Charge and Response: President Obama’s Primetime Address

Here is the GOP Conference response to the President's address last night.

Last night, President Obama issued a primetime address, telling the country he’s not going to “bore” them with the details of every plan – probably because he still doesn’t have one. Instead, the president stuck to the same class warfare rhetoric and embraced the plan put forward by Senator Harry Reid that gives him the immediate debt limit increase he wants, more budgeting gimmicks, and no reforms to restrain future spending. Below please find a rough transcript of some of the president’s claims with responses to help you correct the record.

Charge: “For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.”

Response: What were yearly deficits when Republicans were in charge have become monthly deficits under President Obama. When Republicans controlled the House from 1995 through 2006, the average annual deficit was $96 billion. While Democrats controlled the House from 2007 through 2010, average monthly deficits were $75 billion and since President Obama took office the average monthly deficit has been $111 billion.

Charge: “But today, many Republicans in the House refuse to consider this kind of balanced approach – an approach that was pursued not only by President Reagan, but by the first President Bush, President Clinton, myself, and many Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate.”

Response: President Obama is no Ronald Reagan, and the economic stats prove it. And Reagan supported a balanced budget amendment: “Only a constitutional amendment will do the job. We’ve tried the carrot, and it failed. With the stick of a Balanced Budget Amendment, we can stop government squandering, overtaxing ways, and save our economy.” – Ronald Reagan, April 29, 1982

Charge: “Most Americans, regardless of political party, don’t understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don’t get.”

Response: President Obama and congressional Democrats already ended Medicare as we know by cutting $575 billion from the program. Instead of extending the solvency of Medicare, Democrats slashed Medicare spending in order to help pay for Democrats government takeover of healthcare.

Additionally, the president’s calls for job-killing tax hikes will do nothing to solve the problem but everything to ensure job creators sacrifice even more with higher taxes. In total, the tax increases on corporate jet owners, oil producers, and the “millionaires and billionaires” who earn more than $250,000 a couple, would raise revenue by approximately $855 billion—about 6.6 percent of the $12.8 trillion in debt the president will add over the next ten years.

Charge: President Obama now: “Understand – raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up…. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it.”

Response: That’s a sharp contrast from what then-Senator Obama, said in 2006 when he voted against raising the debt ceiling: “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…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.”

Now the president has threatened to veto any debt limit increase that doesn’t go through 2013, putting his next election over protecting our next generation. Earlier this year, the Administration demanded a clean debt limit increase with no spending cuts. Now the president is demanding an increase that will last more than seventeen months to get him through the next election. According to economist Keith Hennessy, “Over the last twenty years Congress and the President have acted 44 times to increase the debt limit. Ten of those 44 times lasted more than a year. The other 34 were for less than a year.”

Charge: “Keep in mind that under a balanced approach, the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all… What we’re talking about under a balanced approach is asking Americans whose incomes have gone up the most over the last decade – millionaires and billionaires – to share in the sacrifice everyone else has to make.”

Response: The president continues to call for huge tax increases on individuals and small business owners earning above $200,000 for an individual or $250,000 for a couple—or as the president calls them, “millionaires and billionaires.” According to the president’s budget estimate, this would increase taxes by $709 billion over ten years. Nearly 75 percent of America’s small businesses file their taxes as individuals. Half of those small businesses would suffer from a higher tax burden under the President’s proposed tax increases, limiting their ability to hire more workers. As the National Federal of Independent Businesses said when the same tax hike was delayed until 2012, “Raising the top marginal tax rate would have hit small businesses the hardest just when the country needs them to invest, expand and hire new workers.”

Charge: “We have tried to live by the words that Jefferson once wrote: “Every man cannot have his way in all things…Without this mutual disposition, we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.”

Response: If we want to quote Jefferson, let’s take a look at all of the other quotes that warn us about public debt and his wish that the constitution included strict debt limitations:

• “I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.” – Thomas Jefferson letter to Virginia Senator John Taylor, 1789
• “But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789

Debt Ceiling Increase in Exchange for Budget Cuts?

A bill will be considered on the House Floor next week (final details pending). It will contain spending reforms in exchange for a debt limit increase. An overview of the plan is below.

The Current Plan

The current plan cuts total spending by $111 billion in FY 2012. The savings are divided as follows: reduce non-security discretionary spending below 2008 levels, which saves $76 billion; $35 billion cut to non-veterans, non-Medicare, non-Social Security mandatory spending; defense budget at President’s Budget level.

Total federal spending is scaled back based on the glide path for the fiscal years below:

• 2012, 22.5% of GDP
• 2013, 21.7% of GDP
• 2014, 20.8% of GDP
• 2015, 20.2% of GDP
• 2016, 20.2% of GDP
• 2017, 20.0% of GDP
• 2018, 19.7% of GDP
• 2019, 19.9% of GDP
• 2020, 19.9% of GDP
• 2021, 19.9% of GDP

A final component of the plan allows an increase in the debt limit but requires the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment before granting the increase.

Distorted Water 2011

Please check out the latest version of Distorted Water. In it I tackle many of the distortions and false statements that have been levied against the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act, H.R. 1837, by radicals in the environmental movement and their allies in the drive-by media.

