OCR Text |
Show The Garfield County Insider Page 8 POLITICS BENNETT statement regarding the president’s budget Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) today issued the following statement regarding President Obama’s outline of his administration’s budget. “Within the first few weeks of his administration, the president has passed a spending bill of one trillion dollars and unveiled a budget plan of over four trillion, which is projected to create a deficit level that our country has not seen since World War II. While I appreciate the president’s good faith effort in presenting a transparent budget, I fear that his budget focuses too heavily on taxing and spending. “Small businesses and entrepreneurs are the backbone of our economy and increasing taxes will only stifle rather than foster growth. As Americans are finding ways to make cuts in the family budget, our government must also find ways to restrain from spending beyond our means. “I am pleased, however, that the president recognizes the need to tackle the growing entitlement spending. Reducing entitlement spending is the real solution to the deficit problem, and I have both a Social Security and health care fix that will save our country money and improve the lives of Americans without increasing taxes. “Expanding the government and increasing taxes and spending will not solve the financial challenges our country faces. As Congress reviews the details of the president’s budget, I hope we will keep in mind the long-term impacts.” Alarmed by AMERICA’s $3 Trillion Budget and Growing Deficit? Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said the $3 trillion-plus budget President Obama unveiled today is unacceptable to middle-class families and small businesses that are cutting back and looking to the nation’s capital to do the same. “We cannot tax and spend our way out of this economic crisis,” Hatch said. “Washington needs to tighten its fiscal belt, rein in the runaway federal deficit and bring real relief to Americans struggling to make ends meet, pay their mortgages and keep their jobs. Unfortunately, this reckless budget will swamp Americans in a morass of debt and mortgage the future of our children and grandchildren.” Hatch noted the debt Americans must repay for the Democrats’ spending during the last month alone is equal to the debt the nation tallied from 1789 to 1978. He further took exception to the massive proposed tax increases in the budget on U.S. businesses, which would be passed on to consumers and workers – the very people the president is claiming to want to help most with this budget. “Raising taxes during a serious recession makes about as much sense as giving a diabetic a box of chocolates.” Hatch said. “Herbert Hoover raised taxes during a serious recession and it led to record unemployment and the Great Depression. History need not repeat itself if we pay heed to history.” The budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 is now estimated at $1.7 trillion. The president’s spending proposals would double nation’s total debt over the next five years. While the president projects to cut the one-year deficit in 2013 to $533 billion, Hatch noted, that still amounts to the worst deficit in our nation’s history before this year. Hatch also took aim at the administration’s proposal to hike taxes on American businesses, the very entities that save and create permanent jobs, by a whopping $1.63 trillion over 10 years. “This budget declares war on American jobs and on the ability of American businesses to save and create them,” Hatch warned. For example, the senator pointed out the administration’s plans to levy a $646 billion tax on American business over a decade – the largest single tax increase in world history. Listed as “Climate Revenues” in the president’s plan, Hatch pointed out, this job-killing idea boosters are calling “cap-and-trade auction” could put a chill on any hope of economic recovery. “For the first time ever, we are poised on the precipice of taxing the industrial output of the United States,” the senator continued. “Democrats say that is fine because the proceeds from this tax will go to ‘compensate the public.’ How are we going to compensate the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of workers employed by these industries when they lose their jobs because their companies can no longer compete as a result of this new tax?” Equally egregious, Hatch added, is the provision in the plan to create a 10-year, $634 billion “reserve fund” to be used as a down payment on the Europeanization of U.S. health care – an overhaul that could cost as much as $1 trillion over 10 years and would be financed, in part, by reducing payments to insurers, hospitals and physicians and reductions to Medicare Advantage plans. “We have already spent more than $200 billion on health care in the Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and stimulus bills combined, and there’s another $200 billion for health care in the Omnibus spending bill,” Hatch said. “We need to ask ourselves a simple question: How big is this down payment and what will be the final cost? And we need a straight answer to those questions. “Words matter, especially when they are from the leader of the free world” the senator added. “Despite the president’s incessant promises of bipartisanship and fiscal responsibility, he is proposing to spend