Nov. 11, 2019
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
With the out of control national debt now $23 trillion, Congress must freeze spending
Without the Trump
tax cuts the economy could have fallen into recession, and the budget deficit
might be even worse because revenues would have taken a hit. Nonetheless, the
rising debt, now $23 trillion, is a threat to our national security and our
economy, and it must be addressed. That is why Congress should, at a minimum,
freeze spending for the next three years to allow time for revenues to catch up
with expenditures. Nearly two years have passed since the Republican Congress
passed Trump’s tax cuts; here are some key numbers from the two fiscal years
that have ended since that time. In FY 2018, federal revenues increased by
about $14 billion while spending increased by over $120 billion. In FY 2019,
revenues increased by over $130 billion while spending rose by nearly $340
billion. So the growing deficits are not the result of federal revenues dropping,
but rather Congress’s unwillingness to align spending with income.
Video: Why are Democrats impeaching Trump for temporarily withholding military assistance to Ukraine?
The President
has authority to withhold appropriated funds under law, including military assistance
to Ukraine while considering a deferral or rescission of such funds, and
Democrats want him impeached over that?
Did Yovanovitch lie about contacting committee staff about the so-called whistleblower complaint and a ‘do-not-prosecute’ list in Ukraine?
Former U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was in touch with the House Foreign
Affairs Committee two days after the anonymous CIA so-called whistleblower made
his complaint against President Donald Trump, and she admits she objected to what
she called “politically-motivated” prosecutions in Ukraine. But is that the
whole truth?
On Veterans Day, the President should correct military injustices
Americans for
Limited Government President Rick Manning: “President Trump is reportedly
considering taking executive action to disapprove of severe military
disciplinary action against a number of American servicemen who have been tried
in military court for acting to defend themselves or their fellow warriors in
contrast to dangerous, politically correct rules of engagement. It is the
sincere hope of Americans for Limited Government that the President will
correct any injustices which have been done by taking action on Veteran’s Day
to fully restore the rights and privileges of those American military men who
have been wrongly convicted. It is a
travesty when anyone is unjustly tried and convicted, but it is significantly
worse when the victim is someone who voluntarily puts themselves in harm’s way
to protect the very freedoms which they have been denied.”
With the out of control national debt now $23 trillion, Congress must freeze spending
By Rick Manning
While Democrats like to blame the Trump tax cuts for recent deficits, the fact is that federal tax revenues increased in both FY 2018 and FY 2019. Deficits grew because spending outpaced revenue growth. Rather than worsening deficits, the Trump tax cuts might actually have helped prevent larger deficits by averting a recession.
After all, the world economy is slowing; and had the U.S. economy gone into recession, then tax revenues would have almost certainly declined — and the deficits probably would have been larger.
Nonetheless, the rising debt, now $23 trillion, is a threat to our national security and our economy, and it must be addressed. That is why Congress should, at a minimum, freeze spending for the next three years to allow time for revenues to catch up with expenditures.
Nearly two years have passed since the Republican Congress passed Trump’s tax cuts; here are some key numbers from the two fiscal years that have ended since that time. In FY 2018, federal revenues increased by about $14 billion while spending increased by over $120 billion. In FY 2019, revenues increased by over $130 billion while spending rose by nearly $340 billion. So the growing deficits are not the result of federal revenues dropping, but rather Congress’s unwillingness to align spending with income.
With the national debt rising, interest on the debt is rising too. In FY 2019, interest on the debt cost taxpayers over $574 billion. Just how much is $574 billion? It is more than nine different Cabinet agencies are estimated to have spent in the last fiscal year. Those nine agencies are the Education Department, the Energy Department, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior Department, the Justice Department, the Labor Department, the State Department, and Veterans Affairs. Of course, it is important to remember that interest rates are very low right now, but that could change causing interest costs to spike.
The nation’s debt is an existential threat to the nation. Nearly a decade ago, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, declared, "The most significant threat to our national security is our debt." Obviously, the national debt has only gotten worse in the intervening years. As interest on the debt continues to consume a larger and larger portion of the budget, it will crowd out necessary spending for national priorities, including defense.
High levels of debt also slow economic growth. Part of the reason for this is that when investors put their money into government bonds, there is less money available to invest in new and growing businesses. This phenomenon may help explain why the U.S. economy has not grown faster in recent years in spite of generous tax cuts and regulatory reform.