Senate Democrats Declare Water War

by NUNES STAFF

Last week, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing about the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act. The bill, which is co-authored by valley Republicans Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, and Jeff Denham, generated strong opposition from Democrat lawmakers but has the backing of a re-invigorated Republican Conference and its leadership.

Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy made a rare appearance at the subcommittee hearing in support of the bill and reminded his colleagues that Governor Brown had declared an end to California’s drought. He continued that California’s snow-pack had reached 165% this year but that farmers would not get 100% of their water. “That’s like a company having its best profits ever but telling its employees they will only get 80% of their paycheck,” said McCarthy. “That’s unacceptable.”

Nunes and his allies are seeking to achieve several major changes to the management of California’s water infrastructure. Their plan includes the restoration of a bipartisan agreement known as the Bay-Delta Accord. It also revamps the San Joaquin River restoration, replacing it with an economically responsible and environmentally feasible fishery— saving taxpayers a billion dollars.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove), who had touted the Delta Accord as a model agreement in the 1990s, shifted position dramatically and equated it as a declaration of war with no hope of Senate passage. Shortly after the hearing, California’s Senior Senator Dianne Feinstein told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I strongly oppose this bill, which I believe is dramatic overkill."

During his opening statement, Garemendi decried the bill’s pre-emption of state law saying “this little piece of genius” would end collaboration between state and federal water projects. The bill “makes it virtually impossible,” he said. Westlands representative Tom Birmingham took aim at Garamendi’s interpretation of the bill and corrected him on historic and current operation of the projects. Federal law already pre-empts state law concerning project operations on the Trinity, he reminded the committee, and there was no similar outrage when that pre-emption occurred.

When asked about opposition from Senate Democrats, Nunes said he was disappointed but not surprised. “This is a declaration of war on the only meaningful plan before Congress to solve the San Joaquin Valley water crisis.” Nunes continued that if “California’s senators would change their tune if Congress imposed a 70% reduction on deliveries from Hetch Hetchy. Senator Feinstein would no doubt be happy to hand the City of San Francisco’s water over unconditionally since she thinks it will save the Delta.”

Feinstein transmitted her official opposition to the bill just days after attending a fundraiser at Harris Ranch, which is located in the San Joaquin Valley—only miles from water starved farmland. According to those in attendance, Feinstein committed to working on a solution. “I don’t see how anyone with valley interests in mind can trust them, which is why I have been talking to Senate Republicans,” said Nunes.

Nunes also sought to remind critics that there are many options on the table to gain passage of legislation and that he would be leveraging all of them to aid the San Joaquin Valley. This will undoubtedly keep the bill’s opponents on their toes. House Appropriators have already stripped funding for the San Joaquin River Settlement from the federal budget, a major blow to the plan which is already off schedule and underfunded.

Once lawmakers had completed their opening remarks, testimony was received from local water districts, as well as state and federal representatives. Obama and Brown Administration officials opposed the bill, maintaining their view that the Delta pumps were damaging the ecosystem, impacting a number of species including the smelt, salmon and killer whale. Administration officials also touted the importance of current policies, which they described as balanced, to protect the Delta ecosystem.

Advocates of H.R. 1837 were quick to note, however, that no new evidence was provided to support these conclusions. The disclosure of scientific evidence to support pumping restrictions was made necessary by a U.S. District Court ruling in May. The court determined that the government had failed to base its decisions on science and sent regulators back to the drawing table.

Kole Upton, a Madera farmer and former San Joaquin River Settlement negotiator, rejected Interior’s testimony that current policies were balanced and called for the replacement of the current river restoration plan as envisioned by H.R. 1837. Upton explained that farmers were being subject to a slow death due to water diversions and that broken promises related to the San Joaquin river deal convinced him to seek changes.

The Kern County Water Agency also offered testimony, indicating that H.R. 1837 would restore stability to the Delta and improve water supplies. The agency’s representative, James Beck, said that all water contractors, state and federal, would be protected under the proposed law— supporting Nunes’ contention that his goal is not to harm any water contractors. This testimony undermined one of the key arguments made by bill opponents, which suggest that a small minority would benefit under the bill.

When asked about the allegation that his bill would come at the expense of other water contractors and the environment, Nunes was dismissive. “They are attempting to deceive the public which is the only way they can survive. They think they can obstruct this legislation by dividing California’s embattled water districts and hiding their own financial interests. It won’t work.”

Nunes then described an alliance of convenience between environmental activists, a small number of Delta farmers and salmon fishermen, indicating that each will likely be represented at an additional hearing called by committee Democrats who are attempting to slow passage of the bill. “They have all benefited from the status quo. Delta farmers have been able to hide from reality on their islands, fishermen have filled their pockets with tax dollars, and radical environmentalists have assumed greater control over the state’s water,” said Nunes.

