Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney (L) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (R) flank U.S. President Donald Trump as he hosts a “strategic initiatives” lunch at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 22, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
Total public debt outstanding has declined more than $100 billion under the Trump Administration, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Treasury Department.
On January 20, 2017, the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated, total public debt for the U.S. stood at $19,947,304,555,212, or nearly $20 trillion. It continued to increase and fluctuate incrementally, reaching a high of $19,959,593,604,841 on February 28, 2017.
But then it started to fall and has generally continued to decline ever since. There has been no significant increase since it bounced back up to $19,902,604,401,637 on March 14, 2017.
As of July 27, 2017, total public debt for the U.S. stood at $19,844,938,940,351, a decline of more than $100 billion. Debt held by the public fell from $14,403,704,176,388 to $14,358,389,871,592.
The U.S. Treasury Department publishes data every business data on the total public debt. Intragovernmental holdings fell from $5,543,600,378,823 to $5,486,549,068,758.
Kelli Ward, a rival of Sen. John McCain and candidate in the Arizona Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2018, speaks with a supporter of President Donald J. Trump. (Photo: Associated Press)
Last week, while Republicans were breaking a 7-year promise to repeal ObamaCare, Dr. Kelli Ward spoke with People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) about her bid for the U.S. Senate. It’s the first in a series of articles to appear on PPD highlighting upcoming primary battles in the 2018 midterm elections.
She is running in the 2018 Republican primary against Sen. Jeff Flake, a moderate-to-liberal NeverTrump incumbent.
Healthcare
Arizona is one of the states to be hit the hardest under ObamaCare. While premiums for a midlevel plan have seen an average 25% increase across the 39 states with federally-run marketplaces, the people of Arizona have seen a far larger increase.
As a physician and a conservative, it is the issue that drove her to run for office.
“ObamaCare is the biggest takeover of healthcare liberty and healthcare freedom we will ever see in our lifetime,” Dr. Ward said. “And it’s the biggest expansion of welfare for a healthy, able-bodied adult we will ever see.”
Medicaid expansion is predicated on loosening the eligibility requirements by essentially raising the poverty rate. As a result, the percentage of eligible applicants has also increased. Republicans in Congress are afraid to roll back Medicaid expansion even though it was once at the ideological center of the healthcare debate.
Dr. Ward is still making the conservative case, proudly.
“We need to start calling welfare what it is,” she said. “We’ve allowed the Left and the Right to call Medicaid insurance, when Medicaid is welfare.”
As with other welfare programs, the expansion was not free or without consequences to working Americans. Premiums have more than doubled in The Grand Canyon State.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a 27-year-old making more than $40,000 buying the second-lowest cost silver plan, has seen a 116% increase in their premiums, from $196 to $422. If the consumer makes $25,000 a year, subsidies would lower their share of the cost to $142, still a sizable chunk of their monthly income.
Dr. Ward proposed and is running on the Patient Power Plan, which calls for a complete and total repeal of ObamaCare. It returns the $800 billion in cuts to Medicare under ObamaCare and provides tax credits–$2,500 per person, $8,000 per family of four–Americans can use to purchase health insurance in the market of their choice, including Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).
“The other piece to that is to encourage–but not demand–that people have a catastrophic care insurance policy,” Dr. Ward said. “Healthcare insurance right now is really not insurance. Insurance is something you buy and never hope to use. Catastrophic care is relatively inexpensive because it’s insuring against true catastrophes–car accidents, cancer and even expensive chronic illnesses.”
In our conversation, Dr. Ward expectedly demonstrated a strong command of the issue. While she would’ve supported an outright repeal, Dr. Ward argues Republicans in Congress left too many ideas on the table that reduce costs to consumers and adopted too many that benefit insurance companies.
“If we put those two models together, we will be able to increase access to care, improve the quality of care and decrease costs,” she said. “Health Savings Accounts are the only thing proven to decrease costs.”
When asked about whether there is even a way to cover preexisting conditions, or rather to force insurance companies to cover them without driving up costs, Dr. Ward answered without hesitation.
“No,” she responded. “That’s why the high risk pool model is actually more successful. We could’ve taken the 10 million people who supposedly didn’t have insurance before ObamaCare and paid cash money for all of their treatments, and we would be very far ahead of where we are now.”
