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This bill uses the budget procedure known as "reconciliation" to repeal most of ObamaCare. The greater portion of ObamaCare's worst portions are included in this repeal bill, including its many new taxes, the unconstitutional individual and employer mandates, the expansion of Medicaid, and the insurance premium subsidies. Passing this bill laid out the blueprint for how Congress would achieve full repeal once President Obama leaves the White House.
This vote was to override President Barack Obama's veto of the Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, which would have repealed ObamaCare through reconciliation.
The Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act relaxed FDA regulations that required business owners who own 20 or more restaurants to provide calorie information on their menus. This is costly one-size-fits-all regulation, made possible by ObamaCare, that will cost business owners $1 billion.
The Email Privacy Act would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) to protect the privacy of email communications by requiring a warrant to access emails and other covered electronic communications by American citizens that are in the custody of a service provider and more than 180 days old. H.R. 699 passed the House Judiciary Committee by a unanimous vote. This legislation is an important step in protecting the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures and updating our laws for the 21st Century.
This legislation is an important step in protecting the First Amendment rights of Americans against harassment and coercion from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Introduced by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), this bill stops the IRS from collecting and releasing information about donors to tax-exempt organizations, which would chill political speech. The legislation would protect the free speech of donors to nonprofit organizations by modifying IRS disclosure requirements of information such as donor names and addresses. Under H.R. 5053, tax-exempt organizations are required to report only information on donors who contribute $5,000 or more and who are either an officer of the organization or one of its five highest paid employees.
H. Amdt. 1194 offered by Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), to H.R. 5293, to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2017, would retain the U.S. military’s current practice of providing cash stipend to recruits, allowing them to pick the footwear of their personal preference. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by the House and Senate in May, changed current practice regarding footwear by including a “buy American” requirement, replacing the current cash allowance. This new language is a de facto earmark because it benefits one company: New Balance. The Department of Defense has concluded that the new language in the NDAA “would directly lead to a higher recruit injury rate at basic training,” The amendment would undo the New Balance provision, and halt an egregious example of crony capitalism that will cost taxpayers over $300 million and keeps this provision from coming into effect by not backing it.
H. Amdt. 1204 offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), to H.R. 5293, to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2017, protects the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans from unauthorized searches and seizures of property. The bill in its current form requires the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies to follow due process and obtain a warrant to collect the communications of American citizens. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was written to only allow the government to collect the communications of foreigners, but a large quantity of American communications are bundled in during the process. By prohibiting backdoor spying, this measure represents a step forward in the battle to ensure privacy and security in the face of unconstitutional surveillance. The amendment also prohibits government agencies from requesting that U.S. companies build security vulnerabilities into their hardware or software in order to make it easier for the government to access them
H. Amdt. 1243 offered by Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)) which “reduces the salary of the IRS Commissioner to $0 annually from date of enactment through January 20, 2017;”
H. Amdt. 1249 offered by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) which “prohibits funds the use of funds to pay a performance bonus to any senior IRS employee
H. Amdt. 1245 by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) which “prohibits funds from being used to implement, administer, or enforce a new regulatory action of $100 million or more;”
The Anti-terrorism Information Sharing Is Strength Act expands Section 314 of the USA PATRIOT Act to a host of domestic crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism. The bill also surrenders more rulemaking authority to the Treasury Department at a time when the regulatory state is out of control.
This bill modifies the scope of judicial review of agency actions to authorize courts reviewing agency actions to decide de novo (without giving deference to the agency's interpretation) all relevant questions of law, including the interpretation of constitutional and statutory provisions, and rules made by agencies.
H. Amdt.1346 offered by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) which “reduces Appropriations made in this Act for the Environmental Protection Agency by 17 percent.” The cost of EPA’s Clean Power Plan to Pennsylvania consumers would be shifted back to the EPA under this statement
H. Amdt. 1342 offered by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) which “ensures that none of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Enforcement Division.” The cost and extent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Enforcement Division are addressed by this amendment
H. Amdt. 1330 offered by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) which “ensures that no funds appropriated by this Act can be used to implement, administer, or enforce Davis-Bacon prevailing rate wage requirements.”
In March 2015, the DOJ restricted the use of civil asset forfeiture in cases where structuring -- in which a bank account holder makes frequent deposits below $10,000 -- is the only offense suspected. Civil asset forfeiture is a pernicious form of government overreach by which federal agencies can seize cash or property without ever arresting, charging or prosecuting someone of a crime. The Clyde-Hirsch-Sowers RESPECT Act codified this administrative change.
