Voice For Liberty

Tag: United States Congress

  • Roberts endorses Mike Pompeo

    This morning United States Senator Pat Roberts stopped by the Mike Pompeo campaign headquarters in east Wichita to endorse Pompeo in his campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas.

    In his endorsement, Roberts said that Pompeo knows the airplane manufacturing business and how to meet a payroll. Roberts said that the general aviation industry is in a fight almost every session of Congress, and that Pompeo’s knowledge of this industry will be a plus in Washington.

    Roberts described Pompeo’s leading opponent — Democrat Raj Goyle — as having a “very liberal background.” Roberts described how some of his colleagues in the Senate on the other side of the aisle — meaning they are Democrats — would make conservative speeches in their home states, but vote the Democratic party line in Washington. He told the audience “We cannot afford to send anybody, no matter what they say in this campaign, to Washington when the first vote they will cast will be for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.”

    Roberts also said that Pompeo’s military background and experience means he understands the value of national security, which Roberts said is the first obligation of the federal government. He added that Pompeo would be a good match for the armed services committee.

    Roberts characterized this election as a “crossroads,” although he recognized this word is overused. Bureaucratic agencies in Washington are planning to further the Obama agenda without Congress, creating what he called a “fourth branch of government.”

    Their ultimate goal is to implement cap-and-trade energy regulation and taxation without the consent of Congress, Roberts told the audience. “Either we’re going to make decisions with the consent of the governed and send a message to Congress, or they’re going to make the decisions for us, and we’re going to have to live with it.”

    In his remarks, Pompeo said this is a unique election, as “we stand as a nation in a place we have not been in my lifetime,” citing the recent large federal deficit spending. This, he said, was his primary reason for deciding to run for Congress. He said that Goyle, his opponent, thinks about the world “in a way that’s very different from most Kansans” and has an East Coast philosophy and experiences that represent the Obama/Pelosi agenda. That agenda is not right for Kansas, he added.

    I asked about the upcoming lame duck session of Congress — the period after the November election and before newly-elected members take office: If there is a big win by Republicans, is there a danger that many just-defeated members will be voting on potentially important legislation?

    Roberts answered that there should not be a lame duck session. Specific areas of concern during the session include card check, immigration, raising taxes in a recession, and other things that would further the Obama agenda.

    He said that there are 125,000 more federal employees now than when Obama assumed office, and that their average salary is $125,000. These people are the fourth branch of government, he said, and they’re trying to get the Obama agenda passed despite — or around — Congress.

    A lame duck session with partisan political goals is not in the best interest of America, and there is a danger of that, he said.

    Besides Pompeo and Goyle other candidates in this race are Reform party candidate Susan Ducey and Libertarian David Moffett.

    Additional coverage is available at the Wichita Eagle and at State of the State KS, which includes video.

  • Goyle’s social security protection pledge is a tax increase pledge

    Raj Goyle, candidate for Congress, has pledged to protect social security. He doesn’t mention the tax increase that will be required to fulfill this pledge.

    Goyle’s opponents in the campaign for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas are Reform party candidate Susan Ducey, Libertarian David Moffett, and Republican Mike Pompeo.

    In his pledge, Goyle promises to “work for real solutions that strengthen Social Security for the long term.” Specifically, he pledges to oppose all efforts at privatization and raising the retirement age to 70.

    The problem is that after ruling out reforms like these, there’s not much left to do except to raise taxes. Evidence of this can be found in today’s Wichita Eagle, which carries an editorial from the Los Angeles Times. Titled Ignore fearmongering on Social Security, it mostly looks back at opposition to the formation of the Social Security system 75 years ago.

    But the article recognizes that the system needs “minor adjustments” to remain solvent. The authors write: “Economists say that raising the income ceiling on the payroll tax, applying the Social Security tax to nonwage income or adding a modest increase to the payroll tax could add decades to the health of the Social Security trust fund.”