While the national debt and interest on it is growing, we are also facing a looming gap between the funds available and the funds needed to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits. In fact, according to the latest report from the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, the Social Security trust funds will be depleted by 2035, and the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be depleted by 2026. The Trustees also project that next year, for the first time in nearly forty years, Social Security will pay out more than it will take in.
With the national debt over $23 trillion, Baby Boomers retiring, and Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds running out of money, we simply cannot afford to keep adding hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the debt. To begin to address this problem, Congress should, at least, freeze spending through 2022.
Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
Video: Why are Democrats impeaching Trump for temporarily withholding military assistance to Ukraine?
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rq-ypKMK0o
Did Yovanovitch lie about contacting committee staff about the so-called whistleblower complaint and a ‘do-not-prosecute’ list in Ukraine?
By Robert Romano
Two days after the anonymous CIA so-called whistleblower complaint was filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s office on Aug. 12, alleging President Donald Trump had leveraged military assistance to Ukraine in exchange for cooperation in investigations of any Ukrainian origins of the false allegations by intelligence agencies and the Justice Department that Trump and his campaign were Russian agents and into Ukrainian corruption, on Aug. 14, the House Foreign Affairs committee was in touch with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
But when she was questioned about Congressional contacts on Oct. 11, says U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), she was not truthful.
"I would highly suspect that this Democratic staffer's work was connected in some way to the whistleblower's effort, which has evolved into this impeachment charade," Zeldin said. "We do know that the whistleblower was in contact with [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff's team before the whistleblower had even hired an attorney or filed a whistleblower complaint even though Schiff had lied to the public originally claiming that there was no contact. Additionally, while the contents of the email from this staffer to Ambassador Yovanovitch clearly state what the conversation would be regarding, Yovanovitch, when I asked her specifically what the staffer was looking to speak about, did not provide these details."
Zeldin added: "I specifically asked her whether the Democratic staffer was responded to by Yovanovitch or the State Department. It is greatly concerning that Ambassador Yovanovitch didn't answer my question as honestly as she should have, especially while under oath."
In her testimony, Yovanovitch stated, "I alerted the State Department, because I'm still an employee, and so, matters are generally handled through the State Department… she emailed me. I alerted the State Department and, you know, asked them to handle the correspondence. And, she emailed me again and said, you know, 'Who should I be in touch with?'"
It turns out, though, that Yovanovitch had responded to the emails, obtained by Fox News, discussing when she and the staffer would meet.
But that is not the only area of Yovanovitch’s testimony that is questionable. In her opening statement, she denied giving former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko a “do-not-prosecute list,” a charge he had made in March. She even claimed that Lutsenko had retracted his claim: “As Mr. [Yuriy] Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or disseminated a ‘do not prosecute’ list is completely false — a story that Mr. Lutsenko, himself, has since retracted.”
But in the supposed retraction from an April 17 report from the Ukrainian TheBabel publication, translated by the Unian Information Agency, Lutsenko stated of his meeting with Yovanovitch, “The meeting [with the ambassador] took place in the PGO [Prosecutor General’s Office], at this very table in January 2017… She was accompanied, so was I. Mrs. Yovanovitch was interested in Vitaliy Kasko’s case. The fact was that Mr. Kasko’s mother got registered for official housing [in Kyiv], while she had never left Lviv. That had signs of abuse.”
Lutsenko says Yovanovitch objected to the Kasko case, and recalled her saying, “the criminal case discredited those who were fighting against corruption.”
Lutsenko elaborated, “I shared the details and explained that I could not open and close cases on my own. I listed some so-called anti-corruption activists under investigation. She said it was unacceptable, as it would undermine the credibility of anti-corruption activists. I took a piece of paper, put down the listed names and said: ‘Give me a do not prosecute list.’ She said: ‘No, you got me wrong.’ I said: ‘No, I didn’t get you wrong. Such lists were earlier drawn up on Bankova Street [referring to the Yanukovych administration that was ousted in 2014], and now you give new lists on Tankova Street [referring to the U.S. embassy].’ The meeting ended. I’m afraid the emotions were not very good.”
