Nunes Digest updated for your weekend reading

To read this weekend's Nunes Digest, click on the picture below. 

Ripping up the tax code

A recent survey of more than 500 CEOs ranked California dead last out of all fifty states for its taxation and regulation policies. This will probably come as no surprise to most Californians, who have watched a growing parade of frustrated businesses pack up their jobs and move elsewhere in recent years.

Sacramento needs to let people get back to work by passing drastic reforms that make it easier to start up, operate, and expand businesses. In Congress, I introduced a tax reform bill that would implement these sorts of reforms at the federal level. By lowering tax rates, simplifying the tax code, and eliminating loopholes and special deals, the ABC Act would allow start-ups and small businesses to compete with bigger companies on a level playing field. According to the Tax Foundation, it would also create more than a million jobs, kick-start economic growth, and raise wages. Finally, the reform would stop the flow of U.S. businesses moving overseas—not by forcing them to stay here, but by creating a fair, simple tax system that makes businesses want to stay and want to bring back the $2 trillion they are now holding overseas. Please take a look at the recent review of my plan by the Heritage Foundation, which called it "economically strong and an excellent place to start the process of reforming business taxes."

Separately, I'll be speaking about intelligence and national security issues at the API Liberty summit in Fresno on May 21. You can listen to a recent interview I did on these topics here (beginning at 16:20).

Greens strike at global warming heretics

A group of state attorneys general announced earlier this year they would investigate ExxonMobil for fraud due to company statements that cast doubt on the supposedly catastrophic threat posed by global warming.

In an amazing coincidence, the officials took action shortly after a coalition of global warming activists, including Greenpeace and the Rockefeller Family Fund, held a fateful meeting in which they discussed plans to launch a full-scale attack on ExxonMobil. The plans included actions to "delegitimize" the company, provoke divestment from it, create the public perception that the firm is a "corrupt institution," and most notably, create "scandal" through judicial actions by attorneys general and others that would force Exxon to divulge documents demonstrating its climate heresies.

One would think the attorneys general would at least pretend they were not doing the bidding of environmental extremists. But apparently they can't even be bothered to go through the motions. As the Washington Times recently reported, Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker has issued a subpoena targeting around 100 academic institutions and free-market think-tanks with alleged links to ExxonMobil. In yet another fantastic coincidence, the majority of those organizations are listed on a Greenpeace website as groups that help ExxonMobil spread climate denial—and they are even listed on the subpoena in almost the exact same order as they appear on the website!

The catastrophic predictions of global warming alarmists have a habit of not coming true, but the facts aren't important to them. They're engaging in a scorched-earth attack on a U.S. business as part of their all-out war on fossil fuels—the energy sources that gave rise to the modern American economy. We've already seen what these groups are capable of here in California, where they successfully engineered the water crisis. It should be no surprise to see them once again resort to the judicial system to achieve their goals.

Personally, I believe fuel and water are vital components of modern life that help create vibrant communities, foster economic growth, and enable food production. The extremists have a far different vision, so I will continue exposing their agenda and opposing their excesses in Congress.

Nunes Digest for your weekend reading

The Nunes Digest is updated for your weekend reading. To view the Digest, click on the picture below:

A warning from Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is struggling with a fiscal crisis stemming, to a large degree, from its unfunded pension liabilities of $46 billion. Unable to cope with this disaster, Puerto Rico's governor signed a bill allowing his government to stop paying its debt. He also declared a state of emergency at the Government Development Bank in hopes of preserving essential government services.

The results of these catastrophic pension debts should serve as a warning in the mainland United States, where state and local public pension debts are growing rapidly. It's hard to tell exactly how big these debts are because officials often disguise them by assuming unrealistic rates of investment returns and by using other accounting gimmicks. However, Standford University Professor of Finance Joshua Rauh recently calculated the total shortfall at an astounding $3.4 trillion.

If these funds begin going insolvent, the consequences would likely include pension cuts, big losses to creditors, government fiscal crises, and damaging ripple effects throughout the wider economy. In fact, some pension fund officials seem to think they don't need to stabilize their finances at all—because if they do go bust, they believe the federal government would bail them out rather than deal with the ensuing disruptions.

I'd like to impose some discipline on these officials and rid them of their fantasies of a taxpayer-funded bailout. That's why I recently reintroduced the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act in the House of Representatives. The bill would do two main things: give state and local pension funds incentives to stop using accounting tricks when reporting their liabilities, and prohibit the federal government from bailing out any of these funds.

It's not too late to instill some accountability on public pension funds. Since many are unwilling to act responsibly on their own accord, let's give them some extra motivation.

No April Fool's Day Joke: Westside Gets 5% Allocation

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced today that westside farmers will receive a minuscule 5 percent water allocation for 2016, following zero percent allocations for the previous two years. This means westside growers will continue to struggle with critical water shortages for the near future.  

Water bureaucrats will undoubtedly continue blaming the drought and global warming. But those excuses are becoming even harder to believe in light of the wet conditions brought by El Nino. So what could possibly be responsible for this crisis? The Sacramento Bee offers a hint: "Federal and state officials have throttled back their water pumping from the Delta in recent weeks because of concerns over potential harm to Delta smelt and other endangered fish species."

As you probably know, in the House of Representatives we have passed four bills in the last four years to ease federal regulations that limit Delta water pumping. Every one of our bills has died in the Senate amid opposition from Senators Boxer and Feinstein. Last December, we made a last-ditch attempt to negotiate a compromise with Senator Feinstein that would allow us to capture more water during El Nino this year - and the senator walked away.

As extreme environmentalists continue to grieve over their precious little Delta smelt - which are not even being saved by these draconian water restrictions - westside farmers will be fallowing more land. Seeing as these people feed the nation, we need to keep fighting for them - no matter how long it takes - until their water supply is fully restored.