Voice For Liberty

Tag: United States government

  • Pompeo on Syria

    On today’s episode of KAKE TV This Week in Kansas, U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo discusses Syria. View below, or click here to view on YouTube.

  • Pompeo on Syria intervention

    This morning U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo appeared on Fox News Network to talk about Syria. Video follows.

    Also, KFDI reported this today:

    Kansas Fourth District Representative Mike Pompeo has just returned from a week in the Middle East in which he met with national security figures from the United States and its allies.

    Pompeo said there is a broad concensus that American foreign policy in the Middle East has been weak and feckless.

    The congressman called for a strong response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, who Pompeo called a war criminal.

    “We’ve got to make sure that those who control Syria and big pockets of the Middle East are not beholden to the Ayatollahs in Iran and to Hezbollah and to Russia,” he said.

    Pompeo said if the U.S. does nothing in response to Syrian actions, we will ultimately have risk to the American homeland.

    “We don’t need 20,000 soldiers on the ground,” Pompeo said. “But we need an enormous effort to make sure that, in a post-Assad world, we do not have Iran in control.”

    Pompeo said he hopes the president will do more than he has outlined so far, adding that a “shot across the bow” is not enough.

  • Pompeo on national security issues

    On the Joseph Ashby Show today, U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita explained his views on our national security programs.

    [powerpress url=”http://wichitaliberty.org/audio/joseph-ashby-show-2013-07-16-excerpt-mike-pompeo.mp3″]U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo on the Joseph Ashby Show.

    When the host drew an analogy between the National Security Agency’s collection of data and the Internal Revenue Service scandals, Pompeo said: “Had there been this kind of oversight of Lois Lerner, this would not have happened.” He went on to explain that oversight of IRS is all by one branch of government, the executive branch. Oversight of NSA is “radically different,” he said.

    Pompeo also noted that while we should not minimize the importance of the IRS scandals, national security is a much weightier matter.

    Interestingly, the perception of the breadth of data that’s being collected may be overstated. In a June 18 hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pompeo asked these questions of the Director of the NSA (video follows):

    Pompeo: Gen. Alexander, from the data under Section 215 that’s collected, can you figure out the location of the person who made a particular phone call?

    General Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency: Not beyond the area code.

    Pompeo: Do you have any information about signal strength or tower direction? I’ve seen articles that talked about you having this information. I want to make sure for the record we’re got that right.

    Alexander: We don’t have that in the database.

  • Pompeo: Systems are needed, and risk of abuse is low

    Recently U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita appeared on Stossel to defend the programs the National Security Agency uses to gather data on Americans and others. I wondered about these questions: If it’s true that the information leaked by Edward Snowden has harmed the security of the United States, how is it that this was able to happen? Aren’t there many thousands of people with knowledge and information similar to, or greater than, what Snowden had access to? Is the security of our country dependent on all of them keeping their secrets?

    In a telephone conversation, Pompeo told me there are thousands of people who have access to classified material. Each one of these persons represents some risk.

    How did the Snowden situation develop? We don’t yet know the answer, Pompeo said. It was a mistake, he said, for the NSA to permit Snowden to have access to, and be able to take from the facility, the breadth of information he has released. But Snowden did not leak actual intelligence data; only an informational presentation about the programs being used.

    Snowden has harmed our security, and he may not be finished releasing information. Appearing on Stossel, Pompeo told the host that already Al-Qaeda is behaving differently. “They might well have suspected that some of this was going on. But they learned a couple things. They learned not only what was going on, but they’ve also learned the legal limits of these programs. Having shared that is very dangerous, and allows the enemy to have insights into the things we’re doing, to go catch the really bad guys — the terrorists who still want to kill us.”

    Addressing privacy concerns, on Stossel Pompeo emphasized the “tremendous oversight” of intelligence services. Actual telephone calls are not being listened to. Further, the data that’s collected is not “mined” continuously, he said. It’s only for specific purposes, and then with FISA court approval, that the data is used.