Republicans were bludgeoned by attacks surrounding preexisting conditions, which fact-checkers almost unanimously declared to be false. But it was enough to sow doubt into the minds of moderates in both the House and Senate.
“They use emotion, not facts,” Dr. Ward said, adding that she intends to use both in her message. “It [emotion] is what connects to voters and emotion gets them to the polls. But I don’t believe in lying to the voter in order to get votes. They are hungry for truth, transparency, honestly. They aren’t getting it from the people who have been in D.C. for decade after decade.”
“That includes Sen. Flake. He’s been there for almost two decades.”
The Republican Party
Seven Republican senators rejected a “straight repeal” of ObamaCare last week, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, who survived a primary challenge from Dr. Ward in 2016. Sen. McCain was 1 of 3 Republicans senators who also voted against a “skinny repeal” just one day later.
Sen. McCain not only claimed he would repeal ObamaCare during his primary race against Dr. Ward but also the general election, as well.
(Correction: A previous version of this article stated “2010” rather than 2016. J.D. Hayworth of course ran against Sen. McCain in 2010. McCain won 56.2% to 32.1%.)
Jeff Flake did support the bill. However, he only did so because he knew the bill would not pass.
Before he received assurances of cover from his colleagues, he was on the record opposing straight repeal without a replacement plan. He only committed to repeal if the replacement contained the Consumer Freedom Option, which was not in the actual bill.
“I fear for the party, for both of them. Both parties have lost credibility with the voters,” Dr. Ward said when asked about the future of the Republican Party. “It was a great way to raise money, it was a great way to get reelected. But it was very disingenuous.”
Most Republican lawmakers in Washington D.C. do not want President Donald Trump to succeed. That’s just a fact, one that’s shockingly underreported. Republican senators, including Sen. Flake, whom Dr. Ward points out “was a NeverTrumper from the beginning,” mock the President’s proposals behind closed doors.
Many midterm primary challengers, including Dr. Ward, embrace the President’s agenda and believe incumbents like Sen. Flake “are in trouble.”
As she correctly noted, Sens. McCain and Flake are two of the most unpopular senators in the upper chamber. In July, a Morning Consult Poll ranking senators by popularity found Sens. McCain and Flake behind only Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kty., as having the highest disapproval ratings in their state, 47% and 45%, respectively.
“Donald Trump is the leader of the new Republican Party. Jeff Flake is outside the new mainstream that exists,” Dr. Ward said. “Neither of them are putting forward policy to achieve the America First agenda that Donald Trump has touted on the campaign trail and since he became the President. What they should be doing is finding ideas they agree with and putting those forward so everyone gets a win across the board.”
Immigration
Arizona is a border state and immigration is a top issue. It’s also one of the issues Establishment Republicans have mocked President Trump over behind closed doors.
Not Dr. Ward.
She’s ready to “mix the mortar to fix the border.” On social media, she is pushing a powerful ad that reminds voters how Sen. McCain ran ads calling for Congress to “Complete the Dang Fence.” But now it’s just another broken promise, one he tries to hide from by simply pretending he secured the border.
Unfortunately, the same official that stars in that 2010 ad is now one of his most vocal critics.
“I am a supporter of The Wall,” she said, describing her plan as a 4-pronged approach that includes a physical barrier depending on the terrain, utilizing technology, empowering Border Patrol and ICE agents to do their job and accountability.
“The last piece to that puzzle is accountability, accountability for people who are coming into our country illegally, making them realize they are going to have consequences rather than rewards,” she said. “But also for employers who are providing one of the magnets that bring them to our country.”
In 2014, Barack Obama expanded protection from deportation to the parents of illegal immigrants with Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA. The Trump Administration revoked DAPA but has thus far refused to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Last month, 10 state attorneys general, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, wrote U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions calling for the Trump Administration to end DACA, as well.
Dr. Ward supports that action.
“I’m glad that DAPA was taken away and I think DACA should be, too. It’s unconstitutional,” she said. “President Obama had no authority to create that kind of immigration policy. We need to do this in a constitutional and legal way. If I rob a bank, my kids don’t get to keep the money. We have to have equal justice and we have to apply our laws as they are on the books.”
Conclusion
While we haven’t yet released our ratings for the 2018 Senate Election Projection Model, recent data from the People’s Pundit Daily Big Data Poll (PPD Poll) indicate 30% of Republican voters would seriously consider sitting out 2018 if Republicans didn’t keep their promise to repeal ObamaCare.