    Each of these policy changes is a tax increase. The article lists no other solutions than these.

    These recommendations are not Goyle’s. He hasn’t said what he would do to place the system on a sound financial footing.

    But there’s not much that we can do except raise taxes if we want to keep the current system.

    We need to do something quickly. Social Security will pay out more in benefits this year than it receives in contributions from payroll taxes. It had been thought that this milestone would not be reached until 2017 or later.

    There are those who cite the Social Security trust fund and its large balance of over $2 trillion as evidence that the system is doing well. But as Thomas Sowell explains, the trust fund is merely an illusion. The money in the fund has already been spent by government agencies. The only way they can pay back the fund is through tax revenues.

    It’s not as though Republicans are confronting the problem head-on. One of the few officeholders willing to do so is Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who is ranking member of the House Budget Committee. His Roadmap for America’s future is a plan that recognizes the seriousness of the current situation, not only with Social Security, but in other areas of the federal budget.

    His recommendations, specific as they are, cause consternation among some Republicans who would rather talk about problems in general terms rather than specifics. A recent Washington Post profile of Ryan referred to “… many Republican colleagues, who, even as they praise Ryan for his doggedness, privately consider the Roadmap a path to electoral disaster. Unlike most politicians of either party, he doesn’t speak generically about reducing spending, but he does acknowledge the very real cuts in popular programs that will be required to bring down the debt.”

    Also: “House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has alternately praised Ryan and emphasized that his ideas are not those of the party.”

    The fact that frank talk about the budget and government spending might be an electoral disaster is a bad sign for America.

  • Star Parker campaigns in Wichita

    In a campaign stop yesterday in Wichita noted conservative figure Star Parker told an audience that she works for market-based solutions to fight poverty, and that the answer to poverty is freedom and personal responsibility, not a welfare state.

    Parker appeared in Wichita at a fundraising event hosted by Wichita businessman Johnny Stevens. Parker is running for Congress as a Republican from the 37th district of California, which includes the cities of Compton, Long Beach, and Carson, south of the City of Los Angeles. Her campaign website is Star Parker for Congress.

    Parker described her efforts working on welfare reform at the federal level during the 1990s, which she described as successful in terms of helping poor people recover their lives. But the momentum that was started — moving poor people from socialism towards capitalism and economic freedom — has not continued, she said. What we have today, she told the audience, is moving in the opposite direction.

    Parker said that a critical factor in helping her to decide whether to run for Congress was when President Barack Obama chose to use Abraham Lincoln’s Bible as part of the swearing-in ceremony during his inauguration. Lincoln — although a complicated man and her hero, Parker said — confronted the moral problem of his day by deciding that the country should remain together and with everyone as free people. She contrasted this with Obama, who avoided a moral question by saying it was “above his pay grade.”

    Then when she saw bankers and Wall Street executives lining up to go on welfare she was furious, and seriously considered responding positively when asked to run for Congress.

    Democrat Laura Richardson, the two-term incumbent in the district Parker is seeking to represent in Congress, has had trouble with homes she owns falling into foreclosure, even being criticized by the Los Angeles Times for that and for falling behind on property tax payments. Richardson had been charged with an ethics violation in conjunction one of her three homes that has been in foreclosure. In July the House Ethics Committee cleared her of misconduct in that matter.

    Parker said that Richardson’s main accomplishment has been bringing stimulus money into the district. She described it as a union district, and that unions do not want to see this seat in conservative hands.

    Parker criticized campaign finance laws that allow those with personal wealth to spend all they want on their campaigns — we saw this in the Kansas fourth district with one candidate spending about $2 million of his own funds — but limit outside contributions to $2,400 per election cycle. This limits the ability of challengers to mount effective campaigns against incumbents, she said.

    Parker said it is critical to take Congress back from the control of Democrats, and that for a black conservative to win a seat currently held by the Congressional Black Caucus would be “extremely sweet.”