The continuing resolution through December 9, 2016 triggers a lame duck session of Congress, which is designed to bolster the failed Beltway practice of legislating at the expense of the American taxpayers instead of for them. The CR will continue this pattern of irresponsible spending by forcing a new spending measure to be considered in a lame duck when the current session of Congress is wrapping up and members are at their least accountable.
The motion to refer was a procedural move made by Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to block H.Res. 828 from consideration on the floor of the House. The motion sent the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, effectively killing it in the 114th Congress. In September, FreedomWorks reserved the right to key vote against any motion that would prevent the resolution consideration. The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is appointed to a five-year term. John Koskinen took office in December 2013, meaning that he could, theoretically, continue to hold his current post in the next administration.
While this bill may have good intentions, there should not be federal intervention. The bill does not properly limit the rulemaking authority of the DOJ, and rather, opens shortens the amount of time available to examine and debate the content. “Federal standards must respect the ‘civil rights and liberties’ of people being tracked, including their Fourth Amendment rights. Data collected must be used ‘solely for the purpose of preventing injury or death.’” We cannot risk civil liberties or allow our privacies to be ignored.
This bill fully repeals all of ObamaCare and also directs the relevant House committees to draft a patient-centered health care reform proposal to replace it. ObamaCare has failed to either make health insurance more affordable or to improve access or quality of care, and must be repealed in order to enact real reforms to accomplish those goals.
This amendment by Rep. Tom McClintock would completely end the federal subsidies for Amtrak. In spite of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, Amtrak has continued to run an inefficient service that racks up massive annual losses, and should not continue being propped up by the government.
This bill would fully repeal the federal estate tax, better known to most as the "death tax". Not only does the death tax represent double (or more) taxation of an individual's property and belongings, it can also destroy individually owned family farms and small businesses.
While this bill is intended to make information sharing on cyber threats easier, it also sacrifices many privacy protections in the process. The bill fails to ensure that companies and government agencies are not sharing personally identifiable information when they report cyber attacks. Worse, the bill requires that cyber threat information be shared with the NSA. Although well-intentioned, the privacy loopholes in this bill turn in from a "cybersecurity" bill to a "cybersurveillance" bill.
This amendment by Rep. Tom McClintock would eliminate the Department of Energy funding for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Fossil Energy programs, and would sharply reduce funding for nuclear energy programs. Removing these market-distorting subsidies would save nearly $3 billion.
Currently, the NSA and FBI can access the electronic communications of U.S. citizens collected without a specific warrant under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This amendment by Reps. Massie and Lofgren would defund those activities. It would also prevent the NSA from requesting that security vulnerabilities be built into private products.
This bill would delay the EPA from implementing their economically devastating new greenhouse gas emissions rule for existing power plants. If implemented, this rule would cause many coal-fired power plants to shut down, dramatically increasing energy costs for millions of Americans.
This amendment by Rep. Zeldin would greatly strengthen current prohibitions against coercing states to adopt national educational standards. Specifically, it prohibits the Secretary of Education from conditioning any grant money or waivers upon states keeping Common Core or any other specific national curriculum standards.
This amendment by Rep. Polis (introduced for Rep. Meng) would establish grants to entice states to subsidize early childhood education (Head Start) programs. This would entail an effective federalization of pre-K education at taxpayer expense. Not only does the federal government have no place centralizing yet another aspect of education, repeated studies have shown that Head Start and similar pre-K education programs are ineffective.
As written, H.R. 6 would create nearly $2 billion per year in new mandatory spending (not subject to budget caps). This amendment by Rep. Brat would force Congress to account for the new spending under the Budget Control Act caps and therefore to find equivalent cuts elsewhere.
This bill, entitled the “REINS Act”, would require a vote in Congress on any “major” regulation (over $100 million in economic impact) issued by the executive branch before it could be enforced on the American people. The REINS Act would thus restore much of Congress' lawmaking authority that it has ceded to the executive branch over the past century.
In an uncommon move, 218 Members of the House of Representatives signed a discharge petition regarding H.R. 597 - a bill to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States. This successful petition bypasses the House Committee on Finance, in which the bill had been stalled, bringing the bill straight to the House floor. The Export-Import bank serves as a taxpayer-backed conduit for corporate welfare, and should be left expired. Only signers of the petition are scored for this vote.
This amendment by Rep. Justin Amash would remove the section of the bill that would provide $500 million in new spending for the Maritime Security Fleet program. This new spending, while a relatively small amount was quietly added into the bill without any vote, ignoring the amendment and committee process. This spending represents a shallow attempt to court a narrow special interest group to gain votes for the bill - essentially violating the House ban on earmarks.