still more taxpayer dollars at an astounding rate. That is unacceptable. I look forward to joining with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to craft meaningful and fiscally responsible reform legislation.” YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES: MARCH 5, 2009 the Hill” “Words fr” om Elected Officials of “YOUR out it. If you don’t like it, then do something ab 2nd District Congressman Jim Matheson (D) Toll-Free Number 1 (877) 677-9743 http://matheson.house.gov/ 73rd District Rep. Mike Noel (R) Cell: (435) 616-5603 http://www.mikenoel.com REINSTATING THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE is anything but fair Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) spoke on the Senate floor today to support an amendment that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, a policy that would suppress free speech by requiring the government to determine what constitutes fair political discourse. “I am in favor of fairness, but I’m opposed to censorship,” said Bennett. “Under the mislabeling that we have here, the Fairness Doctrine is nothing more than censorship. Let the public decide what they are going to listen to and let the public decide what they are going to watch.” The Fairness Doctrine was implemented by the FCC in 1949 in an attempt to ensure fair and balanced coverage of politics and controversial subject matter by broadcasters. In 1985, the FCC began repealing the doctrine after concluding that it actually resulted in broadcasters limiting coverage of controversial issues of public importance. Congress has attempted to restore the Fairness Doctrine, but Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush vetoed the bills. The Broadcaster Freedom Act (S.34), was introduced by Senators DeMint (R-S.C.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) and offered as an amendment to the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 (S.160.) Below are the complete remarks from Bennett’s speech on the Senate floor: “As I understand it, Senator DeMint will be offering an amendment dealing with the fairness rule. I was a cosponsor of this legislation in the last Congress and I am happy to support it in this Congress. That is, the position that says we should not allow the FCC to reinforce what has been called the Fairness Rule that was dropped some years ago. Who can be against fairness? Well, I am in favor of fairness, but I’m opposed to censorship. Under the mislabeling that we have here, the Fairness Doctrine is nothing more than censorship. The federal government would say to a radio or television broadcaster, ‘We have determined that the broadcasting that you have been doing is not fair, and so you are going to be ordered by the government to present a different point of view on your show and we will determine whether it is fair or it is not.’ The Fairness Doctrine was imposed on the grounds that radio was such a pervasive medium that anything that was said on radio regarding politics should be balanced by someone who holds a different point of view. Right away this raises the question of how many points of view. We’ve seen presidential elections where we had President Clinton, where we had Pat Buchanan, where we had Ralph Nader, and some minor candidates and who determines which one is important enough to qualify for a fairness opportunity on radio? According to the so-called ‘Fairness’ Doctrine, the government determines. Who determines, therefore, what is one position that deserves putting down so that other positions can be raised in the name of fairness? The federal government. What do we get into when the federal government has the authority to make these kinds of decisions? Again, there is a word for it and it is called censorship. I learned one way to deal with an argument, to use the Latin phrase reductio ad absurdum or ‘reduce it to an absurdity.’ Take it to its ultimate end. If we are going to take the Fairness Doctrine to its ultimate end, then we are going to say to the late night comedians, when you make a joke about the Democrats, since you are on the airwaves, you must make a joke of equivalent nastiness about a Republican. When you put down the president, you must find an equivalent Republican figure to put down in the name of fairness. And the consequence of all of that of course, if it were enforced, would be that the late night comedians would shut down all together. We’ve already had an opportunity for fairness, if you will, in respect to talk radio. When a group of people got together and financed a liberal talk show host, one who aspires to enter this body at some time, the public spoke and the station went out of business. Let the public decide what they are going to listen to and let the public decide what they are going to watch. There are so many outlets for different points of view that we do not need to go back to the Fairness Doctrine and impose government censorship on the way people think and respond.” Supreme Court Ruling on Utah City with Ten Commandments Monument In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision by the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that the City of Pleasant Grove violated the free speech rights of a local religious sect when it did not accept and place the group’s religious monument in a park where a Ten Commandments marker has stood for nearly 40 years. BIPARTISAN