With D.C. Republicans’ failures and inactions, it isn’t at all hard to imagine those voters deciding not to sit it out and instead supporting primary challengers. Indeed, there is already at least some evidence that the political environment will be as anti-Establishment as 2016.
Polling conducted in July for the campaign shows Dr. Ward is the frontrunner among candidates rumored to primary Sen. Flake. She also leads Sen. Flake 48% to 31% among likely GOP primary voters in a two-way race. Dr. Ward leads the more crowded race with 30% to 19% for Sen. Flake, 5% for State Treasurer Jeff DeWit and 2% for former state party chair Robert Graham.
Sen. Flake is rumored to be at the top of the President’s list of senators to be targeted for ouster in 2018. His defeat in a primary at the hands of Dr. Kelli Ward would be a major victory for the MAGA agenda.
“Trump’s election was like taking the beach at Normandy,” Dr. Ward said of the mood in the upcoming midterms. “2018 is storming the hill and planting our flag at the top.”
President Donald Trump, center, gestures during a meeting with House and Senate Leadership in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, June 6, 2017. With Trump are from left, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. (Photo: AP)
President Donald J. Trump threatened to end a rule that effectively gave an ObamaCare exemption to members of Congress if reform doesn’t pass the U.S. Senate.
“If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!” he tweeted.
If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!
In 2009, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., inserted a provision into the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, which required members of Congress and their staffs to purchase insurance through the same exchanges. While it was watered down to exclude committee staff, it still pertained to members of Congress and their personal staffs.
If it was allowed to stand, the taxpayer-funded federal health insurance subsidies available to members of Congress and their personal staffs–which now range from $6,000 to $12,000 a year and cover roughly 70% of their premiums–would have come to an end.
But Barack Obama personally ordered the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to interpret the law in such a manner that it ensured the taxpayer-funded benefits remained, effectively overturning the provision introduced by Sen. Grassley. Initially, OPM, which oversees federal employment issues, didn’t want to go along.
In the end, OPM accepted Mr. Obama’s interpretation, relieving Congress of the difficult task of voting to exempt themselves from ObamaCare.
Former Sen. David Vitter, R-La., attempted to push legislation that would’ve overturned the end-round exemption. But Democratic senators began to draft legislation that would’ve denied federal health subsidies to any lawmaker who voted for the Vitter Bill, even if it didn’t become law.
Unsurprisingly, the Vitter Bill was tabled and died.
Earlier in the week, Senate Republicans rejected a conservative amendment for a “straight repeal” of ObamaCare with a 2-year window to replace the failing law, breaking a 7-year promise to voters.
Seven Republicans–including Shelley Moore Capito, W.Va., Susan Collins, Me., Dean Heller, Nev., John McCain, R-Ariz., Rob Portman, Ohio, Lamar Alexander, Ala., and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska–joined Democrats to make the vote 55 to 45.
All but Sen. Collins of Maine voted “Yes” on an almost identical bill in 2015, when Republicans voted 52-47 to repeal ObamaCare because they knew it would be vetoed by Barack Obama. Now that Republicans have the chance to cast a meaningful vote with a president willing to sign it, they caved.
Earlier Friday morning, in the dead of the night, they rejected an amendment for a “skinny repeal” of ObamaCare that would’ve done away with the individual and employer mandates, as well as the medical device tax. The final vote was 51 to 49.
Sens. McCain, Murkowski and Collins tanked the bill.
The President’s tweets were welcomed among Republican voters, who were furious with the betrayal. Recent data from the People’s Pundit Daily Big Data Poll (PPD Poll) indicate 30% of Republican voters would seriously consider sitting out 2018 if Republicans didn’t keep their promise to repeal ObamaCare.
Meanwhile, polling conducted for Independent Women’s Voice found 94% of likely voters think Congress shouldn’t be exempted from ObamaCare. However, most voters blame both parties equally for the carve out, leaving Republicans just as politically vulnerable as Democrats on the issue.
U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, DC. (Photo: People’s Pundit Daily/Pixabay)
When I give speeches about the economic case for small government, one of my main points is that people in the private sector (workers, investors, managers, entrepreneurs, etc) are motivated by self interest to allocate labor and capital efficiently. To be more specific, the pursuit of higher pay and greater profit will lead people to allocate resources productively.