This bill would reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank through 2019. The Ex-Im Bank's loans and guarantees distort trade markets, and mostly flow to a small number of immense, politically connected corporations. Congress allowed the Ex-Im Bank's charter to expire in June, and this 80-year-old corporate welfare program should stay closed.
This bill was the vehicle for the budget agreement that will spend $80 billion beyond the Budget Control Act caps over two years, along with $16 billion in new defense spending that doesn't count towards the caps. The supposed offsets to this spending are mostly either gimmicks or long-term, while the new deficit spending is immediate. The bill also suspends the debt ceiling through March of 2017, effectively giving the government a blank check for that period.
This amendment by Rep. Steve King would effectively prevent Davis-Bacon wage controls from applying to the infrastructure projects funded by this highway funding bill. These onerous wage requirement were designed to shut out competition with unions for federal contracts, and end up costing taxpayers huge sums of money.
This resolution invokes the Congressional Act to disapprove of the recent EPA rule that greatly increases emissions restrictions on existing coal-fired power plants. This tremendously destructive regulation would greatly increase energy costs in the many states which rely heavily upon coal-fired power plants for their electricity. These cost increases damage overall economic growth, and in particular lower the standard of living of lower-income earners.
This resolution invokes the Congressional Act to disapprove of the recent EPA rule that greatly increases emissions restrictions on any future coal-fired power plants. This rule tightens emissions standards to the point where it will likely not be economically feasible to build new coal-fired electric plants, crippling one of the most abundant and cost-effective sources of energy in America.
This amendment by Rep. Joe Barton would finally lift the decades-old ban on exporting U.S. crude oil. This would allow the U.S. to take better advantage of our recent major surge in oil production, creating thousands of new jobs and boosting economic growth in the process.
This bill would renew federal highway funding to states for a period of five years. However, it does not solve the structural deficit within the Highway Trust Fund, doesn't eliminate the wasteful spending that takes away from funding roads, and doesn't offset that spending in any real way. Furthermore, this bill contains a reauthorization of the expired Export-Import Bank, in order to prevent having a standalone vote on renewing such a direct corporate welfare fund.
This omnibus appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2016 funds former Speaker Boehner's budget-busting deal to the tune of $50 billion above the budget caps for 2016. It contains several very troubling legislative riders a well, including more funding for the IMF, and a massive new cybersecurity information sharing program that violates consumers' privacy and due process. It also fails to include most of the amendments from the appropriations process that would have defunded key, harmful federal regulations.
This bill funded the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year (through September, 2014). It spends $45 billion more than the budget caps established in 2011, and perpetuates a vast amount of wasteful spending from previous years. Lawmakers were also given almost no time to read this 1,500 page spending bill.
This final version of the Farm Bill, reconciled between the House and Senate, actually undoes some of the already modest reforms to crop insurance and food stamps that were previously in the bill. This five-year reauthorization of the Farm Bill will spend nearly a trillion dollars over ten years, and remains loaded with corporate welfare and special carve-outs for well-connected agricultural corporations.
This bill suspends the debt limit until March 15th of 2015, allowing the president to potentially run up as much debt as he pleases during that time period. The debt is already projected to increase by about $1 trillion over that period, to over $18 trillion. Meanwhile, this debt ceiling suspension contains no reforms to curb spending whatsoever.
This bill would effectively undo the damaging Supreme Court decision in the case of Kelo v. New London, which held that the government can redistribute property from one individual to another if it serves a community's "economic development. The bill stops federal, state, and local governments from exercising eminent domain to seize private property for the purpose of "economic development" or any other transfer from a private owner to another private entity. It also provides legal rights for property owners to sue the government for abuse of eminent domain.
This bill would stop the IRS for one year from finalizing a proposed regulation that would stop grassroots non-profit groups from engaging in political free speech. On the heels of the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the regulation that this bill would delay would seemingly finish their job by excluding tea parties and other grassroots groups from any role in the political process.
This bill would delay a major reform to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) that would have returned some semblance of market rates to flood insurance premiums. Currently, NFIP is over $25 billion in debt because homeowners in frequently flooded areas do not have to pay an amount that is equal to the risk they incur, meaning that the government takes a loss when the inevitable floods occur. By delaying the scheduled reforms, the NFIP will require a taxpayer bailout for billions of dollars.
Delaying Obamacare's unconstitutional individual insurance mandate extends the same exception to the law that was extended to businesses with the delay of the employer mandate. This delay would also prevent Obamacare from taking full effect, and provides an extended window to work on defunding, delaying, or dismantling the entire law.
