Benghazi investigation continues

I spoke to Fox News this week about the ongoing investigation into the Benghazi attack. You can read the article and watch a video clip here.

Separately, the Nunes Digest is updated for your weekend reading here.

Talking ObamaCare, Benghazi, and Iran

I’d like to share links with you to some of my recent media appearances: 

·         TV interview with Sean Hannity on ObamaCare: here

·         TV interview with Jake Tapper on ObamaCare: here

·         TV interview with Megyn Kelly on the Benghazi attack: here

·         Radio interview with Ray Appleton and John Batchelor on the Iran nuclear deal: here

You can find links to other interviews as well as this week’s updated Nunes Digest on my website here.

Talking Benghazi with Chris Daniel today at 3:00 PST

I will be on the Chris Daniel radio show today at 3:00 pm PST to discuss the investigation into the Benghazi attack. You can listen on KMJ 580 AM here. I also discussed this issue on Fox and Friends here, and before that on Special Report here.

There is no fixing ObamaCare

Yesterday President Obama announced yet another major change to ObamaCare, allowing insurance companies to reinstate policies that ObamaCare itself forced them to cancel. This adds to a fast-growing list of ObamaCare “fixes” that were unilaterally decreed by the Obama administration, including the delay of the employer mandate and a slew of short-term exemptions to various ObamaCare rules that were awarded to select companies and unions.

Consider the current situation: millions of people who were told they could keep their healthcare plans have had those plans cancelled; millions more are unable to sign up for new plans on the malfunctioning website of the ObamaCare exchanges even though they will soon be fined if they don’t somehow get a plan; those who do manage to access the exchanges are realizing they must get coverage for unnecessary services such as maternity care for men; and businesses have downgraded workers from full-time to part-time status in order to avoid ObamaCare mandates.   

My friends, this is no way to run a government. The president cannot purport to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy, throw people off their healthcare plans, drown businesses in a sea of impossible regulations, and then assume the authority to enforce, not enforce, or change the law at will. This does grievous harm to individual Americans, to the healthcare system, and to our tradition of governance based on the rule of law. We live in a constitutional republic, not an autocracy where the law is whatever the monarch says it is.  

The Obama administration’s mania for controlling the healthcare sector has created a crisis so profound that even convinced ObamaCare supporters in the president’s own party are speaking out. But the damage cannot be repaired by more administrative fixes. Democrats can still protect ObamaCare in Congress, but their willingness to do so is weakening with every new ObamaCare disaster. We must continue to chip away at this overreaching, ill-conceived law until it is repealed entirely and replaced with free-market reforms that work. For reform ideas that some colleagues and I have proposed, see here.

Separately, I appeared on Fox News’ Special Report yesterday to discuss the investigation into the attack on Benghazi. You can watch the video here.    

Interview on Benghazi with KMJ’s Chris Daniel at 3:00 PST

I’ll be speaking with KMJ’s Chris Daniel today at 3:00 pm PST about a letter I sent to Speaker Boehner regarding the investigation into the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. You can listen to the Chris Daniel show here, and you can read the letter here. For more information, see:

·         CNN article and video here.

·         Fox News Special Report video here, and a Special Report panel discussion (beginning at the 22:40 mark) here.

·         Daily Beast article by Eli Lake here.

ObamaCare's wretched rollout

Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), testified to the Ways and Means Committee this week on the Obama administration’s disastrous rollout of the ObamaCare exchanges and their malfunctioning website. Here are some examples of how her answers to my questions contradicted her previous statements: 

·         Ms. Tavenner’s conversation with Rep. Pitts during her August 1, 2013 testimony to Congress (Note that Rep. Pitts asked her about the ObamaCare exchanges, not the data hub):

Rep. Pitts: “Do the contractors who HHS is paying to build these exchanges have certain targets or milestones that they have to meet?”

Ms. Tavenner: “Absolutely.”

Rep. Pitts: “Can you tell us today that every contractor has met these targets and is on time?”

Ms. Tavenner: “Yes sir, I can.”

