques.
(I served a year on the board of this agency and know that while the agency is staffed by superb scientists and dedicated professionals, the nature of bureaucracy is such that it always rolls forward towards its narrow mission. That is what bureaucracies do.)

Obama's EPA grabbed the authority to regulate carbon dioxide, and it believes it can regulate any emission of the gas anywhere in the country. When EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson first appears before Chairman Upton or any other House Committee, the questions should bore in on these key inquiry: How vast is EPA's power, even if presently unused? What in theory could EPA regulate? Any manufacturing process that emits carbon dioxide? Any household that does?

Administrator Jackson will demur, will resist laying out her understanding of the full scope of the agency's authority over American life. But if the questions are sharp and the questioners not easily deterred, the answer will emerge that EPA believes it can regulate almost every aspect of American life, just as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service believes it can regulate vast swatches of private property in the name of saving endangered species.

Over the past quarter century, the administrative state has melded itself onto the world view of Big Environmentalism, and the combination represents a threat to the idea of limited government and the liberties preserved by such a limited government. The fight to corral and tame EPA has significance far beyond power plants and refineries, and any honest participant in the debate will admit as much.

President Obama and his "tsar" for the environment Carol Browner fully embrace the most expansive vision of the uber-EPA, and their refusal to take any steps to curb the agency's expansionist zeal should be a major issue in the 2012 elections. Americans didn't sign up for an army of bureaucrats regulating a gas that many don't believe can be meaningfully regulated to impact global temperatures. Obama's EPA is the left flank of the front line in the political battle over the size and scope of government, with Obamacare being its center. (The right flank is a story for another day.) Upton and Phillips have fired the first shot in the 2011 battle to push back the EPA and hopefully they will find many allies on the Hill, in the grassroots, and among the GOP presidential candidates.

Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir

From The New York Times

By Robert Pear
Published: December 25, 2010

WASHINGTON — When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

The final version of the health care legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physical examinations, or wellness visits. The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit.

Under the rule, doctors can provide information to patients on how to prepare an “advance directive,” stating how aggressively they wish to be treated if they are so sick that they cannot make health care decisions for themselves.

While the new law does not mention advance care planning, the Obama administration has been able to achieve its policy goal through the regulation-writing process, a strategy that could become more prevalent in the next two years as the president deals with a strengthened Republican opposition in Congress.

In this case, the administration said research had shown the value of end-of-life planning.

“Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives,” the administration said in the preamble to the Medicare regulation, quoting research published this year in the British Medical Journal.

The administration also cited research by Dr. Stacy M. Fischer, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who found that “end-of-life discussions between doctor and patient help ensure that one gets the care one wants.” In this sense, Dr. Fischer said, such consultations “protect patient autonomy.”

Opponents said the Obama administration was bringing back a procedure that could be used to justify the premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from people with severe illnesses and disabilities.

Section 1233 of the bill passed by the House in November 2009 — but not included in the final legislation — allowed Medicare to pay for consultations about advance care planning every five years. In contrast, the new rule allows annual discussions as part of the wellness visit.

Elizabeth D. Wickham, executive director of LifeTree, which describes itself as “a pro-life Christian educational ministry,” said she was concerned that end-of-life counseling would encourage patients to forgo or curtail care, thus hastening death.

“The infamous Section 1233 is still alive and kicking,” Ms. Wickham said. “Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life.”

Several Democratic members of Congress, led by Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, had urged the administration to cover end-of-life planning as a service offered under the Medicare wellness benefit. A national organization of hospice care providers made the same recommendation.

Mr. Blumenauer, the author of the original end-of-life proposal, praised the rule as “a step in the right direction.”

“It will give people more control over the care they receive,” Mr. Blumenauer said in an interview. “It means that doctors and patients can have these conversations in the normal course of business, as part of our health care routine, not as something put off until we are forced to do it.”

After learning of the administration’s decision, Mr. Blumenauer’s office celebrated “a quiet victory,” but urged supporters not to crow about it.

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

Moreover, the e-mail said: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”

The e-mail continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

In the interview, Mr. Blumenauer said, “Lies can go viral if people use them for political purposes.”

The proposal for Medicare coverage of advance care planning was omitted from the final health care bill because of the uproar over unsubstantiated claims that it would encourage euthanasia.

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, led the criticism in the summer of 2009. Ms. Palin said “Obama’s death panel” would decide who was worthy of health care. Mr. Boehner, who is in line to become speaker, said, “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.” Forced onto the defensive, Mr. Obama said that nothing in the bill would “pull the plug on grandma.”

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that the idea of death panels persists. In the September poll, 30 percent of Americans 65 and older said the new health care law allowed a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare. The law has no such provision.

The new policy is included in a huge Medicare regulation setting payment rates for thousands of services including arthroscopy, mastectomy and X-rays.

The rule was issued by Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a longtime advocate for better end-of-life care.

“Using unwanted procedures in terminal illness is a form of assault,” Dr. Berwick has said. “In economic terms, it is waste. Several techniques, including advance directives and involvement of patients and families in decision-making, have been shown to reduce inappropriate care at the end of life, leading to both lower cost and more humane care.”

Ellen B. Griffith, a spokeswoman for the Medicare agency, said, “The final health care reform law has no provision for voluntary advance care planning.” But Ms. Griffith added, under the new rule, such planning “may be included as an element in both the first and subsequent annual wellness visits, providing an opportunity to periodically review and update the beneficiary’s wishes and preferences for his or her medical care.”

Mr. Blumenauer and Mr. Rockefeller said that advance directives would help doctors and nurses provide care in keeping with patients’ wishes.

“Early advance care planning is important because a person’s ability to make decisions may diminish over time, and he or she may suddenly lose the capability to participate in health care decisions,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Dr. Berwick in August.