    An important distinction, Pompeo told me, is that it is data about telephone calls that is being collected, not the actual content of the calls. He emphasized the process and layers of oversight, by both agencies and courts. Even with a president and attorney general who have shown themselves not always worth of public trust, Pompeo says that the depth and scope of oversight gives him confidence that the risk of abuse is low.

    Interestingly, the perception of the breadth of data that’s being collected may be overstated. In a June 18 hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Pompeo asked these questions of the Director of the NSA (video follows):

    Pompeo: Gen. Alexander, from the data under Section 215 that’s collected, can you figure out the location of the person who made a particular phone call?

    General Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency: Not beyond the area code.

    Pompeo: Do you have any information about signal strength or tower direction? I’ve seen articles that talked about you having this information. I want to make sure for the record we’re got that right.

    Alexander: We don’t have that in the database.

  • Obama will need more economic growth

    To pay for the Obama taxing and spending agenda, the country will need much more economic growth. Unfortunately, the rate of growth is slowing just when we need greater rates of growth.

    It’s commonly thought that annual real (after-inflation) growth of three percent is required just to keep up with population. More than that is needed to restore the loss in middle-class income during Obama’s first term. But here’s what has happened to the rate of growth.

    Gross Domestic Product, Real, Annual Change

    The direction of change in economic growth is moving in the wrong direction, and it’s far below what is needed. Darkening the horizon are the planned increases in spending, in particular ObamaCare, will be a further drag on the economy. Other Obama policies are distinctly anti-growth. It’s difficult to have an optimistic outlook.

    Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer told the story last summer in the Wall Street Journal:

    The first is how much government spending fell during President Bill Clinton’s eight years in office and how low it was when he left office. When he became president in 1992, government spending was 23.5% of GDP, and when he left in 2001 it was 19.5% of GDP. President Clinton, in conjunction with a solid Republican Congress, cut government spending by more than any other president in modern times, and oversaw one of the greatest periods of economic growth and prosperity in U.S. history.

    Sadly for fiscal conservatives, the biggest surge in government spending came during the last two years of President George W. Bush’s eight years in office (2007-2008). A weakened Republican president dealing with a strident Democratic Congress, led by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, resulted in an orgy of spending.

    Mr. Bush and Republicans in Congress capitulated to and even promoted each and every government bailout and populist redistribution canard put before them. It’s a long list, starting with the 2003 trillion-dollar Medicare prescription drug benefit and culminating with the actions taken to stem the 2008 financial meltdown — the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bailout of insurance giant AIG and government-sponsored lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the ill-advised 2008 $600-per-person tax rebate, the stimulus add-ons to 2007’s housing and farm bills, etc. The script had it that greedy right-wingers were the cause of our collapse, and deficit spending and easy money the answer.

    The numbers are mind boggling. From the second quarter of 2007, i.e., the first full quarter of a Pelosi-Reid dominated Congress and a politically weakened President Bush, to the second quarter of 2009 when President Obama assumed office, government spending skyrocketed to 27.3% of GDP from 21.4%. It was the largest peacetime expansion of government spending in U.S. history.

    Following is an interactive visualization of federal revenues, expenditures, and the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product that illustrates these trends. Use the visualization below, or click here to open it in a new window.

  • Obama on debt ceiling, then and now

    Not long ago Barack Obama said that needing to raise America’s debt limit “is a sign of leadership failure.” Now he wants the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own, without Congressional approval.

    Senator Barack Obama, March 16, 2006 Congressional Record, page S2237:

    Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.

    The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

    Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ‘‘trillion’’ with a ‘‘T.’’ That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

    Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

    And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

    Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans — a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies. But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators CONRAD and FEINGOLD, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending.

    As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.

    Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.

    Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘‘the buck stops here.’’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

    I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.

  • The Obama tax hike, compared to deficits

    President Barack Obama is going to ask Congress for more tax revenue. But the president’s request, as large as it is, will do little to rein in our budgetary problem.

    According to the Wall Street Journal: “President Barack Obama will begin budget negotiations with congressional leaders Friday by calling for $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue over the next decade, far more than Republicans are likely to accept and double the $800 billion discussed in talks with GOP leaders during the summer of 2011.”