    She told the audience that if we fail to take Congress this fall, “you think you’ve seen arrogance now, you think you’ve seen elitism, you think you’ve seen how aggressively they can spend other peoples’ money and how close to the edge of danger they will allow us to go — we’ve seen nothing if on November third we wake up and they still have the Congress.”

    Even if Republicans take Congress, she said since over half of them are not conservative, there will still be a challenge.

    She mentioned that she will be part of an upcoming John Stossel feature on Fox News Network.

    Parker spoke about the importance of schools and described the difficulties that parents face trying to get their children in good schools. Answering a question about the lack of reform such as charter schools and school choice in Kansas, Parker said that lack of these limits the opportunity for the underclass to get a quality education. In public schools, Parker said that children are taught secular humanism, and the cycle of the entitlement mentality is passed down from one generation to the next. School choice is the way to break this cycle and give schoolchildren an opportunity to attend schools that have a moral framework.

    Answering another question about what caused the transformation in her thinking — Parker is not shy about talking about her past life living on welfare — she said that she “just got born again” and decided to adopt a Biblical world view.

    As to what spurred her to become a free-market activist and adopting a libertarian economic thought, she said that it was her experience in business. “Government is harsh,” she said, with many agencies that stand in the way of prosperity.

    The ideas of socialism are inconsistent with a free country, she said, telling them that the rules of welfare are “don’t work, don’t save, and don’t get married.” These rules work against people breaking out of poverty.

    Parker has been endorsed by many national conservative figures, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Mike Huckabee.

  • For Raj Goyle, most money comes from outside Kansas

    In the race for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas between Democrat Raj Goyle and Republican Mike Pompeo, there’s a distinct difference in the nature and source of campaign contributions for the two candidates. So far, 70 percent of Goyle’s campaign contributions have come from donors outside Kansas, with Washington DC being the metropolitan area with the highest source of contributions.

    Analysis of campaign contributions may be found at OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics. The following tables are based on data through the last comprehensive reporting period, which ended June 30, 2010.

    As of that date, Goyle had raised $1,255,403, and Pompeo had raised $935,084.

    The distribution between in-state and out-of-state donors is this:

                    In Kansas       Out of Kansas
Raj Goyle     $306,151 (30%)    $721,322 (70%)
Mike Pompeo   $646,572 (79%)    $167,743 (21%)

    During the primary election, a frequent criticism of Pompeo made by his opponents was that he was a “Washington insider,” and that was where much of his support and campaign funds were coming from. When looking at the metropolitan areas that contributions have come from, we see that little of Pompeo’s campaign contributions came from Washington, while Washington is the single largest source of Goyle’s funds, outpacing Wichita, the dominant population center in the fourth Congressional district of Kansas:

    For Raj Goyle:
Metro Area                  Total
WASHINGTON, DC-MD-VA-WV   $195,827
WICHITA                   $169,851
NEW YORK                  $109,385
KANSAS CITY, MO-KS        $105,400
SAN FRANCISCO              $35,552

For Mike Pompeo:
Metro Area                  Total
WICHITA                   $585,617
CHICAGO                    $20,400
WASHINGTON, DC-MD-VA-WV    $18,326
KANSAS CITY, MO-KS         $17,250
DALLAS                     $11,950

    An area of concern for some voters is the influence of political action committees (PACs). In the primary election, Pompeo’s opponents made frequent charges that he was beholden to PAC money. Looking again at data from OpenSecrets, we see that Goyle has received $76,250 in contributions from sources that OpenSecrets classifies as PACs. The figure for Pompeo is $28,000.

    OpenSecrets also classifies contributions based on the industry of the donor. For each candidate, here are the top five industries that made contributions:

    For Raj Goyle:
Sector                   Total
Lawyers & Lobbyists    $120,538
Finance/Insur/RealEst  $104,500
Ideology/Single-Issue  $100,629
Other                   $75,094
Health                  $72,403

For Mike Pompeo:
Sector                   Total
Finance/Insur/RealEst  $102,993 
Energy/Nat Resource     $62,850 
Construction            $35,950 
Other                   $35,700 
Lawyers & Lobbyists     $33,150

    In the Republican primary, Pompeo’s opponents charged that he was too close to lobbyists, but this category made up relatively little of his campaign dollars. If lobbyist contributions are a concern for voters, this industry category is the leading source of contributions for Goyle.