This bill would stop the EPA from imposing proposed regulations that would effectively ban new coal-fired power plants from ever being constructed. It would require the EPA to take into account current achievable technologies from existing plants when setting future emission reductions, stopping them from promulgating impossible regulations that would kill the coal industry.
This bill would require that all government budget calculations be made based upon the spending levels for the current fiscal year. Currently, budget projections assume an automatic increase in federal spending based upon the rate of inflation, meaning that even stopping the growth of federal spending would be scored as a cut. Baseline budgeting would force Congress to account for this "automatic" growth of government spending honestly.
This amendment specifically prevents Defense funding from being used to implement any climate change recommendations that are based upon controversial international and U.S. scientific assessments, including the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report, the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, or the United Nations Agenda 21 sustainable development plan.
This amendment by Rep. Mike Pompeo would eliminate the Economic Development Administration, a Great Society creation that has turned into a de facto backdoor earmark program.
This amendment by Rep. Marsha Blackburn would reduce the spending levels in the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies appropriations bill by 1% across the board, with the exception of funding for the FBI.
This amendment by Rep. John Fleming would prevent federal funding for state and local license plate scanning programs. Mass scanning of license plates has the potential to be as invasive of individuals' privacy as the NSA's phone data collection, and should not be subsidized federally.
This amendment by Rep. Marsha Blackburn would cut spending from Transportation and Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill by 1% across the board.
This amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie requires the NSA and other intelligence agencies to obtain specific warrants in order to access communications metadata collected on American citizens. It also stops intelligence agencies from using "backdoor" security vulnerabilities to access companies' data.
This amendment by Rep. Tom McClintock would eliminate all funding for the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program and the Fossil Energy Research and Development Program, and reduce funding for the Nuclear Energy Programs, saving taxpayers $3.1 billion dollars.
This amendment by Rep. Richard Hudson would reduce spending in the Energy & Water Appropriations bill by 7.4831%, which would return spending in the bill to 2008 levels. Defense and nuclear security programs would be exempted from the cut.
This bill bails out the nearly depleted Highway Trust Fund through May of 2015, using revenue gimmicks to supposedly offset most of the cost. The Highway Trust fund desperately needs reform instead of merely continuing to receive periodic taxpayer bailouts.
This bill would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing a new rule that would allow them to regulate practically any water under the Clean Water Act. The CWA was intended to regulate "navigable waterways", but the EPA wants to be able to regulate everything from irrigation ditches to ponds to dry creek beds - which would massively infringe upon property owners' rights to develop their own land.
This bill would require a full and comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve. The central bank of the United States has operated in secrecy for over a century, and should be fully open to Congressional and public scrutiny.
This trillion-plus dollar spending bill was crafted behind closed doors and was packed with dozens of policy riders that Congress never had a chance to vote on individually. It continues to fund the federal government fully, with zero reforms to the government's out-of-control spending.
The funding for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts was appropriated as "emergency" funding, meaning that it was above and beyond the amount of spending allowed by existing budget caps. This amendment by Rep. Mulvaney would simply offset a large portion of this emergency spending by making a slight, across-the-board reduction in discretionary spending.
This amendment, sponsored by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ-11), would add another $33 billion to the Disaster Relief Act, bringing the total spending in the bill to over $50 billion. Although the bill is supposedly to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the better portion of this amendment funds unrelated programs such as community development block grants. The "emergency" spending is also not offset, meaning that it will add to the federal deficit.
This bill is an "emergency" appropriations bill that contains $50.1 billion in spending that is supposed to aid those affected by Hurricane Sandy. In reality, however, most of the spending will not provide acute disaster relief, and much of it is not even scheduled to be spent until 2014 or later. Thus, the bill functions more like a stimulus than true disaster relief and its spending should be appropriated through the budget process instead of as emergency spending that adds to the federal deficit.
This bill raises the statutory limit on the public debt (the "debt ceiling") by whatever amount is necessary to reach May 19th, 2013. Although the bill theoretically contains a "no budget, no pay" provision conditional upon the Senate passing a budget resolution, in reality the provision has no teeth. FreedomWorks insists that further increases in the debt ceiling by accompanied by proportional decreases in federal spending in order to address the ever-increasing federal debt, which at the time of this bill stood at $16.4 trillion. Instead, this bill amounts to a "clean" debt ceiling hike, accompanied by the unenforceable promise of spending reforms at a later date.
This closed rule does allow for any extended debate or amendments to the Continuing Resolution, thus allowing a bill that spends at the rate of over $1 trillion per year to be passed without any input from individual Members of Congress on the floor of the House.
