So, you haven’t heard from me in a while. Maybe you thought my computer crashed or I don’t love you anymore. But, neither is true.

The whole debt limit debate and compromise was very tense, very sensitive and very important. Going “over the cliff” was simply unacceptable. As I have explained before, we were never in danger of default. The government was going to pay interest on the debt and could issue new debt to pay off maturing notes. But, it would have required a 50% reduction overnight in non-interest government spending, which would have been very difficult to do. But, more importantly, fear heading towards panic was showing up in markets. That panic would have led to another financial meltdown, maybe not as bad as 2008, but certainly bad enough to plunge the nation and the globe back into deep recession. But, this time it would be completely government-made.

We could not let this happen. But, neither could we just extend the debt limit without showing the markets that we were making progress towards getting these deficits under control. If we did that, the markets would set their own debt limit by not lending us any… Read More

More Facts, Ma’am: Sergeant Joe Friday probably never said that, but you know what I’m getting at. With the debt limit debate getting close to the final days, you may wonder what happens if we actually go “over the cliff” and do not extend the debt limit by the supposedly magic August 2nd date? The following information is gleaned from a presentation made to the Republican caucus by a former Bush Administration deputy secretary at the Treasury Department who now works with a think tank called the “Bipartisan Policy Center” in DC:

There is general agreement that the federal government will have exhausted all alternative funding sources and will run out of cash on or about August 2nd. This date is largely driven by $23 billion worth of Social Security checks that are scheduled to go out on that day. At that point, the US government is on a cash basis with no ability to borrow more money. That means that it can only spend the same amount of money that comes in. And, this is not an annual issue, it is a daily issue. If $20 billion comes in on Thursday, then you can send $20 billion out. If only $10 billion comes in on Friday,… Read More

Just the Facts, Ma’am: This was the famous retort offered by fictional LA police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, on the TV show Dragnet whenever a female witness started to delve into conjecture or opinion. In these missives, I usually give you heavy doses of my commentary and opinion.

Not today, or tomorrow. As the debt limit debate reaches the critical stage, I felt maybe you needed some facts, just plain facts, about the country’s financial status. Last week in a Budget Committee hearing, the actuaries for the Social Security and Medicare systems testified as to the status of these two programs and provided actuarial projections for both. Here is a summary of the salient points they made. I will let you draw your own conclusions:

Social Security and Medicare currently amount to 35% of all federal spending. Both systems are currently in negative cash flow and are on track for insolvency or exhaustion of their trust funds. The reasons for these impending problems are largely demographic. The United States traditionally had a birth rate of about 3 children per woman up until 1965. By 1975, that rate had dropped to 2 children per… Read More

I have had a fascination with all things British since I was young. I attribute this interest in part to an English aunt with whom I spent quite a bit of time while young, and then a yearlong class in high school on the subject of British history for which my textbook was Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples. Adding to this, during my business career, a British publicly-held company was a major investor in my company and, as a result, I traveled to England 2-3 times a year for nearly 10 years. At one time, I could rattle off every English monarch from William the Conqueror through Elizabeth II, including the years of their reigns.

I can’t do that anymore. But, I know the place and people pretty well, and I like all things British, except of course, the weather. I even like the food!

Because of this knowledge and interest, I was asked to Co-Chair the US-UK caucus in the House of Representatives. We now have a bipartisan membership of 90 members of Congress. I have always considered the mission of this caucus as one of preserving and expanding the “special relationship” that exists and has existed between our two… Read More

I don’t fit neatly into a box. I am a conservative Republican who doesn’t raise taxes and votes to cut nearly every bit of government spending I can find. But, I am against the wars in Afghanistan and Libya, think we should cut defense spending, support legalizing internet gambling, sponsor a lot of bills to prevent abuse of animals, want pristine, clean oceans and believe we need some government support of home mortgages. No, that is not a box.

For those of you who don’t know my background, I am a native Californian raised by two very conservative and politically active parents. “We were Taft Republicans”, my mother often told me to make sure I understood that Dwight Eisenhower was way too moderate for them. The last Democrat I voted for was Sam Yorty for Mayor of Los Angeles in the 1970s. I think he later changed parties. I’m about as Republican as you get.

But, my ideology guides my thinking. It does not replace it. I believe that this job is about solving problems. And, there is never only one prescription to right every wrong. Napoleon Bonaparte was certainly the most brilliant military strategist of the 19th century and… Read More

If I were to tell you things were chaotic in Washington last week, you might correctly exclaim, “So, what else is new?”. But, things seem to be even more chaotic than normal right now. I submit the following rundown for your consideration:

The President announced his latest strategy for Afghanistan in which he tries to thread the policy needle by giving a timetable for some withdrawal, but at the same time keeps more troops there throughout his term than at any time during the Bush presidency. I don’t think he succeeded in pleasing anyone with this plan – certainly not this Member of Congress. He also still has not indicated what it is we are now fighting for and what the desired end-state looks like. Bin Laden is dead and al-Qaeda is largely out of Afghanistan. Are we nation building? I think we are and I don’t think that is worth $2 billion a week and more American lives. I also believe you either fight wars with all you’ve got, or don’t fight them at all. Vietnam taught us that. The President seems to want to fight half a war. Speaker Boehner criticized the President’s speech and basically called … Read More

Triggers and Critters: I sometimes offer amendments on bills that come to the House floor from committees other than the those on which I serve. Such was the case last week when the Agriculture Appropriations bill came to the floor. Various other people offered amendments to reduce the spending in the bill by 5%, limit or eliminate subsidies, and otherwise save money. As you might suspect, I supported all such money-saving amendments. Unfortunately, most of them lost.

The amendment I offered reduced spending by $11 million, which is not much in an appropriations bill that proposed to spend $17.25 billion next year. The amendment would eliminate a program whereby the U.S. Department of Agriculture kills predators (wolves, coyotes and such) that threaten privately-owned livestock. The government kills these animals using methods such as shooting them from aircraft and putting out bait with cyanide capsules that explode in the animal’s face when it goes for the bait.

I thought there were a lot of good reasons to support this amendment:

1. It saves $11 million, all of which will be borrowed.

2. Why is it a taxpayer… Read More

Last week, the House voted down a debt limit increase without any conditions by a vote of 97-318. Not a single Republican voted for it. Then, last Tuesday, the President invited the entire Republican caucus to the White House for a discussion on the debt limit. Frankly, all the President succeeded in doing was angering us. His arrogance, haughty nature and his unwillingness to say anything other than his campaign talking points left us all quite discouraged about any potential agreement. Still, the debt limit looms. Treasury Secretary Geithner says that we have already technically hit the ceiling, but that he is raising cash using “extraordinary measures” until August 2nd, at which he point he predicts we will be at the end of our financial rope and run out of cash. Conveniently, that day is just a couple of days before the House and the Senate are scheduled to go on summer recess. The potential to have to cancel that recess will focus negotiators in Washington.

So, what happens if we breeze past August 2nd without increasing the debt limit? Virtually every media outlet would have you believe that we will default on our debt. Even the… Read More