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]]> No! I don’t like high pump prices anymore than anyone else. BUT, gas price increases are the clearest possible signal of the failed policies of Barack Obama.

• He stopped oil drilling in the gulf.
• He opposes drilling in Alaska.
• He rejected the Keystone Pipeline.
• His regulators are doing everything in their power to slow down natural gas and petroleum development in the shale areas of the United States.

So gasoline prices are now a political barometer for Obama. The higher they go the less likely Obama is to be re-elected. I’m probably not the only one who will be rooting for $6.00/gal gas by November.

______ Lew Uhler.

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]]> A Transportation Bill should not be used as an Opportunity to Increase Federal Spending

RE: The next transportation reauthorization is shaping up to be yet another big spending boondoggle.  Despite four straight trillion dollar annual deficits, Congress refuses to accept the need to budget responsibly and prioritize transportation spending.  Instead, both the House (H.R.7) and Senate (S.1813) are working on bills that will almost certainly require yet another bailout of the Highway Trust Fund, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. It is unacceptable to exceed Highway Trust Fund revenues by relying on budget gimmicks, fee diversions and unknown future revenues.  Any transportation bill passed by Congress should focus on containing costs, reducing federal burdens and turning transportation policy, planning and funding back to the states.

ISSUE IN BRIEF:  The 2005 highway bill – dubbed SAFETEA-LU – was larded with earmarks, dramatically increased spending and continued the centralization of control.  It was rightly seen as a symbol of how Republicans in Washington had lost their way; and by 2006, many Americans saw no discernable difference between Washington Republicans and Washington Democrats.  The current debate is an opportunity for Congress to demonstrate to the American people that they heard the message sent by the American people in 2010.

The facts on the Highway Trust Fund:

• According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), “The financial estimates associated with [the 2005 transportation bill] SAFETEA have proved to be overly optimistic.  The highway account has already required three transfers from the general fund totaling $29.7 billion…”  A general fund bailout results in an increased burden on taxpayers and an increase in our nation’s debt.

• The Highway Trust Fund (HTF) is funded through various taxes, most notably the federal gas tax, and is projected to take in an average of $38.6 billion per year over the next five years, or $193.2 billion.  Any spending above that would require an additional revenue stream or a general fund bailout.

• The CRS also notes, “Using any of these, however, would weaken the claim that road users pay the cost of the federal highway program.”  Breaking this link would weaken the ability of small-government conservatives to keep transportation spending in check.

• There is an estimated $15.6 billion of unspent funds the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) that House and Senate drafters rely on to close their funding gap.  The use of those funds to offset massive spending should be viewed as typical “Washington bookkeeping.”

No earmarks, but….

• While neither the House nor Senate bill contain any earmarks, they are extremely problematic from a spending standpoint and neither goes far enough toward turning back authority to the states.

• The House bill – American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012 (H.R.7) – would authorize $262.8 billion over five years, or $52.6 billion per year.  Over the next five years, outlays would outpace revenues by $69.6 billion.

• Seven months ago, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) unveiled a six-year, $230 billion proposal.  At $38.3 billion per year, that proposal would have stayed within HTF.

• Even using the unspent HTF money, the House bill would require what amounts to a $54 billion bailout.  At least on paper, the inclusion of future energy revenues (spend now, offset later) and various other fee diversions will make up the difference.  Conservatives and taxpayers are right to be skeptical.

• The Senate bill – Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (S.1813) – would authorize $109 billion over two years, or $54.5 billion per year.  Over the next two years, outlays would outpace revenues by $33.3 billion.

• Even using the unspent HTF money, the Senate bill would require what amounts to a $17.7 billion bailout.  At least on paper, the inclusion of various tax increases and fee diversions will make up the difference.  Tax increases are undesirable, and conservatives and taxpayers are right to be skeptical.

Why Conservatives Should Be Opposed:

Conservatives should be opposed to both the House and Senate bills because of the excessive spending alone.  The new revenues – whether via energy production or tax increases on IRAs – take us in the wrong direction.  Anything short of reining in excess spending sends the wrong message to Americans, who overwhelmingly believe Washington spends far too much.