This bill would repeal ObamaCare entirely, stopping the government takeover of our health care. If allowed to take effect, ObamaCare will greatly increase health insurance costs, reduce the quality of care, and eventually lead to direct rationing of care. It also contains unconstitutional mandates that attempt to force people to buy health insurance, an unprecedented use of federal power.
The so-called "Farm Bill" is actually a combination of agricultural policy and welfare, with food stamps accounting for 80 percent of the bill's nearly trillion dollars in projected spending. Aside from failing to contain the multitude of faults within the rapidly-expanding food welfare programs, the agricultural portion of the bill is an amalgam of direct corporate welfare for insurance companies and farm corporations and special carve-outs and price supports for the specific industries with the best lobbyists.
This amendment by Rep. McClintock would cut $1.544 billion from various research and development programs for alternative energy. The free market can take care of researching and development the next generation of energy technologies far more efficiently than the federal government can, without the distorting effect of the government picking winners and losers.
This version of the Farm Bill contains only the actual agricultural side of the earlier bill, leaving food stamps to be considered as their own bill. Unfortunately, this bill actually makes the Farm Bill worse by making the billions in subsidies to farm corporations and dozens of special hand-outs to favored industries permanent, instead of making free market reforms. The bill also still contains the brand new, unnecessary "shallow-loss" crop insurance entitlement, which will actually increase the Farm Bill's cost.
This bill would simply delay the enactment of ObamaCare's "individual mandate" for one year, extending the same temporary reprieve for individuals that was granted to businesses when the administration delayed the employer mandate. Delaying the individual mandate effectively forces a delay of the entire law, and buys time to work to defund and dismantle ObamaCare entirely.
This amendment to the DoD Appropriations Act, by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), protects a basic 4th Amendment right by requiring that the NSA can only gather electronic data from people who are actively under an investigation with approval of the FISA court. This is basic due process under the law - you need a specific warrant to search and seize an individual's physical property; the same should apply to that individual's communications and digital property.
This amendment to the T-HUD Appropriations bill would eliminate the Essential Air Service program, a wasteful federal subsidy that supports seldom-used rural airfields. This would save taxpayers $100 million.
This amendment by Rep. Scalise (R-LA) effectively prevents the executive branch from levying any form of carbon tax without Congressional approval. Since a carbon tax would be tremendously destructive to the economy as a whole, this measure would hopefully make such a tax far less likely to pass.
This bill, entitled the “REINS Act”, would require a vote in Congress on any “major” regulations issued by the executive branch before it could be enforced on the American people. The REINS Act would thus restore accountability and protect citizens’ rights by giving elected officials a voice in all major regulations issued.
This bill would prevent the IRS from implementing or enforcing any aspect of ObamaCare. Under the law as written, the IRS would have access to a massive new data source called the "Federal Data Services Hub", which would give the IRS employees charged with enforcing ObamaCare's mandates unprecedented access to information about each and every taxpayer. In the wake of multiple scandals in which IRS employees deliberately leaked sensitive personal information on political candidates and groups, it makes little sense to put them in charge or our health care.
Congressman Mark Meadows solicited signatures for a letter to Speaker Boehner, asking that the House Republicans stand firm in their commitment to defund ObamaCare through the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government. Members who signed the letter affirmed their commitment to resist ObamaCare using a must-pass bill (the CR), rather than continuing to take ineffectual, symbolic votes to that effect.
This initial Continuing Resolution offered by the House during the debate over the funding for ObamaCare fully funds the entire federal government except for any further implementation or operation of ObamaCare. The premium increases, dropped insurance policies, and delays of major portions of ObamaCare made clear that this poorly-written law could not succeed, and this Continuing Resolution was the last chance to stop ObamaCare's harmful policies before they took full effect.
H.R. 2775 was used as the vehicle for the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government. This bill funds the government fully (including ObamaCare) through January 15th of 2014, suspends the debt ceiling completely until February of 2014, and obliges both chambers of Congress to go to conference on a full-year budget. In other words, this CR allows for more uncontrolled spending and debt, with no reforms to either, does nothing to address ObamaCare, and potentially promises more future spending if a budget agreement is reached.
This bill would protect individual states' rights to develop energy resources within their borders by declaring state regulations on hydraulic fracturing to have supremacy over those issued by the federal EPA. Hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") has proven to be a safe and economical way to develop America's vast natural gas resources, and in those state which choose to allow fracking thousands of new jobs will be created as a result.
This bill simply expedites the permitting process for establishing natural gas pipelines. Currently the federal government has slowed down pipeline construction by as much as several years in many instances, and this bill would require that the permitting process be finished within one year of a permit request being filed.