In a recent study of 3,700 people near the end of life, Dr. Maria J. Silveira of the University of Michigan found that many had “treatable, life-threatening conditions” but lacked decision-making capacity in their final days. With the new Medicare coverage, doctors can learn a patient’s wishes before a crisis occurs.

For example, Dr. Silveira said, she might ask a person with heart disease, “If you have another heart attack and your heart stops beating, would you want us to try to restart it?” A patient dying of emphysema might be asked, “Do you want to go on a breathing machine for the rest of your life?” And, she said, a patient with incurable cancer might be asked, “When the time comes, do you want us to use technology to try and delay your death?”

Keep the FCC Out of the Internet

Terry Jeffrey

When the Obama administration first went to the Supreme Court in March 2009 to explain its understanding of the First Amendment, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said the administration believed the government could prohibit a corporation from bouncing a book off a satellite into someone's Kindle if that communication took place within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election and if the book included words advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office.

"Your position is that under the Constitution, the advertising for this book or the sale for the book itself could be prohibited within ... the 60/30-day period?" asked Justice Anthony Kennedy.

"If the book contained the functional equivalent of express advocacy," said Stewart.

"And I suppose," said Kennedy, "it could even -- is it the Kindle where you can read a book? I take it that's from a satellite. So the existing statute would probably prohibit that under your view?"

"Well, the statute applies to cable, satellite and broadcast communications," said Stewart.

"Just to make it clear," said Kennedy, "it's the government's position that under the statute, if this Kindle device where you can read a book which is campaign advocacy, within the 60/30-day period, if it comes from a satellite ... it can be prohibited under the Constitution and perhaps under this statute?

"It can't be prohibited, but a corporation could be barred from using its general treasury funds to publish the book and could be required ... to raise funds to publish the book using its PAC," said Stewart.

In other words, the Obama administration believes it can bar a publisher from electronically selling a book via satellite, cable or broadcast media in an election year if the book advocates throwing someone out of Congress or the White House.

To electronically publish such a book in Barack Obama's America, a publishing house would need to start a political action committee and get political contributors to donate money to fund the operation. No capitalism would be allowed in the business of publishing books that call for the defeat of federal officeholders.

As Stewart dug deeper into his explanation of the administration's understanding of the First Amendment, he was eventually interrupted by the ever-sardonic Justice Antonin Scalia.

"I'm a little disoriented here, Mr. Stewart," said Scalia. "We are dealing with a constitutional provision, are we not, the one that I remember which says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press? That's what we're interpreting here?

"That's correct," said Stewart.

In this case -- Citizens United v. FEC -- a 5-4 Supreme Court ruled against the administration, which sought to enforce a rule that said a corporation could not sell a pay-per-view movie to a cable television customer if the movie mentioned a candidate in an election season.

"The government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech," Chief Justice John Roberts correctly observed in his concurring opinion in the case.

On Tuesday, led by Obama-appointed Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Federal Communications Commission for the first time issued regulations that would arrogate to the FCC the authority to regulate Internet traffic. The regulations come as wolves in sheeps' clothing, purporting to protect consumers from big businesses that would restrict their access to the web.

But there are two problems with what the FCC is doing: Congress has never given it authority to regulate Internet traffic, and if it is allowed to usurp that authority it will eventually use it to restrict freedom of speech.

When Congress created the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, then converted it into the Federal Communications Commission in 1934, it expressly denied this agency the authority to control speech on the radio.

Henry Bellows, one of the original FRC commissioners, accurately explained its authority in a speech to the League of Women Voters in the year the agency was born.

"Very rightly, Congress has held that the broadcaster shall not be subject to governmental dictation as to the character of the material he sends out, the Federal Radio Commission under present law cannot and will not interfere with any broadcaster's right to control and censor his own programs," said Bellows.

"In that matter, his relations are not with the government, not with the commission, but with you," said Bellows. "It is for you, the listeners, not for us, to censor his programs. It is for you to tell him when he is rendering, or failing to render, real service to the public, and you may be sure that he will listen to your voices."

Thirteen years later, in 1940, in reviewing the broadcast license of the Yankee Network for the Massachusetts radio station WAAB, the FCC ruled that radio stations were forbidden from advocating.

"A truly free radio cannot be used to advocate the causes of the licensee," said the FCC in that case. "It cannot be used to support the candidacies of his friends. It cannot be devoted to the support of principles he happens to regard most favorably. In brief, the broadcaster cannot be an advocate."

What happened between 1927 and 1940? Did Congress increase the authority of federal radio commissioners? No. An all-Democratic government had come into power and had held it for eight years. 1940 was yet another election year, and freedom of speech was not a priority for the incumbent party.

The Net Neutrality Coup

From The Wall Street Journal

The campaign to regulate the Internet was funded by a who's who of left-liberal foundations.

By JOHN FUND

The Federal Communications Commission's new "net neutrality" rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.

There's little evidence the public is demanding these rules, which purport to stop the non-problem of phone and cable companies blocking access to websites and interfering with Internet traffic. Over 300 House and Senate members have signed a letter opposing FCC Internet regulation, and there will undoubtedly be even less support in the next Congress.

The FCC has approved rules that would give the federal government authority to regulate Internet traffic and prevent broadband providers from selectively blocking web traffic. WSJ's Amy Schatz explains what the new rules really mean.

Yet President Obama, long an ardent backer of net neutrality, is ignoring both Congress and adverse court rulings, especially by a federal appeals court in April that the agency doesn't have the power to enforce net neutrality. He is seeking to impose his will on the Internet through the executive branch. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a former law school friend of Mr. Obama, has worked closely with the White House on the issue. Official visitor logs show he's had at least 11 personal meetings with the president.

The net neutrality vision for government regulation of the Internet began with the work of Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor who founded the liberal lobby Free Press in 2002. Mr. McChesney's agenda? "At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies," he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. "But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."

A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that "any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself." Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been "taken out of context." He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was "hesitant to say I'm not a Marxist."