Ms. Tavenner’s answer to my question about that conversation: “If I remember the questions correctly, what Congressman Pitts was asking me related to the hub, and the hub was progressing on time and on schedule, [it] still is. The hub has actually operated pretty much flawlessly, and most of the questions were around the hub.”

 

·        Ms. Tavenner’s written testimony submitted for her October 29, 2013 appearance before the Ways and Means Committee: “CMS has a track record of successfully overseeing the many contractors our programs depend on to function. Unfortunately, a subset of those contracts for HeathCare.gov have not met expectations.”

Ms. Tavenner’s answer to my question about that testimony: “I don’t think I said that [the problem with HealthCare.gov] was due to a subset of contractors.”

To sum up: Ms. Tavenner told Congress on August 1, 2013 – just two months before the exchanges became operational – that all the contractors creating the exchanges were meeting their targets and were on time. Then for her October 29 appearance before Congress, she submitted written testimony blaming the critical problems with the exchanges and the website on a subset of contractors. When I asked her about that, she denied having said it. Additionally, when asked by me and several other congressmen how many people have managed to get through all the HealthCare.gov glitches and actually enroll in the exchanges, Ms. Tavenner refused to answer, saying CMS would not release those numbers until mid-November.

Just for fun, let’s end with one more quote, this one from President Obama himself:

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

For more on Ms. Tavenner’s testimony and the ObamaCare rollout, listen to my interview with John Batchelor here. And don’t forget to check the Nunes Digest for your weekend reading here.

The Nunes Digest returns

The Nunes Digest, which was on hiatus during the government shutdown, is back in operation. Click here for your weekend news reading.

Shutdown aftermath

During our recent government crisis, I argued that the strategy of defunding ObamaCare through government spending bills would succeed in shutting down the government but would not succeed in ending or delaying ObamaCare. Now that the strategy has played out with little success, the Wall Street Journal – America’s largest conservative newspaper – offers this assessment:

For weeks [Senator Ted] Cruz scolded his fellow Republicans as the "surrender caucus" and closet supporters of ObamaCare because they wouldn't support his strategy to tie a vote to fund the government to defunding ObamaCare. His GOP colleagues thought the Cruz strategy was futile, and politically dumb, as it proved to be. Yet now even Mr. Cruz is admitting that there are limits to what Republicans can achieve when they control only one house of Congress. Maybe he's learning, or maybe his earlier accusations were, well, less than sincere.

Speaking of admissions, one of the ringleaders of the shutdown caucus conceded Wednesday that he always knew ObamaCare couldn't be defunded this year. "Well, everybody understands that we're not going to be able to repeal this law until 2017 and that we have to win the Senate and win the White House," Michael Needham of the Heritage Action political operation told Fox News.

That's also true, but wait. If the defund cause was always futile as some of us argued, why spend weeks pursuing a strategy he knew would fail? And why run ads declaring the opposite, as Heritage Action did, in Congressional districts held by Republicans who actually oppose ObamaCare? Mr. Needham and his allies claim to be tribunes of the people, but they're the ones who treated the public like rubes by misleading it about what was politically possible.

Rich Lowry, editor of the most widely read conservative magazine, National Review, makes a similar argument:

. . . [T]he defunders gave Sen. Harry Reid the shutdown confrontation that he was more than happy to fight, because he knew it would be such a potent partisan tool for his side. The defunders stormed the barricades at their strongest point. They exhibited no willingness to distinguish among bad options or appreciation for what was really achievable.

At best, their approach was a high-risk, low-reward strategy. As it turns out, there wasn't even any reward.

 

. . . Sen. Ted Cruz, the very able point man for the defunders, kept the strategy afloat longer than most people would have expected, but even he could never explain persuasively the path from a shutdown to the desired end of a signing ceremony in the White House defunding the president’s signature piece of legislation.

With the shutdown behind us, it’s worth considering which steps conservatives should now take in our fight for smaller, more effective government.

As for ObamaCare, I have warned for years that the program would be disastrous. Its awful rollout was predictable and inevitable. In my opinion, instead of trying to repeal ObamaCare through legislative gimmicks that are doomed to fail, Congress needs to develop free-market alternatives that will dramatically improve healthcare without relying on heavy-handed government intervention. Along with representatives in the House and Senate, I have proposed an initiative – the Patient’s Choice Act – that would achieve these goals. I am encouraging my colleagues in Congress either to support this act or present their own proposals to replace ObamaCare.