I freely admit that people in the private sector make mistakes (most new business ventures ultimately fail, for instance), but I explain that’s part of a dynamic process in a market economy. Every success and every mistake leads to feedback, both via the price system and also via profits and losses. All of which leads to continuous changes as people – especially entrepreneurs – seek to better serve the needs and wants of consumers, since that’s how they can increase their income and wealth.
In other words, Adam Smith was right when he said that self interest encourages people to focus on making others better off.
By contrast, when politicians and bureaucrats allocate resources (either directly via spending programs, or indirectly via regulation or tax distortions), feedback mechanisms are very weak. Once politicians intervene, they never seem to care if they are generating positive results. There are plenty of examples, however, of government imposing high costs while producing no benefits. Or even producing harm.
More education spending has completely failed to produce better education outcomes.
More regulation and red tape to fight money laundering has not produced reductions in criminal activity.
Foreign aid outlays that enable larger public sectors that undermine prosperity in developing nations.
And let’s not forget that “Public Choice” teaches us that interest groups will manipulate government to obtain unearned benefits.
The main lesson from all this information is that it’s good to have small government rather than large government.
But there’s a secondary lesson about how the economic harm of government can be reduced if market forces somehow can be part of the process. And that’s why a new study from two Italian economists at the Centre for Economic and International Studies is worth sharing.
The abstract of the study is a good summary.
We empirically investigate the effect of oversight on contract outcomes in public procurement. In particular, we stress a distinction between public and private oversight: the former is a set of bureaucratic checks enacted by contracting offices, while the latter is carried out by private insurance companies whose money is at stake through so-called surety bonding. We analyze the universe of U.S. federal contracts in the period 2005-2015 and exploit an exogenous variation in the threshold for both sources of oversight, estimating their causal effects on costs and execution time. We find that: (i) public oversight negatively affects outcomes, in particular for less competent buyers; (ii) private oversight has a positive effect on outcomes by affecting both the ex-ante screening of bidders – altering the pool of winning firms – and the ex-post behavior of contractors.
In other words, normal bureaucratic waste, featherbedding, and cost overruns are less likely when the private sector does the oversight.
And here’s an excerpt from the text for those who want more details.
…we propose a distinction between public and private oversight, depending on its source. Public oversight includes all formal checks – cost certifications, pricing data transmission, production surveillance – which the contracting authorities enact during the contract awarding phase and execution. It typically involves considerable paperwork for both the buyer and the sellers. At the cost of some red tape, it is aimed at alleviating the moral hazard problem… On the other hand, private oversight involves third parties – surety companies – issuing bonds (surety bonds) to secure the buyer against unpredictable events. If the seller fails to fulfill contractual tasks, contracting authorities make claims to recover losses. A surety is then called on either to complete the public work by themselves (i.e. with their own resources or by subcontracting) or to refund the authority of the bond value. Being liable in case of unsatisfactory contract outcomes, the sureties have strong incentives both to screen bidders (ex ante) and to monitor contractors (ex post). They help mitigate the asymmetry of information between the buyer and the sellers thanks to their experience of the market – i.e. access to private information – and the screening enacted through price discrimination on premia, which directly affects offers placed by potential contractors. Hence, private oversight enhances the selection of the best contractors and provides a second tier of monitoring of contractors’ progresses.
This is encouraging. It would be nice to have smaller government, but it also would be nice to get the most bang for the buck when the government does spend money.
To be sure, there are probably many parts of government that are impervious to market forces.
But surely there are many ways to protect taxpayers by creating incentives to save money.
For instance, on the programmatic level, we can enlist the private sector to fight rampant Medicare and Medicaid fraud by allowing private investigators to keep a slice of any recovered funds.
And on the sectoral level, we can achieve big educational gains with school choice, thus giving schools a bottom-line incentive to attract students with better outcomes.
Last but not least, we can rely on the competitive impact of federalism to encourage better macroeconomic policy by state and local governments.
The moral of the story, needless to say, is that the private sector does a better job than government. So let’s do what we can to unleash market forces. Be more like Hong Kong and less like Venezuela.
Fast-food workers and their supporters join a nationwide protest for higher wages and union rights in Los Angeles, California, United States, in this file photo taken November 10, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)
In addition to his exemplary work as a Senior Fellow for the Cato Institute, Johan Norberg narrates some great videos for Free to Choose Media. Here are some that caught my eye.
