U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta statement on House passage of two more budget reform bills

Rep. Guinta praises the passage of two more bills to fix Washington’s broken budget process

(Washington – February 8, 2012)    Representative Frank Guinta (R, NH-01) issued the following statement after today’s House passage of H.R. 3521, the Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act and H.R. 3581, the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act this week. H.R. 3521 passed today, while H.R. 3581 passed yesterday.  They join two additional budget reform bills the House passed last week (H.R. 3578, the Baseline Reform Act and H.R. 3582, the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act).  All four await action by the Senate.  Rep. Guinta is a member of the House Budget Committee.

“Although some of these budget reform bills have received bipartisan support in the House, they continue to pile up on the steps of the Senate. Increased transparency, oversight, and accountability should not be partisan issues.  However Senate Majority Leader Reid continues to block such reforms. Just as he bears full responsibility for the Senate’s refusal in passing a budget in over 1,000 days, the fact that we are unable to reform Washington’s broken budget process rests at his feet, too.

“I remain hopeful that Majority Leader Reid will listen to the American people and finally pass a budget and fix the process.   Regardless, I will continue fighting for legislation in the House that will change the status quo in Washington and fix this broken system.”

Summary of the bills:

H.R. 3521, the Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act

·         Provides for the expedited consideration by Congress of specific requests by the President to reduce discretionary spending in appropriations legislation.

H.R. 3581, the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act

·         This bill increases transparency in federal budgeting by reforming the way certain costs are calculated and requiring that certain costs incurred by the Federal government are included in the budget.

US Rep Bass Supports Line-Item Veto, Other Reforms to Increase Transparency, Accountability in Budget Process

WASHINGTON – Congressman Charles F. Bass (NH-02) today supported bipartisan legislation to give the president line-item veto authority with Congressional approval.  The Expedited Line-Item Veto Act (H.R. 3521) will give the president the authority to cancel any amount of discretionary spending with the approval of Congress through an automatic up-or-down vote.  The legislation also requires all savings to be applied toward deficit reduction.

Bass also supported legislation (the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act, H.R. 3581) to reform the way certain costs are calculated, such as requiring fair value accounting for federal credit programs.

Bass said:

“There’s no question that we must take serious action to address the out-of-control federal spending that has plagued Washington, but unless we address the budget process itself and put an end to the budget gimmicks and trickery used to inflate spending, we won’t achieve this goal.  The four budget process reform bills that the House passed within the last two weeks will help us be careful stewards of taxpayers’ dollars.

“Hardworking taxpayers expect Congress to do its job and craft a responsible, honest, and accountable budget for our nation.  The House is prepared to do its job again this year and craft a spending blueprint for our nation; it’s unfortunate that Senate Leadership doesn’t share that same concern for American families.”

Last week, the House also passed, with Bass’ support, two budget process reform bills that will bring more transparency and accuracy to budget projections and baselines:

• ·         The Pro-Growth Budget Act (H.R. 3582) will require the Congressional Budget Office to provide lawmakers with a macroeconomic analysis of any legislation that has a budgetary impact of more than .25 percent of current GDP, giving Congress more information about the effects that policy initiatives will have on economic growth.

• ·         The Baseline Reform Act (H.R. 3578) removes the pro-spending bias in the baseline that policymakers use as a starting point in federal budgeting by bringing more accountability to the budget process and requiring the baseline to show the previous year’s funding levels.  Currently, the baseline assumes an automatic increase for inflation each year in the discretionary budget. 

http://bass.house.gov

CEI Today: Energy & gov't transparency, FDA over-reach, CEI at CPAC

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
In the News Today

Media Contacts: Christine Hall 202.331.2258 Nicole Ciandella 202.331.2773 CEI Experts by Issue Advancing Capitalism Constitutional and Legal Issues Energy and Environment Finance and Entrepreneurship Health and Safety Labor Nanny State Regulatory Reform Tech and Telecom Trade and International Transportation    Also featuring...  CEI IN THE NEWS  THE "FRED WEEKLY"

ENERGY & GOV'T TRANSPARENCY - WILLIAM YEATMAN Globalwarming.org: What Is “Open” and “Transparent” Obama Administration Hiding on Stream Buffer Rule? While environmentalists loathe coal in general, they hate especially coal produced via mountaintop removal mining. Unfortunately for them, the mining practice, which is essential to the economies of West Virginia and Kentucky, is sanctioned by state and federal law. In 1977, the Congress enacted the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, legislation that created a regulatory regime for surface mining practices like mountaintop mining. Now, thirty-five years after the Congress endorsed mountaintop mining, President Barack Obama is poised to radically reinterpret SMCRA—legislation that authorizes mountaintop mining—such that the law would ban it. This contortion of legal logic is an affront to Congressional intent. >View the commentary on Globalwarming.org > Read more by William Yeatman > Read more on energy policy at Globalwarming.org FDA & DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS - MICHELLE MINTON The Hill's Congress Blog:The FDA has it dead wrong When policy makers responsible for writing a bill send a letter telling an enforcement agency that it is out of line, one would hope the agency would sit up and listen. This week, Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claiming that the agency's recently released guidelines on dietary supplements undermines the statutory framework for regulating such supplements, as outlined in a bill crafted by the two Senators. If the outcry in the supplement industry and consumer advocates hasn't got the attention of FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, perhaps the Senators' letter will. > View the full commentary on The Hill's Congress Blog > Read more by Michelle Minton, CEI Fellow in Consumer Policy Studies CEI AT CPAC! CEI is a co-sponsor of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Thursday, February 9 to Saturday, February 11 in Washington, D.C. CEI will have a table in the exhibit hall of the hotel, the Marriot Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC.  Please stop by booth 1509 and say hello if you are attending CPAC. Also, see CEI's Vincent Vernuccio talk labor policy on a panel entitled, Return of Big Labor: What Can We Learn from Wisconsin & Ohio? Thurday, February 9 11:15am - 12:00pm Visit Conservative.org/cpac for the full conference agenda. Ten Thousand Commandments By Wayne Crews Welcome to The Other National Debt -- The Cost of Regulation -> Read Today's Decrees CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website, cei.org, and blogs, Globalwarming.org and OpenMarket.org.  Follow CEI on Twitter! Twitter.com/ceidotorg.