    An area where Goyle does better than Pompeo is in what OpenSecrets calls “quality of disclosure,” meaning how well the contributions include the names of donors and their occupations and employers. For Goyle, 3.1 percent of the contributions (based on dollar amounts) have “incomplete” or “none” for these pieces of data. For Pompeo, the figure is 11.8 percent.

    These reports include contributions made only through June 30, 2010. The focus at that time was the primary election, more for Republicans than Democrats, as Goyle faced an inexperienced and under-funded candidate, although at one time Goyle trailed in a poll. Now that the general election is the focus for both candidates, the characteristics and distribution of contributions may change.

  • Kansas fourth Congressional district poll released

    The first public poll covering the race for United States Congress from the Kansas fourth district shows a close race between the two leading contenders, with Republican Mike Pompeo edging Democrat Raj Goyle by 49 percent to 42 percent.

    Libertarian Party candidate David Moffett received four percent support, and Reform party candidate Susan Ducey received one percent. Five percent were undecided.

    The poll was released by KWCH Television in Wichita and SurveyUSA. The poll’s margin of sampling error was not given, but previous polls by this firm and similar to this have had a margin of sampling error of about four percentage points.

    Pompeo receives strong support from young voters. For those under 50 years old, Pompeo leads 59 percent to 28 percent, while for voters over 50, he trails Goyle by 41 percent to 51 percent.

    Men favor Pompeo 53 percent to 38 percent, while women favor Goyle 46 percent to 44 percent.

    Those who attend church regularly, those with pro-life beliefs, and gun owners favored Pompeo. Democrats, Independents, those with self-described moderate beliefs, and voters with incomes less than $50,000 favored Goyle.

    Important dates for voters to remember are these:

    October 13: Election offices begin mailing advance voting ballots

    October 18: Last day to register to vote or change party affiliation for the general election

    October 27: Last day for election office to mail advance voting applications

    October 29: Last day for election office to mail advance voting ballots

    November 2: Election day

    Kansas fourth Congressional district pollKansas fourth Congressional district poll, August 12, 2010

  • School bailout about unions, not kids

    The U.S. Congress is rushing to approve a spending bill to retain teacher jobs that are not in actual jeopardy, according to the Center for Education Reform.

    A press release gives more details:

    Referring to the bailout as a response to a “manufactured crisis,” CER President Jeanne Allen today called on lawmakers to recognize that excessive hiring and over-spending by school districts when funds were plentiful — despite declining student enrollment in more than half of US states — has created the illusion that classroom teachers are in danger of losing their jobs.

    “Most of the positions and programs that would be secured by this new bailout with taxpayer dollars are not classroom teachers or proven instructional programs and thus have no impact on student learning,” said Jeanne Allen. “This is a jobs bill that has no place in our schools, where how we educate students should always be the most important consideration.”

    The program is described as a “gift to the unions.”

    Recently in Kansas, schools have exaggerated the effect of proposed budget cuts on teacher employment. Last year the Kansas State Department of Education asked school districts how many employees they will cut for the current school year. Schools reported they would 3,701 positions. This number was widely reported and discussed.

    But when the Kansas Legislative Research Department surveyed the actual numbers, they found that Kansas schools eliminated only 875 jobs — far fewer than school officials said they would eliminate.

  • Kansas first Congressional district poll released

    Although the primary is barely over and the general election is nearly three months away, a poll covering the race for United States Congress from the Kansas first district has already been released.

    The candidates for this position include Republican Tim Huelskamp, who is a Kansas Senator and farmer from the southwest Kansas town of Fowler. He won the Republican primary election on August 3rd.