SENATE VOTE PROVIDES FOURTH HOUSE SEAT FOR UTAH Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Senator Orrin Hatch, RUtah, hailed the historic, bipartisan vote in the Senate Thursday to grant the citizens of the District Columbia voting representation in Congress and provide a fourth Congressional seat for the state of Utah. After three days of debate, the Senate approved the D.C. Voting Rights Act of 2009 by a margin of 6137, with six Republicans voting for final passage. “This is a moment of joy and progress,” Lieberman said. “Finally, the citizens who live in the capital of the free world will have the right to exercise the most basic freedom – the right to choose who governs them. This historic vote is another step on our long march to make our democracy ever more inclusive. I thank my friend, Senator Hatch, for his principled and steadfast support of this bill. His commitment to join in this historic change puts him up there with other great Republican Senators, like Everett Dirksen, who worked with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1964. I also want to thank Senator Reid for his unwavering support and assistance in passing this bill.” Hatch said: “Participating in the election of those who govern us is at the heart of our American system of self-government. It is a right for which generations of Americans have fought and died to preserve. So I’m pleased with the passage of this historic legislation that will ensure that my home state of Utah and residents of the District of Columbia get the representation in the House that they require and so richly deserve. And I commend my esteemed colleague, Senator Lieberman, for his leadership and foresight on this issue.” The measure, S.160 - introduced by Lieberman and Hatch in the Senate and D.C. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in the House on the first day of the 111th Congress - would increase the number Representatives in the House from 435 to 437, adding one for the District of Columbia and one for the State of Utah, which is the next state in line to receive an additional seat based on 2000 census figures. The House Judiciary Committee reported out a similar bill Wednesday. The full House is expected to vote on the measure soon, and then the two measures will have to be reconciled. Lieberman had introduced D.C. voting rights legislation in the Senate in each of the past five Congress. Last Congress, a D.C. voting rights bill fell three votes short of the filibusterproof 60 votes needed for passage. That bill passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 241-177. Co-sponsors of S. 160 included Senators Tom Carper, D-Del., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Russell Feingold, DWis., Edward Kennedy, D. Mass., John Kerry, D-Mass., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Carl Levin, D-Mich,. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., George Voinovich, R-Ohio, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Lieberman argued that the so-called District Clause of the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, gives Congress sweeping authority to legislate matters for the District of Columbia. “The citizens of the District have fought in every war since the War of 1812 and pay federal taxes yet have had no say on issues of war and peace or how their money is spent,” Lieberman said. “That just doesn’t make sense.” Matheson Seeks Hearing for “Downwinders” Congressman Jim Matheson has joined with two Idaho Congressman on a request for a Congressional hearing into whether a program designed to compensate cancer victims exposed to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing should be expanded. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) currently covers only residents who lived in 21 counties, including 10 in Utah, that were “downwind” of the nuclear blasts detonated in the 1950s and 1960s. Matheson and Idaho Representatives Walt Minnick and Mike Simpson sent their letter to the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. “Eligibility for compensation is limited to certain counties in just a few states. These geographical boundaries are, quite frankly, arbitrary boundaries that do not account for the fact that radioactive fallout does not abide by lines on a map,” the letter states. Matheson said RECA was the federal government’s acknowledgement that it deceived citizens about the potential harm from the weapons tests. “The bombs were detonated when the winds blew east. People were told “there is no danger”. But more than 4,500 Utahns who have been awarded compensation for cancer and other illnesses now know that their government lied,” said Matheson. To date, the Department of Justice has awarded compensation to more than 20,500 citizens nationally, including to uranium miners, millers and ore-haulers. In 2000 Congress chose to enhance the RECA program by adding additional categories of illnesses. A study of the radioactive isotope Iodine-131—completed and released by the National Institutes of Health in 1997—showed the largest concentration of fallout occurred in U.S. counties not included in the program. “However, we believe that since RECA has not received serious review by the Congress in the past seven years, now is an appropriate time for the Judiciary Committee to hold an oversight hearing in this important federal law,” the letter states. |