But my favorite video, which I shared back in January, is his concise explanation of why policy makers should focus on fighting poverty rather than reducing inequality.
I’m posting it again to set the stage for a discussion on inequality and fairness.
Now let’s dig into the main topic for today.
A study by three academics from Yale’s Department of Psychology concludes that people want fairness rather than equality.
…there is no evidence that people are bothered by economic inequality itself. Rather, they are bothered by something that is often confounded with inequality: economic unfairness. Drawing upon laboratory studies, cross-cultural research, and experiments with babies and young children, we argue that humans naturally favour fair distributions, not equal ones, and that when fairness and equality clash, people prefer fair inequality over unfair equality.
My former grad school classmate Steve Horwitz wrote about the aforementioned study
…what we really care about is something other than inequality per se. We care about upward mobility, or average income overall, or how well the least well off do. …A recent study in Nature argued, with evidence, that what bothers people more than inequality per se is “unfairness.” People will accept inequality if they feel the process that produced it is fair. …when I give talks about inequality. I point out the number of Apple products visible in the room and ask them if they think the wealth Steve Jobs and other Apple founders accumulated over their lifetimes was objectionable. Is that the kind of inequality they object to? Students are usually hard-pressed to articulate why Jobs’ wealth is wrong… I also remind them that economic studies show that only about 4% of the total benefits of innovation accrue to the innovator. The rest goes to consumers.
Steve cites Nozick and Hayek to bolster his argument before then making the key point that markets produce material abundance based on genuine fairness.
As Robert Nozick argued in Anarchy, State, and Utopia: if each step in the evolution of the market is fair by itself, how can the pattern of income that emerges be unfair? …Hayek…observed in The Constitution of Liberty that if we want equality of outcomes, we will have to treat people unequally. If, however, we treat people equally, we will get unequal outcomes. Hayek’s argument was premised on the fact that human beings are not equal in our native intelligence, strength, skills, and abilities. …If people really care about fairness, then supporters of the market should be insisting on the importance of equality before the law. …Equality of outcomes requires that we treat people differently, and this will likely be perceived as unfair by many. Equality before the law corresponds better with notions of fairness even if the outcomes it produces are unequal. …If what appear to be concerns about inequality are, in fact, concerns about unfairness, we have ways of addressing them that demonstrate the power of exchange and competitive markets. Markets are more fair because they require that governments treat us all equally and that none of us have the ability to use political power to protect ourselves from the competition of the marketplace and the choices of consumers. In addition, market-based societies have been the best cure for poverty humans have ever known.
A 2012 study by behavioural economists Dan Ariely and Mike Norton generated some attention for demonstrating that Americans wanted to live in a more equal country. But more equal is not the same thing as fully equal. …if you let people choose between equal and unequal societies – and then tell them that they themselves will be assigned a level of wealth within it completely at random – most people choose inequality. And that preference is observable across the political spectrum, in different countries and at a range of ages.
But people don’t want undeserved inequality since that is the result of unfair interventions (i.e., cronyism).
This paper’s conclusions help explain much of the outcry over economic inequality in recent years. Occupy Wall Street and the very idea of the “one per cent” emerged just after the financial crisis plunged much of the world into recession, and US and British banks were handed billion-dollar bailouts to steady the ship. The anger didn’t come from the fact that bankers were so well paid. It came from the perception that they’d made that money by piling up risk rather than being particularly clever or hard-working – risk that was now being underwritten by the taxpayer. The wealth wasn’t just distributed unequally, but unfairly. The market mechanisms that most people accepted as the rules of the economic game suddenly seemed rigged. …Voters, in other words, don’t want equality – they want fairness. …As the Soviets found, true economic equality cannot be accommodated within a system that allows people tolerable levels of economic and political freedom. But fairness, by contrast, is something capitalism can – and should – deliver.
Professor Tyler Cowen of George Mason University cites some additional academic research buttressing the conclusion people don’t object to fair types of inequality.