For a man with such radical views, Mr. McChesney and his Free Press group have had astonishing influence. Mr. Genachowski's press secretary at the FCC, Jen Howard, used to handle media relations at Free Press. The FCC's chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, co-authored a Free Press report calling for regulation of political talk radio.

Free Press has been funded by a network of liberal foundations that helped the lobby invent the purported problem that net neutrality is supposed to solve. They then fashioned a political strategy similar to the one employed by activists behind the political speech restrictions of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill. The methods of that earlier campaign were discussed in 2004 by Sean Treglia, a former program officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts, during a talk at the University of Southern California. Far from being the efforts of genuine grass-roots activists, Mr. Treglia noted, the campaign-finance reform lobby was controlled and funded by foundations like Pew.

"The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot," he told his audience. He noted that "If Congress thought this was a Pew effort, it'd be worthless." A study by the Political Money Line, a nonpartisan website dealing with issues of campaign funding, found that of the $140 million spent to directly promote campaign-finance reform in the last decade, $123 million came from eight liberal foundations.

After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to "media reform"—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct "Fairness Doctrine" that used to regulate TV and radio companies. In a 2005 interview with the progressive website Buzzflash, Mr. McChesney said that campaign-finance reform advocate Josh Silver approached him and "said let's get to work on getting popular involvement in media policy making." Together the two founded Free Press.

Free Press and allied groups such as MoveOn.org quickly got funding. Of the eight major foundations that provided the vast bulk of money for campaign-finance reform, six became major funders of the media-reform movement. (They are the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers's Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.) Free Press today has 40 staffers and an annual budget of $4 million.

These wealthy funders pay for more than publicity and conferences. In 2009, Free Press commissioned a poll, released by the Harmony Institute, on net neutrality. Harmony reported that "more than 50% of the public argued that, as a private resource, the Internet should not be regulated by the federal government." The poll went on to say that since "currently the public likes the way the Internet works . . . messaging should target supporters by asking them to act vigilantly" to prevent a "centrally controlled Internet."

To that end, Free Press and other groups helped manufacture "research" on net neutrality. In 2009, for example, the FCC commissioned Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to conduct an "independent review of existing information" for the agency in order to "lay the foundation for enlightened, data-driven decision making."

Considering how openly activist the Berkman Center has been on these issues, it was an odd decision for the FCC to delegate its broadband research to this outfit. Unless, of course, the FCC already knew the answer it wanted to get.

The Berkman Center's FCC- commissioned report, "Next Generation Connectivity," wound up being funded in large part by the Ford and MacArthur foundations. So some of the same foundations that have spent years funding net neutrality advocacy research ended up funding the FCC-commissioned study that evaluated net neutrality research.

The FCC's "National Broadband Plan," released last spring, included only five citations of respected think tanks such as the International Technology and Innovation Foundation or the Brookings Institution. But the report cited research from liberal groups such as Free Press, Public Knowledge, Pew and the New America Foundation more than 50 times.

So the "media reform" movement paid for research that backed its views, paid activists to promote the research, saw its allies installed in the FCC and other key agencies, and paid for the FCC research that evaluated the research they had already paid for. Now they have their policy. That's quite a coup.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

Cuba banned Michael Moore documentary for being too rosy about Cuban health care

posted at 9:25 pm on December 17, 2010 by Allahpundit
printer-friendly

No foolin’. So fulsomely slavish to the cause have our progressive icons become that their propaganda now makes even the Castros blush. Keep on rocking, “reality-based community.”

Incidentally, this story comes from a Wikileaks document. Second look at Assange?

[T]he memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so “disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room”.

Castro’s government apparently went on to ban the film because, the leaked cable claims, it “knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”…

The cable describes a visit made by the FSHP to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in October 2007. Built in 1982, the newly renovated hospital was used in Michael Moore’s film as evidence of the high-quality of healthcare available to all Cubans.

But according to the FSHP, the only way a Cuban can get access to the hospital is through a bribe or contacts inside the hospital administration. “Cubans are reportedly very resentful that the best hospital in Havana is ‘off-limits’ to them,” the memo reveals.

It’s no secret outside Cuba that their health-care system falls very, very short of its egalitarian pretensions — just watch the Stossel clip below — but apparently the government’s media channels have kept that fact well hidden on the island. Ah well. Pity poor Michael Moore, who in another time and place and in a different political system would be a prized minister of “truth.” As it is, he has to make do with being a fabulously wealthy semi-ridiculous media curio. Life isn’t always fair, my friends.

Exit question one: If, as expected, Moore’s supporters claim this report isn’t accurate, where does that leave us vis-a-vis Wikileaks? Any second thoughts among Assange’s defenders about doing a mass document dump of cables into the news stream when not all of them might be true? Exit question two: What should Moore’s next “documentary” be about? I think I have just the topic.

Holder and Sebelius trot out the auto-insurance canard

From HotAir

You have to feel for the editors of the Washington Post. The day after a federal judge rules ObamaCare’s mandate unconstitutional, they get an opportunity to let the woman who runs it and the man who directed its defense publish an essay rebutting the critics dancing on the mandate’s grave. Once the editors receive it, though, they see that the argument relies on a canard that has been thoroughly debunked for months — and renders the entire exercise useless. Do the editors kill the celebrity column, or run with it and hope no one notices?

Guess:

Everyone wants health care to be affordable and available when they need it. But we have to stop imposing extra costs on people who carry insurance, and that means everyone who can afford coverage needs to carry minimum health coverage starting in 2014.

If we want to prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, it’s essential that everyone have coverage. Imagine what would happen if everyone waited to buy car insurance until after they got in an accident. Premiums would skyrocket, coverage would be unaffordable, and responsible drivers would be priced out of the market.

The same is true for health insurance. Without an individual responsibility provision, controlling costs and ending discrimination against people with preexisting conditions doesn’t work.