We must also continue our fight against the ruinous debt that jeopardizes our economy and our children’s future. The Congressional Budget Office now predicts that American debt will exceed 100 percent of our annual economic output in less than 25 years. The 75-year projections are even more alarming. Paying these bills would require an amount of money equal to the combined 2009 gross domestic product – every single dollar – of the entire planet. Once again, I believe the best strategy is not to rely on legislative tricks, but to convince the American people that we conservatives have a responsible plan to balance the budget, reduce our debt, and reform entitlement programs that are careening toward insolvency.

For more information on the end of the shutdown, listen to my conversation with conservative, nationally syndicated talk radio host John Batchelor here.

Latest on the shutdown

I’d like to share a few recent interviews in which I explain my position on the shutdown – that we need to repeal ObamaCare, but that the shutdown strategy cannot achieve that goal. I discussed my views with Chris Daniel here, and yesterday evening I talked with John Batchelor here.

Additionally, if you missed it, see my interview with National Review here.

The shutdown continues

The government shutdown has entered its second week. As you may know, I have fought hard to repeal ObamaCare, which I believe is disastrous for the American economy and for our healthcare system. However, I am critical of the strategy that brought us to this point – I have long believed that this strategy would result in a shutdown but would not achieve its goal of dismantling ObamaCare.   

With that in mind, I wanted to share a few links related to the current situation: 

·         John Batchelor and I discuss the shutdown here.

·         John Batchelor discusses the ObamaCare rollout and the shutdown with Victor Davis Hanson and Larry Kudlow here.

·         National Review interviews me on the shutdown here.   

Goverment shutdown update

I wanted to share my views with you on the government shutdown. I strongly oppose ObamaCare, and I have voted to repeal or defund it around forty times. I also have argued that the Republicans’ current political strategy would result in a government shutdown but would not succeed in dismantling ObamaCare – essentially the worst of both worlds.

I will be discussing the shutdown today on America’s News HQ around 10:30 am PST and on Justice with Judge Jeanine around 6:25 pm PST – both on Fox News. For more information about my thoughts on this issue, please see the NewsMax article here, the Fresno Bee blogpost here, and my recent appearance on CNN here.

Nunes intern opportunities

Intern positions are available now in my Visalia district office, and I am seeking applications for Washington, D.C. interns who can begin in January 2014.

If you know someone who is interested in politics, wants to gain professional experience, and excels in a fast-paced environment, please pass along this message.

Interns provide critical staff support functions such as organizing events, conducting research, and helping with special projects. The application process is ongoing for both part-time and full-time positions.   

All prospective interns must have a high school diploma and must be enrolled or have recently graduated from a college or university. I have positions available in Visalia for fall, winter, and spring, while my Washington office is seeking applications for winter and spring only. Applications can be downloaded from my website here. 

If you have questions about my intern program, please call (559) 733-3861.

 

Separately, take a look at the updated Nunes Digest here, and watch a good, short video on tax reform here.

 

Syria update

Dear Friends,

Today Congress is continuing to discuss possible U.S. military action in Syria. The Senate is likely to vote on authorizing the use of force in the middle of this week, with a House vote to follow later in the week or early next week. Meanwhile, I am working with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin on a bipartisan, bicameral bill that would oppose the use of force at this time. You can read a short update on my efforts here and in the following write-up at National Review Online:

Representative Devin Nunes (Calif.)
Nunes, a member of the House’s right flank who is opposed to military intervention, is working with Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is also opposed, to urge Congress to pursue a diplomatic response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Nunes, like McCarthy, comes from a Western district that’s deeply skeptical of the president, but he doesn’t want to ignore the civil war. Rather, he’d like the administration to come up with a long-term diplomatic strategy for the whole region. He and Manchin both hope that anti-war Democrats and conservative critics can jointly seek a third way on Syria.