This is the final House vote to pass the budget deal negotiated by Congressman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray. The deal breaks the budget caps established in 2011 by $63 billion over two years, while claiming to contain a net deficit reduction over ten years by raising fees and making other minor cuts. With no guarantee that future congresses will obey the scheduled spending cuts, this bill delivers increases in both spending and taxes in exchange for no meaningful reforms.
The bill would repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) Act. The CLASS Act is the long-term care entitlement, which even the Dept. of Health and Human Services admits is prohibitively expensive. Voting to repeal CLASS at this time advances the larger goal of fully repealing President Obama's unworkable Affordable Care Act.
The bill would reform the way that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculates the baseline spending assumptions that are the basis for all of its projections of future spending. The legislation would remove the assumption from CBO calculations that spending will increase each year in proportion to inflation, which makes Congress’ new spending each year look like less than it is. The Baseline Reform Act would make the federal budget process more honest and transparent.
FreedomWorks opposes this bill. It would allow the Department of Commerce to continue issuing countervailing duty (CVD) on imports from China, Vietnam and other countries deemed non-market economies (NMEs). H.R. 4105 would hurt U.S. consumers and importers while further escalating a trade war with China. Like other taxes, the cost of tariffs, including “countervailing duties” are only paid by consumers.
The amendment would replace Paul Ryan's budget proposal, which does not balance until after 2040, with the Republican Study Committee's alternative proposal, which would balance in five years. The RSC's budget also simplifies the tax code, reforms Medicare and Social Security, and caps federal spending at just below 2008 levels. The RSC budget is the kind of aggressive but workable reform we need in order to get America back on the path to fiscal sustainability.
This bill would keep student loan rates at 3.4 percent instead of allowing them to rise to their 2007 level of 6.8 percent. Artificially keeping student loan rates low not only costs taxpayers billions of dollars, it also distorts markets by encouraging students to take loans that they otherwise may not have been able to afford, which in turn encourages colleges to charge more for tuition.
This amendment would eliminate the Economic Development Administration (EDA), which is an obsolete program whose grants are being used by many Members of Congress to essentially create earmarks. Eliminating this useless program would also save over $500 million per year.
This amendment would cut Commerce, Science & Justice Appropriations across the board by 1%, for an annual savings of $511 million.
This amendment would reduce spending for each of the agencies funded by this bill by 12.2%, exempting certain key organizations such as the U.S. Marshals and the FBI. This would save $2.7 billion in FY 2014 and apply that money towards reducing the budget deficit.
FreedomWorks opposes reauthorizing the Export-Import bank because it is essentially a corporate welfare program that hands out trade subsidies to politically connected companies. The government could better improve exports by reducing regulations and corporate taxation, which would render American manufacturing more competitive with the rest of the world.
This amendment would eliminate the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program, which directly subsidizes green energy companies. This program is pure corporate welfare, with the government picking winners and losers in the energy sector, and eliminating it would save taxpayers $1.45 billion annually.
This amendment would eliminate much of the Department of Fossil Energy, another federal agency which uses taxpayer dollars to subsidize green energy research. This would save nearly half a billion dollars in 2013, and return more research and development to the private sector where it belongs.
This amendment would cut nearly 10% from the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, for an annual savings of $3.1 billion. This cut would comply with the Republican Study Committee's budget, which aims to balance the federal budget in five years.
This motion by Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) would instruct the House conferees to insist upon capping highway spending at the amount taken in by the gas tax. The gas tax was intended to be the sole revenue source for the Highway Trust Fund, but the federal government has routinely outspent their revenue supply in the past decades, requiring periodic bailouts of the Trust Fund.
This bill provides funding for the Departments of Transportation and Housing & Urban Development. It increases funding for such unnecessary programs as Amtrak, the Essential Air Service, and community development block grants. The bill fails to make any real cuts to spending, in spite of the country's massive deficits.
FreedomWorks opposes this bill because it reauthorizes federal highway spending at a level that far exceeds its revenue from the gas tax. This bill also includes an amendment which continues the artificial lowering of student loan rates, a practice which encourages students to incur debt that they cannot afford to pay back.
This bill would fully repeal the unaffordable and unpopular health care law popularly known as "ObamaCare". ObamaCare fails to either protect patients or make health care more affordable, and must be repealed and replaced with free-market, patient-centered reforms to bring competition into the industry and drive down costs for all consumers.
This amendment selectively cuts $1.07 billion from the Department of Defense's Appropriations, exempting military pay and benefits from any cuts. As the DoD accounts for over 40% of total discretionary spending, targeted cuts in defense spending will be necessary in order to ever balance the budget.