…most Americans don’t mind inequality nearly as much as pundits and academics suggest. A recent research paper, by Graham Wright of Brandeis University, found that polled attitudes about economic inequality don’t correlate very well with the desire for government to address it. There is even partial evidence, once controls are introduced into the statistics, that talk of inequality reduces the support for doing something about it. …It’s not obvious why such counterintuitive results might be the case. One possibility is that…talk about economic inequality increases political polarization, which lowers the chance of effective action. Or that criticizing American society may cause us to feel less virtuous, which in turn may cause us to act with less virtue. …A variety of other research papers have been showing that inequality is not a major concern per se. One recent study by Matthew Weinzierl of Harvard Business School shows that most Americans are quite willing to accept economic inequality that stems from brute luck, and that they are inclined to assume that inequality is justified unless proved otherwise.
Last but not least, Anne Bradley of the Institute for Humane Studies augments this analysis by explaining the difference between ethical market-driven inequality versus unfair cronyist-caused inequality.
The question of whether income inequality is bad hinges on the institutions within that society and whether they support entrepreneurship and creativity or thuggery and exploitation. Income inequality is good when people earn their money by discovering new and better ways of doing things and, through the profit mechanism, are encouraged to bring those discoveries to ordinary people. …Rising incomes across all income groups (even if at different rates) is most often the sign of a vibrant economy where strangers are encouraged to serve each other and solve problems. Stagnant incomes suggest something else: either a rigged economy where only insiders can play, or an economy where the government controls a large portion of social resources, stalling incomes, wealth, and wellbeing.
She includes a very powerful example of why it can be much better to live in a society with high levels of (fair) inequality.
Consider the following thought experiment: knowing nothing other than the Gini index scores, would you rather live in a world with a Gini of .296 (closer to equality) or .537 (farther from equality)? Many people when asked this question choose the world of .296. These are the real Gini scores of Pakistan (.296) and Hong Kong (.537). If given the choice, I would live in Hong Kong without thinking twice. Hong Kong has a thriving economy and high incomes, and it is the world leader in economic freedom. The difference between these two countries could not be more striking. In Pakistan, there might be more income equality, but everyone is poorer. It is difficult to emerge out of poverty in Pakistan. Hong Kong provides a much richer environment where people are encouraged to start businesses, and this is the best hope for rising incomes, or income mobility.
Her example of Hong Kong and Pakistan is probably the most important takeaway from today’s column.
Simply stated, it’s better to be poor in a jurisdiction such as Hong Kong where there is strong growth and high levels of upward mobility. Indeed, I often use a similar example when giving speeches, asking audiences whether poor people are better off in Hong Kong, which has only a tiny welfare state, or better off in nations such as France and Greece, which have bloated welfare states but very little economic dynamism.
The answer is obvious. Or should be obvious, at least to everyone who wants to help the poor more than they want to punish the rich (and there are plenty in the latter camp, as Margaret Thatcher explained).
And I’m now going to add my China example to my speeches since inequality dramatically increased at the same time that there was a stupendous reduction in poverty.
Once again, the moral of the story should be obvious. Focus on growth. Yes, some rich people will get richer, but the really great news is that the poor will get richer as well. And so long as everyone is earning money through voluntary exchange rather than government coercion, that also happens to be how a fair economy operates.
President Donald Trump, second from left, with Vice President Mike Pence, left, shakes hands with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kty., center, before the start of a meeting with House and Senate leaders at the White House. (Photo: AP)
President Donald J. Trump took aim at Republicans in the Senate on Saturday, tweeting that they “look like fools and are just wasting time.”
“Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don’t go to a 51 vote majority NOW,” President Trump tweeted first in a series of tweets Saturday morning. “They look like fools and are just wasting time.”
Earlier in the week, Senate Republicans rejected a conservative amendment for a “straight repeal” of ObamaCare with a two-year window to replace the failing law, breaking a 7-year promise to voters.
Seven Republicans–including Shelley Moore Capito, W.Va., Susan Collins, Me., Dean Heller, Nev., John McCain, R-Ariz., Rob Portman, Ohio, Lamar Alexander, Ala., and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska–joined Democrats to make the vote 55 to 45.
All but Sen. Collins of Maine voted “Yes” on an almost identical bill in 2015, when Republicans voted 52-47 to repeal ObamaCare because they knew it would be vetoed by Barack Obama. Now that Republicans have the chance to cast a meaningful vote with a president willing to sign it, they caved.
Earlier Friday morning, in the dead of the night, they rejected an amendment for a “skinny repeal” of ObamaCare that would’ve done away with the individual and employer mandates, as well as the medical device tax. The final vote was 51 to 49.