Republican hawks are worried that the Nunes-Manchin proposal could peel away support for a strike, but no one knows at this point how much support their proposed resolution might garner. In the meantime, keep an eye on Nunes as he works the halls of the Capitol. If his plan gathers steam with conservatives, it could kill the White House’s hopes of winning an authorization for war. House Democrats, who are hardly rushing to support a strike, could be tempted to sign on, and House Republicans would be able to tell constituents that they have a plan to deal with Assad, even though they’re not for war. “If Obama’s resolution is defeated, you may see members from both parties rally behind this kind of legislation,” predicts one House Republican aide.

 

ObamaCare's flexible timeline

Just before the long fourth of July weekend, the Obama administration revealed in a little-read blog post that it would delay the employer mandate – a major element of ObamaCare – for one year. The administration had previously suspended other ObamaCare stipulations, and had offered more than a thousand “waivers” that temporarily exempted select companies, unions, and even entire states from various ObamaCare regulations.    

At an August 1 Ways and Means hearing, I asked Health and Human Services official Gary Cohen about other possible delays in ObamaCare. You can view the exchange here. Here’s a transcript:

Devin Nunes: Mr. Cohen, do you foresee any additional ObamaCare provisions that may not be ready for implementation?

Gary Cohen: No.  

That was Mr. Cohen’s entire answer. So you can imagine my surprise just eleven days later when the Obama administration announced it would delay until 2015 ObamaCare’s limit on out-of-pocket costs.

Nancy Pelosi famously said we’d have to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. Well, now we’re finding out. They promised us this:

 

 

Instead, as Democrat Senator Max Baucus observed, we’re getting this:  
 

 

 

 

 

Odds and ends for your weekend reading

 

I’d like to draw your attention to a short video on the misguided policies and fiscal irresponsibility that are hobbling the state of California. As Victor Davis Hanson, Joel Kotkin, and other analysts explain, these problems are severe, but it’s not too late to change direction and save the Golden State from economic ruin. To watch the video, click here.

As the video notes, environmental regulations are a big part of the problem. Unfortunately, in his new global warming initiative, President Obama proposes intensifying these kinds of economically destructive policies. I discuss the president’s plans in an article on National Review Online available here. I also share my thoughts here on the president’s offer of corporate tax cuts for more government spending.       

On another note, I’d like to congratulate my alma mater, Liberty Elementary School, and its students, teachers, and board, for kicking off the school year yesterday at a brand new campus. I recently attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Tulare school’s new facility, where it looked like the Liberty Lions are in for a great year.

 

 

Finally, I’d like to thank readers for the boost in traffic to the revamped Nunes Digest. Updated on Fridays, the Digest is a compendium of the week’s notable news stories. To see the Digest, go to my website homepage here.     

 

Big Green Strikes Again

Yesterday I participated in a forum in Sonora convened by my colleague, Congressman Tom McClintock, on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed listing of the Sierra Nevada Yellow-legged Frog and the Yosemite Toad as endangered species. Around 400 people turned out for the event, with the vast majority expressing opposition to USFW’s action.

 

With the listing, 2 million acres of land will be designated as a critical habitat for these amphibians. This action stands to drastically limit recreational and business activities in this enormous area, including timber harvesting, cattle grazing, fishing, hunting, mining, ranching, rafting, hiking, cross-country-skiing, snowmobiling, snow-shoeing, and eco-tourism, among others.

This decision will damage local economies and local communities in exchange for little if any benefit. There is no clear evidence that human activity has caused any decline in either of these species, or that the proposed designations will arrest any projected decline in their populations. 

In other words, the proposed habitat has a low probability of improving populations of a low-value species, but there’s absolute certainty it will cost human beings their jobs and their freedom to enjoy this country’s natural treasures.  

Here once again, we see the environmental movement colluding with government to harass hard-working Americans engaged in productive business or harmless recreation. This decision is a travesty. But in light of the on-going damage wrought by the pernicious alliance of Big Government and Big Green – including the man-made drought that is plaguing farmers throughout the San Joaquin Valley – I expect this destructive action won’t raise many objections in either Sacramento or the White House. 