This bill would require the Comptroller of the United States to conduct a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve, in order to determine where this powerful and notoriously opaque private agency has been allocating the U.S. money supply. Transparency in the Federal Reserve is an essential first step to reestablishing a sound monetary policy.
This bill would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior from promulgating upcoming regulations that would devastate the coal industry and make it nearly impossible for many companies to develop new mines. Attacking coal development will massively increase the cost of energy over a large portion of the country, further straining resources in the midst of a weak economy.
This bill is the vehicle for the deal brokered by Senator McConnell and Vice President Biden to avert the "fiscal cliff". While it extends the 2001, 2003 and 2009 tax cuts and credits for most Americans, it allows them to expire on those earning over $450,000 per year. The bill also contains a $30 billion extension of unemployment benefits, and reauthorizes the 2008 Farm Bill for nine months. H.R. 8 allows the payroll tax holiday to expire, effectively raising taxes on 77% of taxpayers, yet extends dozens of tax credits and deductions that amount to corporate welfare for special interests. It also fails to extend the Bush-era tax cuts to all Americans, thus raising taxes at a time when economic growth is desperately needed.
The bill would fully repeal the deeply controversial “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (ObamaCare) passed in March 2010. ObamaCare will reduce the quality and drive up the cost of health care, and contains an unconstitutional mandate requiring Americans to purchase health care simply because they exist.
This amendment would save taxpayers $450 million by cutting the development of the superfluous second engine for the F-35 fighter jet. The military already has one functioning engine for the F-35, and this second design is a wasteful payoff to defense contractors. Even the military says that this program is not necessary.
This bill would cut the EPA's science and technology budget by $64 million. EPA programs were given massive increases in funding in 2010, and were clearly over-funded. Many of these programs are redundant and wasteful, funding scientific studies that should be left to academia and the private sector.
This amendment would save taxpayers $100 million by reducing the Child & Family Services entitlement, a program which contains a great deal of fraud and wasted spending.
This amendment prohibits the use of funds to pay any employee, officer, contractor, or grantee of any department or agency to implement the provisions of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also known as "ObamaCare."
This amendment would prevent any funds from H.R. 1 from being allocated to the implementation of the job-killing and unconstitutional bill popularly known as ObamaCare.
This amendment specifically disallows any funds from H.R. 1 from being used to pay the salary of any employee working to implement ObamaCare.
This bill prevents the IRS from being allowed to enforce the penalty under ObamaCare for failing to enroll in a health insurance plan. Basically, this would make the unconstitutional individual mandate in ObamaCare powerless, as there would be no consequences for failing to comply with it.
This Republican Study Committee amendment would reduce discretionary spending back to 2008 levels, which would amount to $18.6 billion in cuts in 2011 alone.
This amendment would reduce all non-defense discretionary spending to 2006 levels, saving taxpayers billions of dollars in 2011 alone. This is by far the boldest of the spending cuts offered to the 2011 appropriations bill.
This bill would prevent any projects in the 2011 budget from being required to comply with Davis-Bacon wage requirements. Davis-Bacon is a leftover from the New Deal era which costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year because it requires government contractors to pay "local prevailing wages" for every project, which usually leads to expensive union labor receiving the contracts.
This omnibus appropriations bill for 2011 includes the largest single discretionary spending cut in history, cutting $106 billion from various programs and departments. While this is only a fraction of the cuts needed to rein in the government’s spending, it is a very good first step in the right direction.
This bill eliminates the 1099 reporting mandate from Obamacare. Due to a provision hidden in the 2,400 page health care law passed last March, businesses will be required to submit an IRS form 1099 for all goods and services purchased over $600 starting in 2012. This is a paperwork nightmare that will significantly hurt small businesses and cost an abundance of jobs, and must be repealed.
The bill would eliminate the inefficient FHA Refinance Program, saving taxpayers $8 billion. This program, one of the T.A.R.P bailout programs, refinances underwater loans to the FHA, which by the government’s own admission transfers the risk on these bad investments to the taxpayer. This program should never have been created, as it is a clear violation of free market principles.
The bill would end the Department of Housing & Urban Development’s Emergency Homeowners Relief Program, saving taxpayers $1 billion. The program provides high-loss mortgage loan subsidies to people who are very unlikely to be able to pay back the money, which merely delays the inevitable foreclosures and wastes taxpayers’ dollars.
This bill contains a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government. Because the Senate has refused to pass a budget for three years, the government has been funded through these CR’s, continuing our unsustainable levels of deficit spending without even the transparency of the open budget process.
This bill would reauthorize the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provided school vouchers to allow parents in failing school districts to send their children to higher-quality schools of their choice. Congress ended this program in 2009 despite its overwhelming success.