This is such a bad argument that it staggers the imagination why the administration would still be making it. Drivers carry required insurance to cover damage done to others, not themselves, for one thing. It’s not applicable at all. Furthermore, states impose the insurance requirement, not the federal government, because states license drivers and vehicles. Driving is, after all, a voluntary activity conducted on public property (roads); there is no requirement for licensing or insurance for those who drive only on their private property. People who don’t drive on public roads aren’t required to buy a license or the insurance.

There are other problems with this analogy as well. Those who do have auto insurance only file claims when significant damage occurs. Auto insurance doesn’t pay for routine maintenance, like oil changes, lube jobs, and tire rotation. That’s why auto insurance is relatively affordable.

Also, auto insurance is priced to risk. If a driver lives in a high-crime area, then the premiums will rise to cover the risks associated with theft. If they drive badly (get moving violations and accidents), premiums will go up, or in some cases, the insurer will drop the driver. Policies are priced for risk according to age as well; the youngest and oldest drivers pay more due to their propensity for causing losses. Those who drive well and present a lower risk get rewarded with lower premiums. Right now, the federal government is preventing insurers in some instances from risk-pricing health insurance to impose government-approved fairness. That means we all pay more, removing the incentive to lower risk.

Finally, let’s use another related analogy: fire insurance. If we forced insurers to write comprehensive policies on burning homes, we would have no insurers left in the market. However, Holder and Sebelius want health insurers to do the same thing — and need the mandate to force all of us to assume that risk through the higher premiums that subsidize it. And, by the way, the government is doing exactly what Holder derogates in the essay — forcing insurers to write policies after the accident/fire/illness.

The need to reform the health-care economic model is real. Holder, Sebelius, and Barack Obama have gone in the wrong direction through the imposition of government mandates and the calcification of the third-party payer model. We need to break that model for routine health maintenance and return insurance to the role of indemnifying against substantial loss and end the tax incentives for the market distortion of the employer-based health care model.

Update: The Post isn’t the only publication struggling with the differences between auto and health insurance mandates.

A Warning From Andrew Jackson Regarding Money Going To The States From The Federal Treasury

Farewell Address (March 4, 1837)
Andrew Jackson

There is, perhaps, no one of the powers conferred on the Federal Government so liable to abuse as the taxing power. The most productive and convenient sources of revenue were necessarily given to it, that it might be able to perform the important duties imposed upon it; and the taxes which it lays upon commerce being concealed from the real payer in the price of the article, they do not so readily attract the attention of the people as smaller sums demanded from them directly by the taxgatherer. But the tax imposed on goods enhances by so much the price of the commodity to the consumer, and as many of these duties are imposed on articles of necessity which are daily used by the great body of the people, the money raised by these imposts is drawn from their pockets. Congress has no right under the Constitution to take money from the people unless it is required to execute some one of the specific powers intrusted to the Government; and if they raise more than is necessary for such purposes, it is an abuse of the power of taxation, and unjust and oppressive. It may indeed happen that the revenue will sometimes exceed the amount anticipated when the taxes were laid. When, however, this is ascertained, it is easy to reduce them, and in such a case it is unquestionably the duty of the Government to reduce them, for no circumstances can justify it in assuming a power not given to it by the Constitution nor in taking away the money of the people when it is not needed for the legitimate wants of the Government.

Plain as these principles appear to be, you will yet find there is a constant effort to induce the General Government to go beyond the limits of its taxing power and to impose unnecessary burdens upon the people. Many powerful interests are continually at work to procure heavy duties on commerce and to swell the revenue beyond the real necessities of the public service, and the country has already felt the injurious effects of their combined influence. They succeeded in obtaining a tariff of duties bearing most oppressively on the agricultural and laboring classes of society and producing a revenue that could not be usefully employed within the range of the powers conferred upon Congress, and in order to fasten upon the people this unjust and unequal system of taxation extravagant schemes of internal improvement were got up in various quarters to squander the money and to purchase support. Thus one unconstitutional measure was intended to be upheld by another, and the abuse of the power of taxation was to be maintained by usurping the power of expending the money in internal improvements. You can not have forgotten the severe and doubtful struggle through which we passed when the executive department of the Government by its veto endeavored to arrest this prodigal scheme of injustice and to bring back the legislation of Congress to the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution. The good sense and practical judgment of the people when the subject was brought before them sustained the course of the Executive, and this plan of unconstitutional expenditures for the purposes of corrupt influence is, I trust, finally overthrown.

The result of this decision has been felt in the rapid extinguishment of the public debt and the large accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury, notwithstanding the tariff was reduced and is now very far below the amount originally contemplated by its advocates. But, rely upon it, the design to collect an extravagant revenue and to burden you with taxes beyond the economical wants of the Government is not yet abandoned. The various interests which have combined together to impose a heavy tariff and to produce an overflowing Treasury are too strong and have too much at stake to surrender the contest. The corporations and wealthy individuals who are engaged in large manufacturing establishments desire a high tariff to increase their gains. Designing politicians will support it to conciliate their favor and to obtain the means of profuse expenditure for the purpose of purchasing influence in other quarters; and since the people have decided that the Federal Government can not be permitted to employ its income in internal improvements, efforts will be made to seduce and mislead the citizens of the several States by holding out to them the deceitful prospect of benefits to be derived from a surplus revenue collected by the General Government and annually divided among the States; and if, encouraged by these fallacious hopes, the States should disregard the principles of economy which ought to characterize every republican government, and should indulge in lavish expenditures exceeding their resources, they will before long find themselves oppressed with debts which they are unable to pay, and the temptation will become irresistible to support a high tariff in order to obtain a surplus for distribution. Do not allow yourselves, my fellow-citizens, to be misled on this subject. The Federal Government can not collect a surplus for such purposes without violating the principles of the Constitution and assuming powers which have not been granted. It is, moreover, a system of injustice, and if persisted in will inevitably lead to corruption, and must end in ruin. The surplus revenue will be drawn from the pockets of the people--from the farmer, the mechanic, and the laboring classes of society; but who will receive it when distributed among the States, where it is to be disposed of by leading State politicians, who have friends to favor and political partisans to gratify? It will certainly not be returned to those who paid it and who have most need of it and are honestly entitled to it. There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the General Government rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution, and if its income is found to exceed these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the burden of the people so far lightened.