Overspending on transportation will cause a significant ripple effect in the conservative agenda.  Not only does the House bill ignore the priorities put forth in the Ryan Budget, which they adopted last year, but it would also create problems for the drafting of this year’s budget.

Finally, given the construction of the interstate highway system was completed in the early eighties, it is time to focus on turning back transportation policy, planning and funding to the states.  Local lawmakers – not those in Washington – are best suited to address transportation priorities such as increased mobility, safety, and congestion relief.

For Additional Information on the Transportation Reauthorization, please visit the following links:

http://heritageaction.com/2012/02/flashback-mica%E2%80%99s-july-transportation-proposal/

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/02/09/house-conservatives-support-barack-obamas-latest-stimulus

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/transportation-program-reauthorization-another-big-spending-problem

http://www.redstate.com/russvought/2012/01/30/house-conservatives-need-to-block-the-coming-highway-bailout/

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/290427/highway-robbery-republicans-michael-tanner

http://townhall.com/columnists/danholler/2012/02/06/big_dollars_for_transportation/

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/289905/big-government-republicans-andrew-c-mccarthy

http://heritageaction.com/2012/02/house-transportation-bill-falls-short/

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/turn-back-transportation-to-the-states

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/08/senate-chairmans-mark-and-transportation-bill-off-target/

http://heritageaction.com/2012/02/a-54-billion-bailout/

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM VISIT: WWW.THEMOUNTVERNONSTATEMENT.COM

Watch this video on YouTube.

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Jerry Brown, Governor of California

To increase taxes or not to increase taxes? The question was posed to Californians in a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

“Strong majorities of Californians favor Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed tax initiative and oppose the automatic cuts that public schools will face if voters fail to approve the measure in November,” according to the PPIC summary. The Brown tax increase was favored by 72 percent of Californians and 68 percent of likely voters because people are worried about budget cuts, especially to education.

But not so fast. For one thing, polls this far away from an election are highly volatile. As was pointed out by Joel Fox of the Small Business Action Committee, just look at the polls in the Republican primaries. One day Mitt Romney’s poll numbers make him look invincible. The next day he’s losing in South Carolina to Newt Gingrich. And who knows what will happen in Florida on Jan. 31.

A major factor is that people are not focusing on the November election. It’s still more than nine months away. No one has seen the ads, pro and con, for the Brown initiative. Other tax-increase initiatives also may be on the ballot.

Gov. Brown’s “temporary,” five-year tax increase includes two components: an increase of 1 or 2 percentage points in the state income tax for those making $250,000 or more per year. And a half-cent sales tax increase.

But when the poll broke down the two taxes, Californians became schizophrenic. The income-tax boost on the “rich” was favored by 68 percent of likely voters. But 64 percent opposed raising sales taxes, which everybody pays. That brings to mind the old saying, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that man behind the tree.”

We also don’t know what condition the economy will be in later this year. The major economic surveys, such as those by Chapman University, anticipate continued moderate growth. But nobody knows what lies ahead. A sudden shock, like the September 2008 financial meltdown, could strike the country. War in the Persian Gulf could send oil prices into the stratosphere. And the European debt crisis could crash. People in a renewed recession would be less likely to increase their own tax burdens.

Then there’s the finding that 55 percent of likely voters, in the PPIC summary, “believe state government could cut spending and still provide the same level of services.” So people still are skeptical that government has done enough to save on current spending.

“Raising taxes at this point is just so beyond the pale,” Lew Uhler told us; he’s the president of the Roseville-based National Tax-Limitation Committee. “I just don’t see people buying into the class-warfare stuff. They’re not only trying to increase taxes on high-income families, but also the sales tax.”

He pointed out that the governor remains an enthusiast for the California High-Speed Rail Authority and its spending plan of at least $99 billion on a project widely considered a boondoggle. “He’s re-establishing his Gov. Moonbeam name by this craziness,” Mr. Uhler said.