Delta farmers may fear the upending of current water management policies because those policies have to-date placed the financial and operational burdens for Delta restoration on others – primarily south of Delta water contractors. Under current law, little attention has been paid to this small but vocal group of farmers who enjoy unlimited access to the Delta’s fresh water supplies. During panel questioning, Rep. Jeff Denham underscored the uneven burden placed on water contractors by pointing out that San Francisco secures its water via pipeline from Hetch Hetchy, completely bypassing the Delta. This has allowed Bay Area activists to escape the consequences of their actions while forcing others to make sacrifices.

Similarly, elements of the west’s small sport and commercial salmon fishing industries have benefited from the status quo. The 1,722 permit holding fishermen collected hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars from 2007-2009. Nunes calls this money a payoff for their environmental activism, which was enacted under Democratic supermajorities. Several recipients made out with more than half a million dollars, with 213 fishermen walking away with six figure checks. And while some have claimed that the industry is 100% unemployed, regulators documented deliveries of sardine, mackerel, anchovy, squid and other species, effectively refuting the allegation that salmon fishermen are unable to work.

Nunes says that despite controversy generated by these groups, House leaders remain unfazed. A markup and full House consideration will likely follow this summer. Meanwhile, San Joaquin Valley residents have benefited from significant exposure beyond the greater Central Valley. The region’s water crisis has been highlighted nationally and is followed by the Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity and others. In 2009, the Wall Street Journal opined that Central Valley farmers are California’s new endangered species. This prognosis may change if House Republicans succeed.

Food Shortages in America?

by DEVIN NUNES

It’s time to do something about rising food prices. As governments around the world move to secure grain supplies, the United States is pursuing policies that take more farmland out of production.

The man-made drought in California is one example. But there are others. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a system that pays farmers not to farm, is another. Originally intended to address serious problems with soil erosion and environmental degradation, the CRP has grown to consume more than 30 million acres of American farmland. No crops can be grown on this ground.

Under normal circumstances, the United States may be able to afford the luxury of idling farmland that could otherwise be producing food. But we are not facing normal circumstances. In fact, according to USDA and other agencies, we are facing the real possibility of grain shortages. This means higher food costs and serious economic damage.

For this reason, I and others are urging the President to allow willing farmers with arable land to exit from the CRP. See the letter I sent to President Obama, with the support of 25 House colleagues here.

Sensational Disaster Coverage Harms U.S. Interests

by DEVIN NUNES

With all of the sensational news coverage surrounding Japan’s nuclear crisis, I thought it was time that someone begin a rational discussion.

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and unprecedented tsunami that followed has caused mass devastation and enormous human suffering in Japan. Thousands are dead and authorities are struggling to deliver essential services to prevent further loss of life. The facts on the ground are horrific by any standard and recovery will take considerable time.

As a result of the nuclear emergency, the crisis is ongoing and it is important for U.S. nuclear safety officials and public health agencies to closely monitor the situation. Americans are rightly concerned and deserve a factual reporting of the crisis. Unfortunately, we are instead being bombarded by sensational headlines and commentary that stretches the bounds of scientific reality to the point of utter fiction. Based on media reporting, one might reasonably assume that the embattled Japanese reactors were soon to engulf the island nation in a nuclear explosion – sending radioactive debris akin to Chernobyl into the atmosphere. But this is not a scientific possibility; it will not happen.

While the news accounts we are witnessing are highly troubling and downright frightening, there is no threat to the West Coast of the United States nor is there a threat to the lives of the Japanese people who have been evacuated to safe distances during the crisis. Let me briefly outline why:

• All of the reactors that are in a state of nuclear emergency have been shut down. They automatically shut down when a seismic event occurs.
• The crisis is resulting from the loss of primary power due to the earthquake, as well as the loss of backup generators due to the tsunami. Reactor cooling was not functioning properly, resulting in the threat of a meltdown at several reactors.
• If the reactors experience a core meltdown because they cannot be adequately cooled, the containment system will protect the human population. When Three Mile Island experienced a partial meltdown in 1979, the containment system was almost entirely undamaged with less than 5/8 of an inch of shielding impacted.
• Assuming the containment system partially fails (or fails entirely) the resulting radiation will not consume Japan and will not expose the West Coast of the United States. At this point, some reports indicate there could be damage to one of the reactors containment structures.
• The radiation levels currently reported are not lethal. They have spiked within close range of the reactors but have also quickly dissipated. 
• The containment system, composed of steel and concrete, has not been destroyed despite the magnitude of the earthquake and the impact of the tsunami. 
• Steam is being vented from the reactor core to reduce pressure but that steam does not carry lethal radiation and it is quickly dissipated. 
• Fires and explosions at the plant are serious but they were not nuclear explosions, nuclear fires, or radioactive explosions. They were the result of hydrogen buildup – which is a byproduct of emergency cooling efforts.

Clearly the situation remains fluid and in the final analysis there will be important lessons learned from the crisis. However, our long-term economic growth and the goal of energy independence will require large scale deployment of state-of-the-art nuclear energy facilities. That is what I propose in A Roadmap for America’s Energy Future – the all of the above solution to U.S. energy needs.

You can follow updates on the crisis in Japan via the International Atomic Energy Agencies website http://www.iaea.org/.

You can also monitor the U.S. energy policy debate on my new Facebook page.