Sens. McCain, Murkowski and Collins tanked the bill.
“8 Dems totally control the U.S. Senate,” President Trump tweeted in a second tweet. “Many great Republican bills will never pass, like Kate’s Law and complete Healthcare. Get smart!”
The more conservative Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives approved Kate’s Law and the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act in June. Kate’s Law (H.R. 3004), named after 32-year-old Kate Steinle who was shot and killed on July 1, 2015 near San Francisco by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, will toughen the punishment for illegal immigrants who re-enter the country and give judges more discretion on detainment.
It passed with a vote of 257 to 157. Only one Republican voted “No” and only 24 Democrats voted “Yes.”
The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act (H.R. 3003) would restrict eligibility to receive certain Department of Justice or Department (DOJ) of Homeland Security (DHS) grants for states and localities that do not comply with federal immigration law and reallocate those funds to those that are in compliance.
It passed by a vote of 228-195 with only 3 Democrats voting “Yes” and 7 Republicans voting “No.”
The two pieces of legislation remain widely popular among American voters.
A recent survey found 62% of likely voters want the DOJ to punish cities that provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants. Another recent Harvard-Harris poll found 80% of Americans believe local authorities should comply with federal immigration authorities.
“If the Senate Democrats ever got the chance, they would switch to a 51 majority vote in first minute,” the President added. “They are laughing at R’s. MAKE CHANGE!”
The President’s tweets were welcomed among Republican voters, who were furious with the betrayal. Recent data from the People’s Pundit Daily Big Data Poll (PPD Poll) indicate 30% of Republican voters would seriously consider sitting out 2018 if Republicans didn’t keep their promise to repeal ObamaCare.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center watches a firing contest of the KPA artillery units at undisclosed location in this photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on January 5, 2016. (Photo: Reuters)
The U.S. Pentagon said the intercontinental ballistic missile launched by North Korea Friday traveled roughly 1,000 kilometers. The launch, which was the first since the rogue leftwing regime tested a new ballistic missile on July 4, 2017, was believed to be scheduled for Thursday–the 64th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War.
“The U.S. Department of Defense detected and tracked a single North Korea missile launch today at about 10:41 a.m. EDT. We assess that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected,” Captain Jeff Davis said in a statement. “The missile was launched from Mupyong-ni and traveled about 1,000 km before splashing down in the Sea of Japan. We are working with our interagency partners on a more detailed assessment.”
Though the ICBM on July 4 was believed to be a version of the KN-17, North Korea designated it the Hwasong-14. It flew for 37 minutes and reached a height of 1,500 miles, or roughly 2414 kilometers, breaking the DPRK’s previous record set on Mother’s Day.
Rather than a single-stage, it was outfitted with a second stage, liquid propulsion system that gives Pyongyang the capability to reach the U.S.–Alaska. The launch was a major step forward for Pyongyang. It’s an improvement from the Hwasong-12, which has a maximum range of 4,500 kilometers.
“The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America,” Captain Davis added.
Regardless, with the latest launch, Pyongyang took yet another major step forward in their ballistic missile program, which aims to development an ICBM that can hit North America with a nuclear payload.
“Had the same motor’s thrust been put to a range-maximizing flight path, the Hwasong-14 could have traveled as far as 7,000 kilometers, enough to reach Alaska and well in range of Guam,” claimed Thomas Karako, a Senior Fellow at the International Security Program Missile Defense Project.
“If fired in an eastward direction to take advantage of the rotation of the earth, the Hwasong-14 could potentially reach up to 8,000 kilometers, putting Hawaii at risk.”
In order to reach the continental U.S., Pyongyang would still need an ICBM with a range of over 8,000 kilometers. To put the East Coast at risk, that range increases to at least 10,000 kilometers.
The North and South Koreans are still technically in a state of war.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, right, listens to U.S. President Donald Trump during a meeting with cyber security experts in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington January 31, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
President Donald J. Trump announced on Twitter that he has replaced Reince Priebus with Gen. John Kelly as White House Chief of Staff. Mr. Priebus, heading a team known to leak to the media, resigned expectedly as newly appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci set his sights on him.
“I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff,” President Trump tweeted. “He is a Great American and a Great Leader.”