    The Democratic Party nominee is Alan Jilka. He did not have an opponent in the primary election. Jilka is a Salina businessman and has served three terms as that north-central Kansas city’s mayor.

    The Libertarian Party nominated Jack Warner of Wright, just east of Dodge City.

    In the poll, Huelskamp leads with 65 percent of the respondents indicating they would vote for the Republican. Jilka received 23 percent, and Warner received seven percent. Five percent said they were undecided.

    Important dates for voters to remember are these:

    October 13: Election offices begin mailing advance voting ballots

    October 18: Last day to register to vote or change party affiliation for the general election

    October 27: Last day for election office to mail advance voting applications

    October 29: Last day for election office to mail advance voting ballots

    November 2: Election day

    Kansas first Congressional district pollKansas first Congressional district poll, August 9, 2010

  • Tiahrt, in close campaign, comes in second

    At an election night watch party at the Hilton Hotel in Wichita, supporters of Todd Tiahrt in his campaign for United States Senate were encouraged by early returns from Sedgwick and Johnson counties.

    Tiahrt led and won in the state’s two largest counties.

    But as western Kansas votes started to be tallied, Jerry Moran‘s margin steadily increased as votes for the popular western Kansas Congressman rolled in. The Associated Press called the race for Moran.

    At shortly after midnight, Tiahrt and his wife Vicki entered the hotel ballroom to rousing applause from his supporters.

    “We want Todd! We want Todd!” chanted the crowd.

    “Thank you very much. I love you guys,” said the candidate. He said we ran a strong campaign.

    We have a great country, a resilient county, he said. “Lower taxes, smaller government — this is what Kansans want — and what we campaigned on.” He said that he won the third and fourth Congressional districts. The win by Tiahrt in Johnson County was unexpected by most observers.

    He thanked his supporters and said he was sorry that he didn’t win.

    Addressing the audience, Vicki Tiahrt thanked the supporters and volunteers. “We are winners tonight,” she said.

    After his speech, Tiahrt said that his goal is to have a Republican Senator elected from Kansas, so he will be calling Jerry Moran to offer his congratulations and support. He also said he will work to make sure Mike Pompeo is elected to Congress as his successor.

    He listed some of his accomplishments — the repeal of the Wright amendment, a new runway at the Wichita airport, grade separations in downtown Wichita, and the capture of the BTK serial killer — and said he had a good run in Congress.

    He added that he believes that Pompeo will work as hard as he has.

    Asked if he would consider running for other office he said it’s too early to think about that now.

  • Kansas Republican senate primary closer

    A poll released today by KWCH Television in Wichita and SurveyUSA shows a closer contest for the Republican Party nomination for United States Senate from Kansas between Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt.

    Moran has 49 percent support, while Tiahrt draws 39 percent. Two other candidates, one having withdrawn, shared five percent of the vote. Only six percent of voters are undecided according to this survey.

    The pollster says that compared to two weeks ago, Moran is down one percentage point, and Tiahrt is up three. Tiahrt’s strategy to paint himself as the true conservative appears to be working, at least among conservative voters. Today he leads among conservatives by five percentage points, where two months ago Moran led by 21 percentage points in this group.

    The poll notes potential trouble for Moran: “Most ominous for Moran: Among the 17 percent of voters who report they have already cast their ballots, Tiahrt is nominally ahead, 46 percent to 43 percent. Among those who tell SurveyUSA they are likely to vote, but have not yet done so, Moran leads by 13.”

    If something were to happen on election day to suppress turnout, that would be bad news for Moran. Temperatures across Kansas are expected to top out at over 100 degrees tomorrow, but with little chance of precipitation or storms.

    In this sampling of Republican voters who have either voted or are likely to vote, 63 percent of voters identified themselves as conservative, 29 percent as moderate, and five percent as liberal.

    Kansas Republican Senate pollsKansas Republican Senate polls