RLCNH APPLAUDS HOUSE FOR PASSING TSA ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY BILL

RLCNH APPLAUDS HOUSE FOR PASSING TSA ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY BILL
TSA Bill, HB 628, will create public database of complaints against the TSA

CONCORD, N.H.—The people of New Hampshire have hope that abusive Transportation Security Administration agents may soon be held accountable for their actions thanks to an amended bill that passed the New Hampshire House today, according to the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, which endorsed HB 628.

HB 628, relative to searches conducted for purposes of transportation-related security, will require law enforcement officers employed by the state, a county or a local community to log complaints by citizens in New Hampshire who believe they were abused by a TSA official at the airport, at a bus or train station or on a roadway. The public log will be held by state police and will allow the press, the public and the legislature to track patterns of abuse by TSA officials. The bill also requires law enforcement officials to support citizens who choose to audio or video tape their encounter with a TSA agent.

“I would like to thank the members of the House who supported this bill for understanding the need to protect passengers and transportation vehicles while also respecting basic civil rights and decency,” said Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire. “With the database created by this bill, the State of New Hampshire will be shining the light of public scrutiny on TSA officials, which will hopefully lead to their more respectful behavior toward citizens in New Hampshire—perhaps even across the country.”

TSA officials have been in the news for conducting strip searches against Americans randomly, without any reasonable suspicion, which has led to the complete erosion of civil liberties in the name of security, leaving many passengers literally in tears. Some of the things TSA officials have done to women, men, the elderly and children would be called sexual assault if it was in any other venue. Yet, TSA officials have largely gotten away with their abusive searches, with TSA officials claiming they were just “following procedures.”

“HB 628 would put TSA agents on notice that New Hampshire will be watching what they do, and it will also hold state and local law enforcement officers accountable to their duty to protect the rights of citizens,” McKinney said. “This is a bill that will give citizens a place to turn within the state when they feel they’ve been abused that is not the same agency as the one allegedly doing the abusing.”

The Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire extends its gratitude to Rep. George Lambert of Litchfield, the sponsor of this bill, and Rep. Andrew J. Manuse of Derry, a co-sponsor, who both worked tirelessly to ensure this bill passed through the House. Reps. Laura Jones of Rochester, Dan Itse of Fremont and Frank Sapareto of Derry were also co-sponsors on the bill.

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About The Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire
RLCNH, a state chapter of the national Republican Liberty Caucus, was launched in December 2004 to promote and advance traditional Republican Party values, such as low taxes and spending, limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise and loyalty to the U.S. and N.H. constitutions.

DNC - WaPo: Mitt Romney¹s secret money

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romneys-secret-money/2011/12/23/gIQAbTZmHP_print.html

Mitt Romney’s secret money

Washington Post // Editorial Board

MITT ROMNEY is zero for two when it comes to transparency in campaigning.

First, Mr. Romney — breaking with the practice of previous Republican presidential candidates, including George W. Bush and John McCain — has refused to release the identities of his bundlers, the well-connected fundraisers who help the campaign haul in stacks of checks adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mr. Romney is under no legal obligation to reveal his bundlers, other than the relative handful who are also registered lobbyists.

But that is not, or at least should not be, the end of the discussion. As Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain, among others, recognized in agreeing to reveal the identities and, within broad categories, amounts collected by their bundlers, the flood of details about relatively trivial campaign donations is far less important than knowing the identity of these essential supporters. Federal election law requires that campaigns report the names of those giving $200 or more, but the existence and proliferation of bundlers means the truly valuable information, about which fundraisers the campaign is most indebted to, remains secret. Mr. Romney’s position is an unfortunate step back.

Now Mr. Romney has doubled down on this lack of transparency, telling NBC that he does not intend to release his tax returns even if he becomes the Republican presidential nominee. “Never say never, but I don’t intend to do so,” Mr. Romney said Wednesday. On Thursday, that stance seemed to be softening somewhat, to: “We don’t have any current plans to release tax returns, but never say never.’’ This is unacceptable and, as with the Romney campaign’s stance on bundlers, a sharp departure from previous practice. Some presidential candidates, including Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and John McCain, balked — incorrectly in our view — at releasing tax returns during the primary season.

Yet it has become a given that nominees, much like presidents and vice presidents, release their income tax returns. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has released his, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R) pledged he would do so upon becoming the nominee. As with bundlers, Mr. Romney hides behind legal requirements. It is true that candidates are required to file financial disclosure forms, but tax returns provide information not otherwise available, including charitable contributions and effective tax rates.

During Mr. Romney’s 1994 bid to unseat Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), he called on the senator to release his tax returns to prove he had “nothing to hide.” Yet Mr. Romney did not release his own returns during that campaign or his subsequent run for, and service as, governor. Would a President Romney release his tax returns? We posed that question to his campaign, twice, and did not receive an answer.