The last time Californians passed a tax-increase initiative was in 2004 with Proposition 63. It increased state income taxes on millionaires by 1 percentage point to fund mental-health programs. Yet it passed with just 54 percent of the vote even though opponents spent just $13,000 compared with proponents’ approximately $4.7 million. And that was during the height of the real estate boom, when it seemed the good times never would end.

Times are different now. The economy still is hobbled. Any tax increases will face solid opposition. Bring it on.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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]]> Dear Orrin:

          All of us who have worked with you over the years owe you a great debt of gratitude for your consistent dedication to fiscal responsibility and to the interests of taxpayers in Utah and all across this great land.

          You were one who recognized, from your first day of service in the United States Senate, the need for constitutional fiscal discipline in the form of a spending limitation/balanced budget amendment.  It needs to pass, and whether it happens in this Congress or after the addition of new Republican Members in 2012, we are confident that your leadership will be critical in getting this amendment to the states for ratification. 

          On tax and spending policy your record is extremely solid, one of the best in the Senate.   You have led the fight to kill the hated death tax, to repeal the unfair AMT and to reduce taxes generally so that small businesses and families have the resources to prosper and support the community and charitable causes of their choice.  And your corporate tax and international trade policies will keep jobs in the United States.

Should Republicans win back the Senate in 2012, and you become Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, we are confident that you will use that committee to secure the most conservative reforms of the Nation’s tax and spending policies in a generation.  Your understanding of the need for fundamental tax reform, the repeal of ObamaCare and reforms of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, make us confident that with you at the helm of the Finance Committee our future will be one of freedom, economic growth and a restoration of limited government. 

Thank you for what you have done –and will continue to do – for America.

Sincerely,

Lew Uhler

President, National Tax Limitation Committee

David Keene

Past Chairman, American Conservative Union

President, National Rifle Association

Duane Parde

President, National Taxpayers Union

Colin Hanna

President, Let Freedom Ring

Jim Martin

Chairman, 60 Plus Association

Dick Patten

President, American Family Business Institute

Jim Gilmore

Former Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia

Under the Obama Administration individual taxpayer debt has gone up 65% (New York Times, 12/27/11). Lew Uhler, President and founder of the National Tax Limitation Committee (Limittaxes.org) stated “We must have a serious review of all federal programs and cut or eliminate those that demonstrate a waste of taxpayer money.”

On ...

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]]> SIGN OUR PETITION

Under the Obama Administration individual taxpayer debt has gone up 65% (New York Times, 12/27/11). Lew Uhler, President and founder of the National Tax Limitation Committee (Limittaxes.org) stated “We must have a serious review of all federal programs and cut or eliminate those that demonstrate a waste of taxpayer money.”

On Wednesday January 18th, the US House of Representatives is set to vote on further increasing the national debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion.

“Let’s make this vote constitute a mandate on federal spending oversight!” Uhler stated.

Please join Lew Uhler, the National Tax Limitation Committee and others by signing the petition that asks members of congress to “Stop increasing the national debt, burdening current and future generations, and take this vote as an opportunity to increase oversight and eliminate wasteful spending.”

Roughly one of every five employees of the lower house received the merit increase ranging ...

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]]> Published Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — More than 250 Assembly employees received pay hikes this month under the sweeping authorization granted by Assembly Speaker John A. Perez recently for aides whose pay had not risen in three years.

Roughly one of every five employees of the lower house received the merit increase ranging from 3.6 percent to 5 percent, records show.

Of 258 aides whose salaries were sweetened, 24 percent of them are paid less than $50,000; 56 percent are paid between $50,000 and $100,000; and 20 percent have salaries above $100,000, records show.

Forty-three other employees received promotions or assumed new job responsibilities that provided heftier paychecks as well.

The Assembly raises come on the heels of larger salary increases granted by the Senate – averaging 7 percent – to at least 169 employees.

Both houses contend the pay hikes are a small accommodation to valuable employees who have gone years without a wage or cost-of-living increase.

“It’s critically important in difficult budget times to have people with the knowledge and experience to tackle the state’s complicated budget issues,” said Robin Swanson, spokeswoman for Perez.

The increases cumulatively will cost the Assembly more than $800,000 per year.