Young Fresno pilot enters the record books

 

At a luncheon hosted by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central California today, I had the honor of introducing and presenting an honorary Congressional resolution to Jack Wiegand, an extraordinary young man from Fresno who recently became the youngest person to fly solo around the world. During the event, the 21 year old shared photo slides from his trip, which lasted 59 days and covered 21,000 nautical miles across twelve countries. Congratulations to Jack on his incredible accomplishment.

Grilling the IRS

Photo Credit: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Congress’ Ways and Means Committee held a hearing today with acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller to investigate IRS abuses against conservative groups. One of the revelations concerned a question that IRS official Lois Lerner was asked during her May 10 appearance on a conference panel. In response to a question from Celia Roady, who was sitting in the audience, Lerner for the first time publicly revealed that the IRS had targeted conservative groups.   

Responding to my questioning during today’s hearing, Steven Miller admitted that Roady’s question to Lerner was orchestrated in advance. Note that just two days before that, Lerner had appeared before the Ways and Means Committee and never mentioned the targeting of conservatives. Instead of admitting these abuses to Congress, Lerner and Miller apparently believed the impact of the abuses would be reduced if they were first revealed during a conference panel, in response to a scripted question designed to appear spontaneous. After Miller’s testimony today, Roady admitted that her question was pre-arranged with Lerner.

You can watch my questioning of Miller here, and read about the exchange here and here.

While we made some progress today in bringing the truth to light, there are still a lot of unanswered questions, including who ordered the abuses, whether any government officials outside the IRS were involved, and why IRS representatives outright lied to Congress about this for so long.

You have not heard the end of this story. More likely, it’s just the beginning.    

Yet another Obama administration scandal

It’s recently been revealed that the Department of Justice accessed phone records from the Associated Press while investigating a national security leak. This included seizing AP phone records from the House of Representatives Press Gallery, which is often used for phone conversations between reporters and Members of Congress. I explain my views on the issue in a new article here.  

 

These investigative tactics, especially when considered together with recently revealed IRS abuses and the Obama administration’s dissembling about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, provoke serious concerns about this administration’s commitment to transparency and the rule of law.

 

Congress will continue investigating these matters, and rest assured that we will hold accountable anyone who abused the public’s trust.

The Benghazi Whitewash

Shocking testimony from Gregory Hicks, a top U.S. official in Libya during the September attack on our Benghazi consulate, makes it increasingly clear that the Obama administration misled the American people about the Benghazi assault.

All the emerging evidence shows that the administration tried to spin the Benghazi story to match its triumphant claim that al Qaeda is all but eliminated. A deadly attack on a U.S. consulate by al Qaeda-linked terrorists doesn’t fit the narrative, so the administration dismissed intelligence reports revealing that known terrorists were involved in the attack, insisting instead that it evolved out of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islamic YouTube video.  

The Weekly Standard today offers new details about Obama officials’ removal of references to al Qaeda and affiliated groups from the CIA’s initial talking points on the attack. (The magazine’s graphic showing the editing of the talking points is below.) This supports the damning findings of an interim investigative report released by five congressional committees, which found that White House and top State Department officials altered the talking points to protect the State Department from criticism; that contrary to administration claims, the talking points were not changed to protect classified information; and that pre-attack reductions in security levels at the Benghazi consulate were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, which contradicts Hillary Clinton’s statements on the issue.    

Then there is the testimony of Hicks himself. Having reported from Libya that the consulate was under terrorist attack, he described to a House committee his shock when he first heard the administration’s false narrative. After challenging its story, he was effectively demoted.

In the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, we will continue to demand an honest explanation of the Benghazi attack and a full account of what seems to be a coordinated cover-up. Four Americans were killed in Benghazi, and the American people deserve to know exactly what happened there and why they were not told the truth.     

 

Tax Reform Now!

Image by Flickr user: Enter the STory / Creative Commons

Tax Day has come and gone. But in the House Ways and Means Committee, we are continuing efforts to simplify and reduce taxes, recognizing tax reform as a vital way to jumpstart economic growth and job creation. I am developing my own proposal to revamp business taxes – explained here and here – that would spur companies to invest, expand, and hire more workers.