U.S. Posts $150.4 Billion November Budget Deficit

By JEFF BATER

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government ran its 26th straight monthly budget deficit in November amid wrangling over a package that would extend big tax cuts to Americans trying to recover from recession.

The Treasury Department, in its regular budget monthly statement, said the government spent $150.4 billion more than it collected in the second month of fiscal 2011.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a shortfall of $126.5 billion. November is traditionally a month for deficits.

The Treasury report, detailing the government's spending programs, prompted an economic research firm, Macroeconomic Advisers, to lift its forecast for economic growth from October through December by four-tenths of a percentage point, to 2.7%.

Last month's red ink pushes up the deficit to $290.8 billion for the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. That figure is a little smaller than the deficit during the same period last year. But President Barack Obama's administration expects the deficit to top $1 trillion in this fiscal year.

Washington has spent in excess of $1 trillion during each of the last two fiscal years, as revenues were reduced by the deep recession. At the same time, the economic slump and Wall Street bailout raised the government's expenses.

The November deficit marked the government's 26th shortfall in a row. As the deficit continues growing, Washington is in the midst of working out key tax legislation. The Senate unveiled final details of a broad tax bill—and its 10-year price tag of $858 billion—and began debate Thursday night on the package. Earlier in the week, Mr. Obama struck a deal with Republicans in Congress to extend for two years tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush.

The budget statement Friday said federal spending totaled $585.7 billion so far this fiscal year, with revenues at $294.9 billion. In the last two months, the federal government spent $128.3 billion on defense, $36.8 billion in interest payments on its debt, and $20.0 billion for unemployment benefits.

The U.S. budget deficit in fiscal 2010, at $1.294 trillion, was the second-highest ever, behind the record 2009 deficit of $1.416 trillion.

The administration last July said it was projecting a 2011 budget deficit of $1.416 trillion. But Michael Feroli, an analyst at J.P. Morgan Chase, said Friday he expects the budget gap to set a new record in fiscal 2011, reaching $1.5 trillion as the government pays for the extension of tax cuts.

The tax package prompted Mr. Feroli to raise his forecast of 2011 economic growth by half of a percentage point. This also came after the Fed, to spur the weak economy, announced a decision last month to buy $600 billion in U.S. Treasury notes.

"Because the added growth from the package should be concentrated in the first half of next year, we now believe the Fed will not seek to increase asset purchases beyond the currently scheduled $600 billion amount when it reviews the program next June," he said in a research note.

Write to Jeff Bater at jeff.bater@dowjones.com

Swindle of the year

By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, December 10, 2010

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?

If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.

No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president's deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality.

Some Republicans are crowing that Stimulus II is the Republican way - mostly tax cuts - rather than the Democrats' spending orgy of Stimulus I. That's consolation? This just means that Republicans are two years too late. Stimulus II will still blow another near-$1 trillion hole in the budget.

At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as much as 1 percent to GDP and lower the unemployment rate by about 1.5 percentage points. That could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.

Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.

And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.

No, cries the left: Obama violated a sacred principle. A 39.6 percent tax rate versus 35 percent is a principle? "This is the public option debate all over again," said Obama at his Tuesday news conference. He is right. The left never understood that to nationalize health care there is no need for a public option because Obamacare turns the private insurers into public utilities, thus setting us inexorably on the road to the left's Promised Land: a Canadian-style single-payer system. The left is similarly clueless on the tax-cut deal: In exchange for temporarily forgoing a small rise in upper-income rates, Obama pulled out of a hat a massive new stimulus - what the left has been begging for since the failure of Stimulus I but was heretofore politically unattainable.

Obama's public exasperation with this infantile leftism is both perfectly understandable and politically adept. It is his way back to at least the appearance of centrist moderation. The only way he will get a second look from the independents who elected him in 2008 - and abandoned the Democrats in 2010 - is by changing the prevailing (and correct) perception that he is a man of the left.

Hence that news-conference attack on what the administration calls the "professional left" for its combination of sanctimony and myopia. It was Obama's Sister Souljah moment. It had a prickly, irritated sincerity - their ideological stupidity and inability to see the "long game" really do get under Obama's skin - but a decidedly calculated quality, too. Where, after all, does the left go? Stay home on Election Day 2012? Vote Republican?

No, says the current buzz, the left will instead challenge Obama for the Democratic nomination. Really now? For decades, African Americans have been this party's most loyal constituency. They vote 9 to 1 Democratic through hell and high water, through impeachment and recession, through everything. After four centuries of enduring much, African Americans finally see one of their own achieve the presidency. And their own party is going to deny him a shot at his own reelection?

Not even Democrats are that stupid. The remaining question is whether they are just stupid enough to not understand - and therefore vote down - the swindle of the year just pulled off by their own president.

JFK on taxes

"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus."
– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, president's news conference

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"Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

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"In today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarges the federal deficit – why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: "The Economic Report Of The President"

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"It is no contradiction – the most important single thing we can do to stimulate investment in today's economy is to raise consumption by major reduction of individual income tax rates."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 21, 1963, annual message to the Congress: "The Economic Report Of The President"

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"Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort – thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963, message to Congress on tax reduction and reform, House Doc. 43, 88th Congress, 1st Session.