The pay hikes come at a time when the state projects a budget deficit of about $12 billion through June 2013, however. Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders are pushing for a ballot measure to increase taxes.

Lew Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, said voters are not likely to forget legislative salary increases if they’re called upon to vote on taxes.

“All that this kind of conduct signals to the individual voter, the taxpayer, is that government is no longer in sync with the people who pay the bills,” Uhler said.

Swanson disagreed, saying that voters understand that it’s important to retain knowledgeable aides whose expertise could draw higher salaries if they left the Capitol.

Jon Waldie, Assembly administrator, said that many of the aides receiving pay hikes this month had gone five years without receiving them – so a 3.6 percent increase for the highest-paid recipients translates to less than 1 percent per year.

Waldie is the highest-paid Assembly aide to receive a pay hike, bringing his salary to $181,200.

Fifty-three people who earn six-figure salaries received pay increases, including 20 key consultants or aides assigned to the 52-member Democratic Caucus; nine key employees of the Republican Caucus; and four officials of the Rules Committee, the Assembly’s administrative division.

Waldie said that most of the employees receiving salary increases are caucus or Assembly support staff, rather than lawmakers’ personal aides.

Perez made no distinction between six-figure wage earners and lower-paid aides in qualifying for a raise, but lower-paid employees received the highest percentage increases.

The pay hikes were not automatic: Lawmakers or Assembly officials could opt not to request them for eligible employees.

Perez’s authorization will extend throughout 2012, so more employees may receive wage hikes if they reach a milestone, in coming months, in which their pay has not increased for three years.

Sabrina Lockhart, spokeswoman for the GOP Republican Caucus, said the pay increases can be handled within the existing Assembly budget, due partly to holding positions vacant or consolidating duties.

“The bottom line is that we’re continuing to operate within our existing budget while finding other ways to save money and invest in dedicated staff,” Lockhart said.

The Assembly voluntarily has cut its budget more than 15 percent this year, transferring more than $23 million of its $146.7 million budget to ease the fiscal crunch on other state agencies.

The budgets of the Assembly and Senate, unlike other state agencies, are largely immune from mandatory cuts in times of economic distress.

Voter passage of Proposition 140 in 1990 cut lawmakers’ spending immediately and imposed a funding formula covering every year thereafter.

Maximum funding is determined by adjusting prior-year spending to recognize changes in population and per capita income.

The formula paid off as California’s economy boomed and has helped both houses avoid massive furloughs or deep salary cuts during recessionary years.

(Jon Ortiz and Micaela Massimino of The Bee Capitol Bureau contributed to this report.)

Our founder, Lew Uhler, worked with the Reagan administration during his Governorship in California, then followed him onto the White House.  Uhler continues the historic fight led by Ronald Reagan and his groundbreaking role in limited government ...

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]]> Don’t miss this opportunity to have RONALD REAGAN’s VISION & POLICIES in your private collection.

Our founder, Lew Uhler, worked with the Reagan administration during his Governorship in California, then followed him onto the White House.  Uhler continues the historic fight led by Ronald Reagan and his groundbreaking role in limited government and expanded personal liberties.

Order Here          Limited availability.

Follow Lew Uhler and the National Tax Limitation Committee on Twitter
@limittaxesorg

Thomas Jefferson

Republicans, who have long argued for controlling the size of government but have nonetheless allowed it to expand enormously in recent years, can now stake out the high ground in pursuit of the limited ...

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]]> My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

Thomas Jefferson

Republicans, who have long argued for controlling the size of government but have nonetheless allowed it to expand enormously in recent years, can now stake out the high ground in pursuit of the limited government goal.

Their map to that high ground lies in a body of research on the optimal, or “right,” size of government.  The research creates an objective standard and moral imperative for limiting government.  It posits that excessive government stunts national economic growth and impoverishes the people.