In the question and answer portion of her testimony, Yovanovitch was questioned about her exchanges with Lutsenko on this topic, where she admitted that these conversations had taken place.
The questioner stated, “Did you ever think that someone was being prosecuted wrongly because they were a good government actor, they were trying to support anticorruption initiatives?”
Yovanovitch replied, “I think there was probably a lot of politically motivated prosecution going on in Ukraine.”
The next question was: “And did you ever urge the prosecutor not to prosecute those individuals or entities?”
Yovanovitch responded, “I think there’s kind of a line there. And so, you know, conversations about you need to be sure that, you know, there’s a real case that is not politically motivated, that this isn’t just harassment and pressure, so those conversations, you know, certainly took place.”
“[W]hat we would say is that any kind of prosecution of whoever, whether they are, you know, good actors or bad actors, needs to be done according to the law… and it needs to be not politically motivated.”
Question: “And were names used?”
Yovanovitch replied, “Yeah, probably.”
Yovanovitch then recalled giving a name, “Sytnek,” of one not to prosecute. Lutsenko had mentioned “Kasko.” Which points to multiple names used, but in her testimony, Yovanovitch said, “I think we just discussed one person, Mr. Sytnek.”
Question: “Is it possible Lutsenko took that name as an example of somebody not to prosecute?
To which, Yovanovich replied, “I can't really speak for his motivations or what was in his mind.”
Yeah, probably. Lutsenko says names were given when he alleged when he says Yovanovitch gave her a do-not-prosecute list. As a result, she lost the confidence of prosecutors in Ukraine. But that’s not the only reason.
It is worth noting that the allegation by Lutsenko of a do-not-prosecute list had come shortly after Yovanovitch on March 5 called to have anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytskyi fired in a speech to the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, saying, “To ensure the integrity of anticorruption institutions, the Special Anticorruption Prosecutor must be replaced,” accusing Kholodnytskyi of corruption.
On April 1, The Hill’s Solomon reported Kholodnytskyi had reopened the office’s investigation of Burisma Holdings following former Vice President Joe Biden’s Jan. 2018 statement to the Council on Foreign Relations bragging about having the former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, Lutsenko’s predecessor, fired in March 2016 by threatening $1.2 billion of loan guarantees to then-President Petro Poroshenko.
Kholodnytskyi told Solomon, “We were able to start this case again… [But] we don’t see any result from this case one year after the reopening because of some external influence.”
As for Viktor Shokin, Lutsenko’s predecessor who former Vice President Joe Biden bragged about getting fired in 2016, he told Solomon he was removed in 2016 because of his investigation of Burisma, which Biden’s son, Hunter, served on the Board of Directors of. Shokin told Solomon he had “specific plans” to investigate including “interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.” Shokin also noted that he was not accusing the Bidens of a crime per se, citing the presumption of innocence, just that he had plans to investigate when he was fired.
Why is it every prosecutor looking at Burisma in Ukraine the federal government and the State Department end up trying to get fired? And why was Yovanovitch and the State Department denying Shokin’s visa when he sought to come to the U.S. to share his story? Yovanovitch said it was because of Shokin’s “known corrupt activities.” But does anyone really believe that?
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
On Veterans Day, the President should correct military injustices
Nov. 8, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging action by President Donald Trump to correct military injustices on Veterans Day in three cases of severe sentencing of service members:
“President Trump is reportedly considering taking executive action to disapprove of severe military disciplinary action against a number of American servicemen who have been tried in military court for acting to defend themselves or their fellow warriors in contrast to dangerous, politically correct rules of engagement.
“It is the sincere hope of Americans for Limited Government that the President will correct any injustices which have been done by taking action on Veteran’s Day to fully restore the rights and privileges of those American military men who have been wrongly convicted. It is a travesty when anyone is unjustly tried and convicted, but it is significantly worse when the victim is someone who voluntarily puts themselves in harm’s way to protect the very freedoms which they have been denied.
“President Trump examining and acting upon the cases mentioned in the November 5, 2019 letter from Representatives Louie Gohmert and Duncan Hunter, Jr. of the Congressional Warriors Caucus on Veteran’s Day would send a clear message to those who are defending our nation that they will not become victims of a politically correct system which put the lives of them and their colleagues at undue risk.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2019/11/on-veterans-day-the-president-should-correct-military-injustices/