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"A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget. Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new conveniences, education and investment. Every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash register or put it to work expanding or improving his business, and as the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues."
– John F. Kennedy, Sept. 18, 1963, radio and television address to the nation on tax-reduction bill

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"I have asked the secretary of the treasury to report by April 1 on whether present tax laws may be stimulating in undue amounts the flow of American capital to the industrial countries abroad through special preferential treatment."
– John F. Kennedy, Feb. 6, 1961, message to Congress on gold and the balance of payments deficit

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"In those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of U.S. tax by retaining income in the subsidiary companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiaries that is not available to companies operating solely in the United States. Many American investors properly made use of this deferral in the conduct of their foreign investment."
– John F. Kennedy, April 20, 1961, message to Congress on taxation

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"Our present tax system ... exerts too heavy a drag on growth ... It reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking ... The present tax load ... distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities."
– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, press conference

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"The present tax codes ... inhibit the mobility and formation of capital, add complexities and inequities which undermine the morale of the taxpayer, and make tax avoidance rather than market factors a prime consideration in too many economic decisions."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 23, 1963, special message to Congress on tax reduction and reform

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"In short, it is a paradoxical truth that ... the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. The experience of a number of European countries and Japan have borne this out. This country's own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus."
– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, news conference

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"The largest single barrier to full employment of our manpower and resources and to a higher rate of economic growth is the unrealistically heavy drag of federal income taxes on private purchasing power, initiative and incentive."
– John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963, special message to Congress on tax reduction and reform

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"Expansion and modernization of the nation's productive plant is essential to accelerate economic growth and to improve the international competitive position of American industry ... An early stimulus to business investment will promote recovery and increase employment."
– John F. Kennedy, Feb. 2, 1961, message on economic recovery

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"We must start now to provide additional stimulus to the modernization of American industrial plants ... I shall propose to the Congress a new tax incentive for businesses to expand their normal investment in plant and equipment."
– John F. Kennedy, Feb. 13, 1961, National Industrial Conference Board

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"A bill will be presented to the Congress for action next year. It will include an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in both corporate and personal income taxes. It will include long-needed tax reform that logic and equity demand ... The billions of dollars this bill will place in the hands of the consumer and our businessmen will have both immediate and permanent benefits to our economy. Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary. And these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy."
– John F. Kennedy, Aug. 13, 1962, radio and television report on the state of the national economy

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"This administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes ... Next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital ... I am confident that the enactment of the right bill next year will in due course increase our gross national product by several times the amount of taxes actually cut."
– John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, news conference

Senate OKs food-safety bill that doesn't cover meat, eggs

From the Miami Herald

By LES BLUMENTHAL

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Months after her 2-year-old son died from eating a fast food hamburger tainted with E. coli in January 1993, Diana Nole of Gig Harbor, Wash., went to Capitol Hill and asked Congress to overhaul the nation's food-safety laws.

Now Congress could be on the verge of passing a sweeping measure that Nole and others say is a "step forward" but falls short of what's truly needed.

The Senate on Tuesday passed a bill designed to give the Food and Drug Administration new powers to protect consumers from unsafe food. The measure was approved 73-25, and an effort is under way to reconcile it quickly with a more stringent version approved by the House of Representatives before the lame-duck session of Congress ends. President Barack Obama has indicated he'd sign the bill.

For Nole, the passage of time has helped ease the pain of son Michael's death, but it remains.

Michael was the first of three children in Washington state to die after eating contaminated and undercooked meat from a fast food restaurant. More than 600 people were sickened and more than 100 were hospitalized.

"It's easier than it was," his mother said. "Of course I think of him every day. I see him in my other kids."

Nole and her husband often visit their son's grave on his birthday, Dec. 9.

The Noles have two other children, boys 17 and 13, and much of their energy is focused on raising them rather than advocating for new food-safety laws. But she still follows the legislation and was reading the Senate bill over lunch Tuesday. "It's a step forward," she said.

The Senate bill would give the FDA new powers to recall tainted food, increase inspections of food processors and impose tougher food-safety standards on producers. The action came after contaminated eggs, peanuts and produce sickened hundreds of people this year, and more than 550 million eggs suspected of salmonella contamination were recalled.

However, the measure does nothing to sort out the overlapping jurisdictions among the FDA and other federal agencies that regulate food safety. The new bill doesn't cover meat, poultry and eggs because the Department of Agriculture regulates them.

The measure requires the FDA to inspect "high-risk" producers only once every three years; the FDA will write the definition of high-risk producers. The bill also exempts small farms from the new requirements.

Even so, backers of the legislation said it represented a major overhaul and were quick to point out that it received bipartisan support. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, foodborne illnesses sicken 76 million Americans every year; 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 - about 14 a day - die.

"This legislation means that parents who tell their kids to eat their spinach can be assured it won't make them sick," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who as the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee wrote the bill.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is also a member of the committee.

"Today marks a bittersweet and long-overdue victory for the families and individuals that were affected by the E. coli outbreak that shook Washington state and the Northwest in 1993," Murray said. "This legislation is the first food-safety legislation to pass in decades and will go a long way to making sure the U.S. continues to have the safest food supply in the world."

Others, including Nole, aren't so sure.

Nole said she was especially bothered that the bill didn't cover meat, poultry and eggs. She also said that all farms, regardless of size or whether they were organic, should be covered.

"I'm glad to see it is still moving forward," she said of the effort to secure tougher food-safety regulations. "But I don't trust the government. It's up to the consumer."

Nole is one of the founders of a food-safety group called Safe Tables Our Priority. Nancy Donley, the president of the group, said the Senate bill could have been better but that it nonetheless would improve food safety.

"The bottom line is we believe it will save lives, but we still have a few issues," Donley said, adding she thought the bill lacked the "teeth" to be effective.

Nole said she hadn't been active lately with Safe Tables Our Priority, but that could change when her two sons are grown.

"You have two choices in life," she said. "You can let it beat you or you can beat it. I decided it wouldn't beat me."

Philly Returns ‘Christmas’ to ‘Holiday Village’ Sign

From TheBlaze

Consider it a Christmas re-birth.