    The stage is being set for a showdown, one that both sides will surely cast as determining the future viability of America. But placing these numbers in context shows us that we’re really arguing over nothing — when compared to the size of the problems facing the budget.

    For context, the president’s most recent budget — which received zero votes when submitted to Congress — calls for cumulative deficits totaling an additional $6,684 billion from 2013 through 2022. Obama’s request for additional revenue of $1,600 billion over those years is 23.9 percent of that projected deficit. This is not what I’d call “solving the problem.”

    Further, the president’s budget may be based on unrealistically optimistic projections. One of the most important variables, the rate of growth of gross domestic product, was assumed to be 3.0 percent in 2012. But through the first three quarters, GDP growth has been at the rate of 2.0 percent, and the recent trend has been for that rate to decrease, not improve.

  • The rich don’t have enough money

    Even if President Barack Obama gets his way in upcoming tax negotiations, we’ll still be a long way from tackling the deficit.

    The document General Explanations of the
    Administration’s Fiscal Year 2013 Revenue Proposals, Table of Revenue Estimates     holds the details:

    Obama Administration projection of increased tax revenue

    If Obama is successful in his plan to increase taxes on upper-income taxpayers, it will bring in — according to this estimate by the Treasury Department — $56 billion in 2013. If additional tax expenditures are eliminated, revenue could increase by $83 billion. Both of these numbers are projected to rise in future years.

    To place these numbers in context: In fiscal year 2012, which ended just one month ago, the federal government spent an estimated $3,500 billion. The largest tax revenue increase Obama hopes for is 2.4 percent of this.

    Considering only the deficit from 2012, estimated at $1,100 billion, the $83 billion tax hike is 7.54 percent. But that’s only the deficit, which is the amount we borrow, not the amount we spend.

    These tax increases are not going to solve our problems with the federal budget. That’s assuming that the tax hikes will not cause economic harm.

    The federal budget is so out of balance compared to the size of the economy that even the wildest dreams of liberals won’t balance the budget. The Tax Foundation has calculated from IRS data that if government taxed 100 percent of the income earned by those who earn over $1 million, it would raise $709 billion. That’s not really close to last year’s deficit of $1,100 billion.

    And then, why would these people work?

  • Economic growth is slowing

    While the United States economy started to grow after the recent recession, the trend in growth is slowing.

    During the 80s and 90s the federal government spent at around the level of 19 percent of GNP. Now the federal government spends at the rate of 25 percent of the economy. Add in state and local governments, and we’re at 36 percent.

    This is not trickle-down government, it’s suffocating government, where government threatens to overwhelm the private sector. As government intervenes in more areas of the economy, as Obama’s bureaucrats extend their span of control over the economy (think General Motors), we have a certain process taking place. Charles Koch in September in Wall Street Journal observed: “Put simply, cronyism is remaking American business to be more like government. It is taking our most productive sectors and making them some of our least.”

    This didn’t start when Barack Obama assumed office. The process was already in place. But it has accelerated under the current president. Not by accident, but by design.

    Most people worry about deficits and debt. But do you think President Obama is truly concerned about huge deficits year after year, with many more predicted? These huge deficits are not a bug in the program. They’re a feature. The point of the deficits is to create a crisis that makes it necessary to raise taxes. Government grows again.

    Yes, President Obama inherited a tough economy when he took office nearly four years ago. But, according to the official record-keepers, the recession ended in the summer of 2009. Does it feel like the recession is over?

    Do you remember “Recovery Summer?”

    Here’s a news report: “Vice President Joe Biden today will kick off the Obama administration’s Recovery Summer, a six-week-long push designed to highlight the jobs accompanying a surge in stimulus-funded projects.”

    What year was that? 2010. Does it seem like we’re in recovery?

    Now David Axelrod denies that there was such a claim.

    George Will accurately diagnosed the problem two years ago: “We can’t tolerate any more of the Obama cure.”