General Kelly was nominated and confirmed to serve as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security,” President Trump added. “He has been a true star of my Administration.”
On Thursday, Mr. Scaramucci, believing the conversation was off-the-record, called Mr. Priebus a “paranoid schizophrenic” among other things in a foul-mouthed rant. He said he “made a mistake in trusting in a reporter” at The New Yorker and said it “won’t happen again.”
Still, despite the President knowing the former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) was leaking, he praised and thanked him for his ervice.
“I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country,” President Trump concluded. “We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!”
An offshore oil platform is seen in Huntington Beach, California September 28, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
The Baker-Hughes Rig Count for North America is up 22 rigs to 1,178 for the week ending July 28, continuing to climb higher for 12 of 13 weeks.
The U.S. count, up 8 rigs to 958, also continued on its upward trajectory after a rare decline last week. It is now up nearly double (495 rigs) from last year at this time. Rigs classified as drilling for oil are up 2 to 766 and gas rigs are up 6 to 192.
The Canadian rig count led the way up 14 rigs to 220, and is now up 101 rigs from last year. Oil rigs classified are up 11 to 129 and gas rigs are up 3 to 91.
President Donald J. Trump, flanked by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, holds an opioid and drug abuse listening session at the White House in March 29, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
Before Wyatt Earp was a famous lawman and western folk hero, he was an outlaw. A criminal. Following the death of his first wife, Marshall Earp was arrested for stealing a horse and would likely have been hung had he not escaped from jail.
Urilla Sutherland Earp came down with typhoid fever and died shortly before their first child was born. Obviously, their child also died and he went off the deep end. In 1872, alone, he was sued twice, and arrested and fined three times. His third arrest was published in a lengthy article in the Daily Transcript, which referred to him as an “old offender” and dubbed him the “Peoria Bummer.”
He was also an alcoholic, which was no doubt a primary contributing factor in his run-ins with the law. That’s something I understand, all too well.
Following my injury in and subsequent medical discharge from the U.S. Army, I was prescribed opioids for pain management by physicians at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). There wasn’t much more they could do to treat my physical pain. Unfortunately, my suffering wasn’t exclusively physical. I loved the U.S. Army, equally loved being a soldier and even more so loved the men next to me.
Being a civilian was a nightmare. I was dying inside.
While it took several years, I inevitably became physically, chemically dependent and, without warning, was soon after mentally dependent. Subconsciously, I had been using that pain medicine to treat the pain I was feeling inside. Funny thing about opioid addiction, or all addictions for that matter, you can never quite pinpoint the tipping point.
There might be a roadmap to recovery, but it’s a complicated road to travel. It’s even harder for those who’s addiction led to a criminal charge or, worse, a conviction. Either way, it better eventually lead to becoming an accepted or useful member of society, otherwise the journey ends with jail or death.
U.S. prisons are home to 2.2 million inmates and an estimated 600,000 are freed each year, a not-so insignificant number of them being drug-related.
In 2015, the Obama Administration attempted to help ex-prisoners stay out of prison by making it easier for those who served their time to get a job in the federal government. Barack Obama decided to “ban the box” on federal employment applications, meaning job applicants no longer had to disclose whether they had a criminal record.
Always looking to the government to solve their problems, liberals have proposed using the law to force the private sector to do the same thing. The New York City Council enacted similar policies prohibiting businesses from asking about prior convictions on initial applications.
Whether it would benefit an ex-convict’s re-entry into society or not, such a policy is unquestionably an assault on employers’ rights. If you were an employer–or, maybe you are–would you not want the right to at least know who it is you are hiring?
There are no simple answers to these questions or this issue, and I certainly don’t pretend to know them. But I do know they don’t all have to come from government. In fact, I question whether any of them come from government.
In 1874, a sober Mr. Earp arrived in the cattle town of Wichita, Kansas, where he would begin his career as a lawman. That career would take him to one boomtown after another, from Dodge City to Tombstone.
He didn’t end up the most sought after lawman in the country because there wasn’t a box to check on an employment application. He was the best man for the job and society viewed these matters differently than they do now.
Ex-cons are now felons. “Paying off your debt to society” is now an interest-charging forever loan and there’s never enough time to finish “doing your time.” Civil society asks those with addictions and convictions to reform themselves. But if they do, we don’t truly change how we view their role in our communities.
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