Why do we need tax reform?

In the past year, you probably paid unreasonably high taxes and then, like most American taxpayers, you had to pay more money for help in filing your tax forms. And of course, if you made a mistake understanding the mammoth 74,000-page tax code, you could get audited and fined.  

There is no reason our tax code has to be this complex and punitive. It frustrates taxpayers, strangles business start-ups, suppresses economic growth, and allows special interests and big business to game the system. But President Obama doesn’t seem worried; he asked for a trillion dollars of new taxes in his latest budget proposal.

The President’s proposal may be disappointing, but it’s no surprise. The Democrats’ vision of big government costs big money, and that means taxpayers are always asked to give more. President Obama tries to have it both ways, promising all kinds of new government treats to the middle class while vowing that someone else – “the wealthy” – will foot the bill.

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The middle class will not be immune to the huge taxes hidden in ObamaCare. They are not exempt from the long economic slump worsened by our indecipherable tax code. And like everyone else, they risk being subjected to huge future tax hikes that will be forced on us to tame our spiraling and unsustainable national debt.

At the risk of putting tax accountants out of business, the Ways and Means Committee aims to bring about a fair, reasonable, and simple code that taxpayers can actually understand – imagine that.      

Sequestration hits, yet America endures

You may have been expecting doomsday if you believed the Obama administration’s shrill warnings about what would happen if the federal government underwent a 2 percent budget cut. But the sequester has taken effect, and the Republic has somehow survived.

Nearly everyone agrees that the sequester – an idea that originated in the White House – was not a good way to cut spending, and it has undoubtedly involved some tough cuts. But when the Democrats demanded yet another tax hike as their price for replacing the sequester with targeted cuts, any alternative path was closed.

The good news is that the Obama administration’s forecasts of sequester doom have been exposed as empty hype. America endures – even though numerous Central Valley families with plans to visit D.C. were disappointed when the President’s office, in a cynical publicity stunt, cancelled public tours of the White House and blamed the sequester. (Miraculously, Congress has found a way to continue offering public tours of the Capitol building.) 

The bad news is that the sequester doesn’t come close to erasing the federal government’s trillion-dollar deficits, its $16 trillion national debt, or the tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities weighing down our entitlement programs. This debt bomb will overwhelm the economy unless we begin balancing the budget. When House Republicans introduce our budget next week, you’ll see our plan to do that.

Meanwhile, the Democrat-controlled Senate is also expected to unveil a budget next week – its first in four years – that will surely include the Democrats’ usual mix of imaginary spending cuts and real tax hikes.

I urge you to take a good look at both plans and decide for yourselves which one is more likely to erase the deficit, make entitlements sustainable, and put America back on the path to prosperity.

Rep. Nunes Appointed Chairman of Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade

Today, my office issued the following press release: 

Washington, D.C. – Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) today was appointed by the House Ways and Means Committee as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade.  

“It’s an honor to have been given this responsibility at a time when expanding trade is one of the vital ways to improve our sluggish economy,” said Rep. Nunes.

The Ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction over taxes, international trade, Social Security, Medicare, and various welfare programs, among other areas. The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Trade includes tariffs, import and export policies, customs, international trade rules, and commodity agreements.

“During his tenure on the Committee, Rep. Nunes has been a key player in developing economic policies that help create more jobs in this country,” declared Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp. “In his new role as Trade Subcommittee Chairman, his expertise will be critical to creating new opportunities to sell American-made goods and services around the globe while holding our competitors accountable. I look forward to working closely with him to expand America’s share of the global marketplace.”

Rep. Nunes identified progress toward a U.S.-EU free trade agreement and the expansion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as priorities for his tenure as Chairman of the Trade Subcommittee. “Boosting U.S. participation in free and fair trade will benefit both the United States and our trading partners,” he said. “It will open new opportunities to promote economic growth for my constituents in California’s San Joaquin Valley, as well as for the agriculture, manufacturing, and service industries throughout America.”

Congressman Nunes, who represents parts of Tulare and Fresno Counties, also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was first elected to Congress in 2002.