GOVERNMENT TOO BIG

            The late economist Gerald Scully, who studied the “optimal” size of government for years, has shown that at approximately 35 percent of GDP (the 2008 number, which has since grown to nearly 40 percent), governments at all levels in the United States are far beyond the 20 percent or so of GDP he has identified as optimal.  Here are the key elements of Scully’s analysis:

• Beyond the optimal level of spending, government becomes a net drain on the economy.  Up to that level, every dollar spent by government provides more than a dollar’s worth of economic growth.  Beyond the optimal level, every additional dollar in spending costs more than a dollar in economic growth.  At today’s spending level, the next dollar in taxation costs the Nation at least $2.75 in lost economic growth.
• Total spending by federal, state and local governments in the United States in 1948 was about 23 percent of GDP, but it had grown to 35 percent by 2008.  During that time the average annual compound growth rate of the economy was 3.5 percent.  If governments had not increased their shares of GDP, the annual growth rate of GDP would have been 5.8 percent per year.  Scully calculated that this would have resulted in $37 trillion more real GDP By 2004.  The average American family would be three times wealthier today as a result.
• Low income – or other – Americans would not have needed to “sacrifice” government largesse to achieve this result.  At a 23 percent of GDP spending level, with comparable tax rates, government at all levels would have collected over $60 trillion more in taxes, enough to have funded all spending programs without public debt.
• Going forward, if spending were reduced to 20 percent of GDP and tax rates systematically reduced to maximize growth, by 2030 real GDP would be double what we anticipate under current spending/taxing plans.

Other economists have urged even lower total government shares.  After all, total government spending as late as the 1920s represented only 10 percent of the Nation’s income:  seven percent for state and local governments, about three percent for Washington.  Allocation of spending authority as between levels of government in today’s world has changed.   Of the total, probably two-thirds would be national, with one-third state/local.  But as Milton Friedman was fond of saying, if 10 percent was the right church tithe, why should government be entitled to a greater share?

OTHER STUDIES CONFIRM GOVERNMENT SPENDING IMPACT

Further confirming the Scully analysis, a Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland study reviewed total government spending from 1946 to 1989 and found it had risen from 13.7 percent of GDP to over 22 percent.  This led to a decline in the Nation’s economic output of over two percent on a permanent basis.

Economist and Cato scholar Dan Mitchell performed a worldwide survey of studies on “The Impact of Government Spending on Economic Growth” in 2005.  Consistently he confirmed that as governments increase in size, a Nation’s rate of economic growth is substantially adversely affected.  He recommended reducing government’s size to 10 percent of GDP to maximize economic output.

MODERN WEALTH OF NATIONS

     A seminal work on the economic-growth-maximizing size of government, as a share of GDP – “The Scope of Government and the Wealth of Nations” – compared nations worldwide and nations with themselves at different times in their histories.  The authors – economists James Gwartney, Randall Holcombe and Robert Lawson – determined that there is “a strong and persistent negative relationship between government expenditures and growth of GDP … (but) where nations reduced their government expenditures by an appreciable amount, this reduction in size of government was correlated with an increase in the growth rate of real GDP.  [“The Scope of Government and the Wealth of Nations,” by James Gwartney, Randall Holcombe and Robert Lawson, Cato Journal Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall 198),pp. 186-187]

The authors concluded, “What level of government expenditures would maximize economic growth?  The data analyzed here can only present an upper bound because there is no evidence that any country in the data sets examined in this paper had a level of government expenditures insufficient to maximize growth.  Some nations had government expenditures between 15 and 20 percent of GDP; those countries had higher rates of growth than nations with government expenditures in the range of 20 to 25 percent of GDP.  There is no evidence that any of the nations examined here had governments so small that they inhibited growth.

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“Definitely worth reading if you’re of the conservative persuasion or are truly serious about understanding Republicans, conservatives, and ...

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]]> National Tax Limitation Committee is pleased to offer two books written by  our founder, Lew Uhler.  SETTING LIMITS and RED STATE UPRISING offer an inside look at the paths to limited government and controlled spending.

“Definitely worth reading if you’re of the conservative persuasion or are truly serious about understanding Republicans, conservatives, and the current state of the ideology.”  Jeff Raymond

Follow Lew Uhler and the National Tax Limitation Committee on Twitter
@limittaxesorg