Philadelphia’s mayor has acquiesced and returned “Christmas” to a “holiday” sign marking the city’s famous Christmas village market. The sign, which originally said “Christmas Village,” was altered to say “Holiday Village” earlier this week in order to be politically correct. But not everyone‘s buying the mayor’s explanation.

Wednesday, Mayor Michael Nutter announced the sign would be changed back. Philly Clout reports:

Mayor Nutter, after sustaining two days of controversy, wants “Christmas” back up on the signs at the entrance to the German Christmas Village at City Hall. Nutter told PhillyClout he spoke with the village organizer and the sign should be back up by tomorrow.

Nutter said the decision came after “personal reflection” on the matter.

“We are an international, multi-ethnic, multi-faith city,” Nutter said. “I took some time to step back from all of this to think about it in a larger context.”

Nutter said he had nothing to do with the original decision, and stopped short of saying the sign changes national attention factored into Wednesday’s decision.

German American Marketing, Inc. issued a statement Tuesday saying that the original change was made in “response to what the Managing Director of the City of Philadelphia asked for.”

Richard Negrin, the city’s managing director, said that he never specifically asked for the word to be removed, but talked with Bauer about the complaints, Philly Clout reports.

But not everyone is buying Nutter’s explanation:

From MyFoxPhilly.com, quoting columnist Buzz Bissinger:

It was a public relations disaster and the mayor is not telling the truth, that it was the guy in Germany who owned the village that made the decision. It’s not true. The city went to him, the city said, ‘you got to take down Christmas, two people are complaining.’ The city overreacts, as usual, and now they change it back because the city looked like an idiot.

It Was Too Offensive… Crews Replace Christmas Village With Holiday Village After Complaints

From Gateway Pundit

The Christmas sign was too offensive. They received complaints.

Crews remove the word “Christmas” from the sign at Dilworth Plaza. (Philly.com)

Crews were forced to remove the Christmas Village sign and replace it with Holiday Village after several complaints.
It was too offensive.
Philly.com reported:

It’s that season again, which means that for the third year in a row, the German Christmas Village has set up a cozy collection of wooden booths and tree vendors in Dilworth Plaza on the west side of City Hall.

But a few shoppers noticed something amiss yesterday on the tall metal archways signaling the entrances to the shops. The archways had just one word on top – “Village.”

Sounds festive, eh?

It turns out that the letters spelling “Christmas” were removed yesterday afternoon from the archways on the north and west sides of the plaza, at the request of Managing Director Richard Negrin. They will be replaced with the word “Holiday.”

City spokesman Mark McDonald said Negrin asked for the change after the city received complaints from workers and residents.

“As a city of great diversity, one shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a difference of views when it comes to symbols and words,” McDonald said.

Just So You Know!

I heard this and had to look at it myself. Just so you know, we could have eliminated all personal income taxes and all corporate taxes for at least a year and it still wouldn't have added up to all of the bailout money that was spent for TARP, the Stimulus Bill, GM and Chrysler bailout, Cash for Clunkers, the Mortgage Modification Program, etc..

Here are the receipts of the U.S. government for 2008


Table 2.1—RECEIPTS BY SOURCE: 2008

Receipts From Individual Income Taxes: 1.145 Trillion
Receipts From Corporation Income Taxes: 304.346 Billion

Source: Office Of Management And Budget (Table 2.1 "RECEIPTS BY SOURCE: 1934-2015")

Imagine how the economy would have improved if we didn't have to pay federal taxes for a year!

Ten Things You Need To Know About Senate Bill 3827, The DREAM Act

By Senator Jeff Sessions
Thursday, November 18 2010

1. The DREAM Act Is NOT Limited to Children, And It Will Be Funded On the Backs Of Hard Working, Law-Abiding Americans

Proponents of the DREAM Act frequently claim the bill offers relief only to illegal alien “kids.” Incredibly, previous versions of the DREAM Act had no age limit at all, so illegal aliens of any age who satisfied the Act’s requirements—not just children—could obtain lawful permanent resident (LPR) status. In response to this criticism, S.3827 includes a requirement that aliens be under the age of 35 on the date of enactment to be eligible for LPR status. Even with this cap, many aliens would be at least 41 years old before obtaining full LPR status under the Act—hardly the “kids” the Act’s advocates keep talking about.

The DREAM Act requires that DHS/USCIS process all DREAM Act applications (applications that would require complex, multi-step adjudication) without being able to increase fees to handle processing. This mandate would require either additional Congressional appropriations, or for USCIS, a primarily fee-funded agency, to raise fees on other types of immigration benefit applications. This would unfairly spread the cost of administering the DREAM Act legalization program among applicants and petitioners who have abided by U.S. laws and force taxpayers to pay for amnesty. Taxpayers would also be on the hook for all Federal benefits the DREAM Act seeks to offer illegal aliens, including student loans and grants.

2. The DREAM Act PROVIDES SAFE HARBOR FOR ANY ALIEN, Including Criminals, From Being Removed or Deported If They Simply Submit An Application

Although DREAM Act proponents claim it will benefit only those who meet certain age, presence, and educational requirements, amazingly the Act protects ANY alien who simply submits an application for status no matter how frivolous. The bill forbids the Secretary of Homeland Security from removing “any alien who has a pending application for conditional status” under the DREAM Act—regardless of age or criminal record—providing a safe harbor for all illegal aliens. This loophole will open the floodgates for applications that could stay pending for many years or be litigated as a delay tactic to prevent the illegal aliens’ removal from the United States. The provision will further erode any chances of ending the rampant illegality and fraud in the existing system.

3. Certain Criminal Aliens Will Be Eligible For Amnesty Under The DREAM Act

Certain categories of criminal aliens will be eligible for the DREAM Act amnesty, including alien gang members and aliens with misdemeanor convictions, even DUIs. The DREAM Act allows illegal aliens guilty of the following offenses to be eligible for amnesty: alien absconders (aliens who failed to attend their removal proceedings), aliens who have engaged in voter fraud or unlawfully voted, aliens who have falsely claimed U.S. citizenship, aliens who have abused their student visas, and aliens who have committed marriage fraud. Additionally, illegal aliens who pose a public health risk, aliens who have been permanently barred from obtaining U.S. citizenship, and aliens who are likely to become a public charge are also eligible.

