Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts

Stephen Moore: No, We Don't Need A Gas Tax Hike

Politicians want to fatten the pot from which they steal.  It's summertime and that means millions of Americans will soon be cramming in the minivan for family vacation. But Congress may soon be raising the cost of those trips by increasing the federal gas tax. Why? The highway trust fund that finances our national highway system is running  ... MORE

House Bill Would Force Supremes To Enroll In ObamaCare

by Mark Hensch.    Justices could be victimized by Congressional ruling. A House Republican on Thursday proposed forcing the Supreme Court justices and their staff to enroll in ObamaCare. Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) said that his SCOTUScare Act would make all nine justices and their employees join the national healthcare law’s exchanges.     ... MORE

Rand Paul, Ron Wyden, & The End Of The 9/11 Terror Fog

by Nick Gillespie.    So provisions in The Patriot Act have expired, including some (such as section 215) that won't be renewed when Congress gets around to passing the reform legislation known as The USA Freedom Act. This is good news, even if many of the Patriot Act's controversial elements will become authorized under the replacement bill.    ... MORE

The Time To Limit NSA Snooping Is Now

by Jacob Sullum.      Reauthorizing unamended PATRIOT Act would be reckless. When Congress passed the PATRIOT Act in 2001, it did not intend to authorize the indiscriminate collection of personal information about every American. But that is what Congress will be doing if it renews the law next month without changes aimed at protecting our privacy  ... MORE

Colbert I. King: A Rising Insurrection Against Obama

Liberty rising.    It’s a scary thought (OR NOT), but here it is: If some red states were to openly defy the authority of President Obama in the exercise of his constitutional duties, would today’s Republican Congress side with him? Or would they honor the insurrection? I wish it could be said with confidence that the legislative branch would oppose a     ... MORE

Ron Paul: IRS, Congress Hold Our Liberty In Contempt

Unaccountable government marches on.       This week the Justice Department announced it would not charge former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner with contempt of Congress. Some members of Congress requested that Lerner be charged with contempt after she refused to testify at a congressional hearing        ... MORE

DOJ Will Not Prosecute IRS's Lois Lerner For Contempt

by Susan Jones.       After all, she took one for the team. President Obama's Justice Department is refusing to prosecute Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress, a decision that "is disappointing and exhibits a disregard for the rule of law," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform       ... MORE

Walter E Williams: What's Gone Wrong With Democracy?

Majority rule can be dangerous.  The Economist magazine recently published "What's gone wrong with Democracy ... and what can be done to revive it?" The suggestion is that democracy is some kind of ideal for organizing human conduct. That's a popular misconception. The ideal way to organize human conduct is to create a system that maximizes  ... MORE

Jeanne Sahadi: The New Debt Ceiling: $18113000000000

The suspense -- or rather, the suspension -- is over.  The U.S. debt ceiling has been reset at $18.113 trillion, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. That new limit on public debt is about $1 trillion above where it stood in February 2014, when lawmakers decided to "suspend" the ceiling through this past weekend. That cool trillion reflects how ... MORE

George Will: The House Takes On IRS Lawlessness

Preventing Lois Lerner 2.0.     Representative Peter Roskam is now chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes oversight of the Internal Revenue Service, and hence of Lois Lerner’s legacy. He knows how interesting her career was before she, as head of the IRS exempt-organizations division, directed the suppression  ... MORE

Did Congress Stop Marijuana Legalization in D.C.?

by Jacob Sullum.   The omnibus spending bill that Congress approved last week includes a rider aimed at blocking marijuana legalization in Washington, D.C. Whether it actually will do that is a matter of debate, and the way this provision was passed suggests that pot prohibitionists are in a weaker position than ever before. The rider, introduced  ... MORE

Congress Just Says No To Funding War On Medical Pot

by Ryan Burns.     People pulling politicians by the ear again. When the U.S. government loses a war it does so quietly, with an utter dearth of fanfare. True to form, in the latest spending bill to pass the U.S. House of Representatives there appears to be a tiny, inconspicuous white flag signaling the end of the Justice Department's war on medical    ... MORE

Congress Poised To Allow Cuts To Private Pension Payouts

by Evan Halper.     More than 1 million Americans who were promised secure, predictable retirement income probably will see part of their monthly benefit checks evaporate as Congress moves to stabilize some private pension systems veering toward insolvency. The expected congressional action to allow previously promised private-sector   ... MORE

Measure To Tax Internet Sales Is Dead For A Year

by Sean Higgins.    Legislation to tax Internet sales is dead for the year, a key Senate aide said. No bill allowing the taxation will be taken up before Congress' lame-duck session ends, meaning that purchases made through online merchants such as Amazon will continue to be tax-free for the foreseeable future. A coalition made up of state and      ... MORE

4 Members of Congress Put Their Hands Up in Solidarity With Protesters But 0 Voted to Limit Police Militarization

by Ed Krayewski.   Symbolism without subbstance. Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August. Protests over the shooting yielded a militarized response from police. Renewed protests continued in October and again after a grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown.  ... MORE