This bill, the “Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011”, would stop Obama's cap and trade scheme by completely stripping the EPA of its ability to use the 'Clean Air Act' to regulate greenhouse gases. This is important legislation that would take serious steps towards addressing high energy costs and ensuring America's energy security.
H.J. Res 37 would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from imposing net neutrality regulations on Internet providers. These job-killing regulations would involve new government controls on the Internet that would have significant implications for investing in innovation and broadband deployment.
This substitute amendment would replace Paul Ryan's budget with the Republican Study Committee's alternative proposal, which would actually balance the federal budget in about a decade. Ryan's budget, while a step in the right direction, would not balance the budget until at least 2040 – far too slowly given the massive size of our nation’s debt.
This bill is Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal for FY 2012. It would balance the federal budget by 2040 without raising taxes, and would cut $6.2 trillion over the next decade compared to President Obama’s budget. The plan reduces government spending to below 20 percent of GDP and block grants Medicaid to the states.
The bill would repeal mandatory funding provided to states in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) to establish American Health Benefit Exchanges. The Obama administration is already using this unlimited slush fund to seduce states into collaborating in the implementation of ObamaCare and has hinted at tapping it to bail out exploding state Medicaid budgets. H.R. 1213 would strike the unlimited direct appropriation and rescind any unobligated funds.
The bill would amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to facilitate the production of American energy resources from the Gulf of Mexico. The Obama administration has delayed or canceled offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill would jumpstart offshore oil drilling by implementing a 30-day deadline in which the secretary of the U.S. Interior Department would have to make a decision on the Gulf of Mexico drilling permit applications.
The amendment to Homeland Security appropriations would cut funding to that department by 10% across the board. This would save over $3.5 billion from current funding levels.
This amendment to the “megabus” appropriations bill would reduce funding for the Economic Research Service by $43 million; reduce funding for the National Agriculture Statistical Service by $85 million; reduce funding for the Agriculture research service by $650 million; zero out the Food for Peace program and to apply the savings towards reducing the budget deficit.
This amendment to the “megabus” appropriations bill would reduce Food for Peace Title II Grants by $940 million and apply the savings towards reducing the budget deficit.
This amendment to the Energy & Water appropriations bill would cut spending by an additional $3.04 billion – nearly 10% - and apply that total to reducing the budget deficit.
This is the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011”, which would cut total spending for FY2012 by $111 billion, cap total federal spending, and require the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that includes a super-majority requirement to raise taxes and a limit on spending before the debt limit can be raised.
This amendment to the Department of Interior appropriations would reduce spending in that department by over $3 billion and apply that money to reducing the budget deficit.
This weak bill, the “Budget Control Act of 2011”, allows President Obama to raise the debt ceiling to over $16 trillion, in exchange for undetermined spending cuts to be decided by a "Super-Committee" picked from both parties. This committee is unlikely to be able to agree to any real spending cuts, and is allowed to use tax increases to create the necessary deficit reductions.
The bill would prohibit the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from ordering any employer to close, relocate or transfer employment under any circumstance. The Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act would help ensure that the government agency does not over step their bounds by dictating decisions made by private sector companies.
This bill, the TRAIN Act, would establish an 11-member committee, chaired by the Department of Commerce, to analyze the impacts of a number of major Environment Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. This bill would push back against the EPA's unconstitutional, outrageous rules and regulations that raise energy prices for consumers, destroy jobs and increase our dependence on foreign sources of energy.
This bill was used as the vehicle for the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government. Because the Senate has refused to pass a budget for three years, the government has been funded through these CR’s, continuing our unsustainable levels of deficit spending without even the transparency of the open budget process.
This would ratify the pending free trade agreement with Columbia. Freer trade will allow Americans to reap the benefits of competition, which include more choices, better products, and lower prices.
This would ratify the pending free trade agreement with Panama. Freer trade will allow Americans to reap the benefits of competition, which include more choices, better products, and lower prices.
This would ratify the pending free trade agreement with South Korea. Freer trade will allow Americans to reap the benefits of competition, which include more choices, better products, and lower prices.
This bill picks favorites among trading partners and disrupts the price system. The biggest problem is that an amendment to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) at the current, higher post-stimulus levels is attached to the bill.
The bill would help to curtail the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Boiler MACT regulations on boilers and industrial incinerators. Boiler MACT is an unreasonable regulation that would shut down businesses and cost thousands of jobs.
This bill, titled the “REINS Act” would require a vote in Congress on any “major” regulations issued by the executive branch before it could be enforced on the American people. The REINS Act would restore accountability and protect citizens’ rights by giving elected officials a voice in all major regulations issued.