1. Putting the TARP Band Back Together
2. House Conservatives to Senate: Don’t START in the Lame Duck
3. FDA Set To Cut Off 17,000 Women Annually From Lifesaving Drug
4. Incoming WI Gov. Scott Walker Working to End His State’s Tail-Wags-Dog Problem
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1. Putting the TARP Band Back Together
Opinions are varied and divided over whether the tax compromise plan is worthwhile. Some see it as the best the GOP can hope to get. Others see it as the GOP settling for keeping current income tax rates while voting to raise other taxes and increase spending on unemployment benefits, a program that has become a general welfare program.
Whether you are for it or against it, I do think it is worth pointing out this morning that with few exceptions, those parties advocating the tax compromise are precisely the same parties who advocated TARP.
Last time, they told us we were going to have a Second Great Depression if we did not pass TARP. This time they tell us we will have a Double Dip Recession if we don’t pass the tax compromise.
But pay attention here to one key point.
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2. House Conservatives to Senate: Don’t START in the Lame Duck
In light of the ongoing debate in the Senate over whether to approve the Obama Administration’s New START treaty with Russia, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and I recently sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asking that they delay action until the 112th Congress can convene and review the treaty.
While we recognize that it is the role of the Senate to give advice and consent to the ratification of this treaty, it will be the role of those of us in the House of Representatives to ultimately appropriate the funding necessary to modernize our nuclear weapons complex, stockpile and arsenal, as well as to conduct oversight of the implementation of the treaty.
In light of this role, we outlined in our letter specific concerns with the treaty as it is currently written.
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3. FDA Set To Cut Off 17,000 Women Annually From Lifesaving Drug
Obama’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is due to take up the case of Avastin, a cancer drug that successfully treats some 17,000 women annually. With a coming December 17 decision, the FDA seems poised to take this drug away from these patients quite despite the fact that their doctors find the drug effective.
The most dangerous period of time in Washington D.C. is that time we call the lame duck session (I call it the zombie congress; dead men walking). It is that time when those elected officials that are about to be ingloriously shipped off home for the last time due to losing election results make a mad scramble to grab for as much as they can get.
In the case of regulatory agencies like the FDA the lame duck session is not treated in exactly the same manner, but it is sure that when congress is about to have its majority party change over with the president’s party on the losing side of the switch, regulatory agencies often try to push through favored policies before the new congress is seated and before that new congress is in a position to put any pressure on those agencies to prevent them from pushing the president’s agenda.
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4. Incoming WI Gov. Scott Walker Working to End His State’s Tail-Wags-Dog Problem
With the exception of a few races (and the state of California), the November election was about the dog getting tired of being wagged by the tail.
So, when a state like Wisconsin has unions that force-feed union propaganda down school children’s throats, try to have 86-year old volunteer crossing guards removed, threaten the state’s fiscal well being through unfunded pension liabilities, all the while attempting to engineer elections through dirty tricks, it’s only natural that taxpayers would want it cleaned up.
That’s where newly-elected Republican governor Scott Walker comes in. Walker is making plans to curtail the stranglehold that public-sector unions have on his states taxpayers, by any means legally possible.
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