4. Estimates Suggest That At Least 2.1 Million Illegal Aliens Will Be Eligible For the DREAM Act Amnesty. In Reality, We Have No Idea How Many Illegal Aliens Will Apply

Section 4(d) of the DREAM Act waives all numerical limitations on green cards, and prohibits any numerical limitation on the number of aliens eligible for amnesty under its provisions. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the DREAM Act will make approximately 2.1 million illegal aliens eligible for amnesty. It is highly likely that the number of illegal aliens receiving amnesty under the DREAM Act will be much higher than the estimated 2.1 million due to fraud and our inherent inability to accurately estimate the illegal alien population. Clearly, the message sent by the DREAM Act will be that if any young person can enter the country illegally, within 5 years, they will be placed on a path to citizenship.

5. Illegal Aliens Will Get In-State Tuition Benefits

The DREAM Act will allow illegal aliens to qualify for in-state tuition, even when it is not being offered to U.S. citizens and legally present aliens living just across state lines. Section 3 of the DREAM Act repeals Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1623) which prohibits giving education benefits to an unlawfully present individual unless that same benefit is offered to all U.S. citizens.

6. The DREAM Act Does Not Require That An Illegal Alien Finish Any Type of Degree (Vocational, Two-Year, or Bachelor’s Degree) As A Condition of Amnesty

DREAM Act supporters would have you believe that the bill is intended to benefit illegal immigrants who have graduated from high school and are on their way to earning college degrees. However, the bill is careful to ensure that illegal alien high school drop-outs will also be put on a pathway to citizenship – they simply have to get a GED and be admitted to “an institution of higher education,” defined by the Higher Education Act of 1965.

Under the Higher Education Act, an “institution of higher education” includes institutions that provide 2-year programs (community colleges) and any “school that provides not less than a 1-year program of training to prepare students for gainful employment” (a vocational school). Within 8 years of the initial grant of status, the alien must prove only that they finished 2 years of a bachelor’s degree program, not that they completed any program or earned any degree.

If the alien is unable to complete 2 years of college but can demonstrate that their removal would result in hardship to themselves or their U.S. citizen or LPR spouse, child, or parent, the education requirement can be waived altogether.

7. The DREAM Act does not require that an illegal alien serve in the military as a condition for amnesty, and There is ALREADY A Legal Process In Place For Illegal Aliens to Obtain U.S. Citizenship Through Military Service

DREAM Act supporters would have you believe that illegal aliens who don’t go to college will earn their citizenship through service in the U.S. Armed Forces. However, the bill does not require aliens to join the U.S. Armed Forces (the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard); instead it requires enlistment in the “uniformed services.” This means that aliens need only go to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or Public Health Service for 2 years to get U.S. citizenship. If the alien is unable to complete 2 years in the “uniformed services,” and can demonstrate that their removal would result in hardship to themselves or their U.S. citizen or LPR spouse, child, or parent, the military service requirement can be waived altogether. Such claims will likely engender much litigation and place a huge burden on DHS.

Furthermore, under current law (10 USC § 504), the Secretary of Defense can authorize the enlistment of illegal aliens. Once enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces, under 8 USC § 1440, these illegal aliens can become naturalized citizens through expedited processing, often obtaining U.S. citizenship in six months.

8. Despite Their Current Illegal Status, DREAM Act Aliens Will Be Given All The Rights That Legal Immigrants Receive—Including The Legal Right To Sponsor Their Parents and Extended Family Members For Immigration

Under current federal law, U.S. citizens have the right to immigrate their “immediate relatives” to the U.S. without regard to numerical caps. Similarly, lawful permanent residents can immigrate their spouses and children to the U.S. as long as they retain their status. This means illegal aliens who receive amnesty under the DREAM Act will have the right to immigrate their family members—including the parents who sent for or brought them to the U.S. illegally in the first place—in unlimited numbers as soon as they become U.S. citizens (6 to 8 years after enactment) and are 21 years of age.

Additionally, amnestied aliens who become U.S. citizens will be able to petition for their adult siblings living abroad to immigrate to the U.S., further incentivizing chain migration and potentially illegal entry into the United States (for those who don’t want to wait for the petition process overseas). When an adult brother or sister receives a green card, the family (spouse and children) of the adult sibling receive green cards as well.

9. Current Illegal Aliens Will Get Federal Student Loans, Federal Work Study Programs, and Other Forms of Federal Financial Aid

Section 10 of the DREAM Act allows illegal aliens amnestied under the bill’s provisions to qualify for federal student assistance under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001 et seq.) in the form of federal student loans (Stafford Loans, Perkins Loans, Federal Direct Stafford/Ford Loans), federal work-study programs, and other federal education services such as tutoring and counseling.

10. DHS Is Prohibited From Using the Information Provided By Illegal Aliens Whose DREAM Act Amnesty Applications Are Denied To Initiate Their Removal Proceedings or Investigate or Prosecute Fraud in the Application Process

When an illegal alien’s DREAM Act amnesty application is denied, the bill states that the alien will revert to their “previous immigration status,” which is likely illegal or deportable. The bill, however, prohibits using any of the information contained in the amnesty application (name, address, length of illegal presence that the alien admits to, etc) to initiate a removal proceeding or investigate or prosecute fraud in the application process. Thus, it will be extremely hard for DHS to remove aliens who they now know are illegally present in the U.S., because illegal aliens will be able to claim that the legal action is a product of the amnesty application, and DHS will have the nearly impossible task of proving a negative.

The Honorable Jeff Sessions is a Republican U.S. Senator from Alabama.