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Today marked what was to be the final deadline for states to submit their plans for a state-federal partnership to set up a health insurance exchange in order to comply with ObamaCare.  However, with 27 states currently refusing to set up their own exchange, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now finds itself needing to set up its own exchange in each of these states before the statutorily mandated October 1st deadline. Grassroots activists have made their mark on the fight, sending nearly 40,000 messages via blockexchanges.com to let their top state officials know that assisting the government in creating an exchange is unacceptable.  In North Carolina alone, over 6,700 people sent messages to Governor McCrory, who finally decided to overturn the exchange that had been started by his predecessor Gov. Bev Perdue. Below is a map showing where each state stands on the health insurance exchanges (a bigger version is attached below this post): HHS has responded to the states' resistance with increasing desperation.  They have repeatedly pushed back the deadlines for states to start setting up an exchange.  In states which are working with the government to set up an exchange, the deadlines to finalize their exchanges have been suspended entirely. The administration has also attempted to re-brand the exchanges, attempting to convince the states that HHS will not be too intrusive in the insurance markets (while still noting that the feds will have the final say on everything).  Finally, starting in 2013, HHS has tried to make the exchanges sound more friendly by calling them "marketplaces". Despite pressure from HHS and the insurance industry, governors and legislators in a majority of the states recognized that setting up their own exchanges would be a bad deal, in which states absorb the cost and effort while the government keeps absolute control. Even if the administration succeeds in setting up all of the exchanges in time (which seems increasingly unlikely), ObamaCare faces an obstacle of its own making - a defect in the text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that does not allow federally created exchanges to fully work.  The law specifies that only state-created exchanges can distribute the premium subsidies that are necessary to entice people to participate in the exchange, and also makes it impossible for a federal exchange to effectively enforce the mandate that forces businesses to insure its employees.  You can find a more detailed breakdown of how this causes ObamaCare to break down HERE and HERE. And all that states had to do to throw a wrench in ObamaCare was refuse to comply with an expensive, cumbersome, intrusive government mandate. Remember that even now states which have opted out of the exchanges can choose to take over operation of the federal exchanges.  See where you state stands, and Take Action at blockexchanges.com! File Attachments BlockExchanges_Map_02-15-2013.pdf958.08 KB

Kasey Locke is a bright, beautiful six-year-old girl. But she faces challenges most kids never will. At age three, Kasey was diagnosed with autism. When she started kindergarten at her Phoenix, Ariz., public school, Kasey’s parents worked with school officials to incorporate a new learning method that worked well for her. When the school didn’t apply these methods, her parents continued to tutor her after school. Then Arizona created a revolutionary new school choice option called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. Now, a portion of Kasey’s state education funding is deposited into a private account. Her parents can use that money to pay for school tuition, online classes, tutoring, books, and other expenses. Any leftover money can even be saved for college. Finally, Kasey’s parents can tailor her education to her specific needs. Arizona taxpayers also benefit because the accounts cost less than it would to send her to traditional public schools. "It was almost too good to be true,” according to her father, Jeff. Kasey now attends a private school that has changed her educational life. Her communication skills have improved and she’s much less frustrated. “She likes to go to school. She’s a lot happier in the morning. On the car ride [to school] she is more excited,” her dad says. Kasey visited her speech therapist a few months after switching schools. Her therapist was amazed with her progress, saying she “was a lot calmer and followed directions better.” Empowerment Scholarship Accounts were initially available to special needs kids only. But after their broad success, Arizona expanded the program to include military families, kids at failing schools, and adoptive and foster children. The state’s education unions are trying to shut down the program through legal action. In the past, other programs were shot down because they were viewed as the government giving money directly to private schools (some of them religious). Empowerment Scholarship Accounts are different since the parents are the ones making the choice.  Last year an Arizona trial court ruled Empowerment Scholarship Accounts constitutional and now the state Court of Appeals is hearing the case. Although it could go all the way to the state’s highest court, school choice activists are very optimistic. And if it succeeds in Arizona, they expect it to quickly spread across the nation. Hopefully for Kasey and other students, school choice innovation and better education options will prevail over the failed status quo. Follow Jon on Twitter at @ExJon.

FreedomWorks has signed on to the following Memo to the Movement by the Conservative Action Project: Current Event: The current continuing resolution (CR) funding the government expires on March 27, setting up an opportunity for Congress and President Obama to honor the bi-partisan sequester savings already agreed upon.  It also presents an opportunity to achieve even more savings by defunding and stopping the implementation of Obamacare, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently reported will force 7 million Americans out of their existing health insurance. Action:Conservatives cannot support a CR that is above the sequester level of $974 billion annually.  While many conservatives would prefer reprogramming defense cuts to other areas of discretionary spending (dollar for dollar cuts in the same year), the current sequester savings are better than none at all.Conservatives should not approve a CR unless it defunds Obamacare.  This includes Obamacare’s unworkable exchanges, unsustainable Medicaid expansion, and attack on life and religious liberty. A mere “date-change CR” is unacceptable.  Although the Obama administration and others will argue the CR is not the appropriate legislative vehicle to defund Obamacare, it is easily done through a series of appropriation riders.  Because the CR represents one of the best vehicles possible to delay the implementation of Obamacare, it must not be used to bargain on the upcoming sequester. Issue in Brief: On October 1, 2013, open enrollment begins for the federally backed health care exchanges. On January 1, 2014, new money from Washington will begin flowing to states and individuals, all but ensuring that these new entitlements will become a permanent fixture of life in America. The window of opportunity to stop the implementation of these massive new subsidies is closing. Although many of Obamacare's provisions are now the law of the land, many of the law's most damaging and irreversible provisions do not take effect until 2014.   Once implemented, the new spending contained within Obamacare, primarily the Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies, will cost taxpayers more than $1.6 trillion over the next decade, according to the latest CBO estimates.  Given the history of federal entitlement programs and the back-loaded nature of Obamacare spending, some estimate the full implementation cost could reach  $2.6 trillion over ten years. It will increase the federal government's health spending by 15 percent.   The issue is far from settled in the states, which are tasked with either implementing the wide-ranging mandates and invasive requirements put forth by Obamacare, or deferring such choices to the bureaucrats in Washington.   The fractured opinion amongst the states is one reason the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has continually pushed back the deadline for states to make a decision on the exchanges and Medicaid expansion.   The invasive elements of Obamacare are not set in stone; in fact, elements of the law are already under assault from Republicans and Democrats alike. The CLASS Act was repealed and there is bipartisan support for eliminating the devastating Medical Device Tax.   Blueprint to Defunding Obamacare Obamacare’s funding mechanisms are as complicated as the law itself, but they can be stopped through the appropriation process, which includes the upcoming continuing resolution.Federally Backed Exchanges.  An appropriations rider must eliminate the refundable tax credits for premiums and the cost sharing subsidies that are essentially used to support insurance purchased in the Obamacare exchanges, which starts January 1, 2014.Medicaid Expansion.  An appropriations rider must eliminate the enhance match funding for the Medicaid expansion, which takes effect January 1, 2014.Permanent Appropriations.  Obamacare contains items called “permanent appropriations” which guar

Among the many policy initiatives discussed in President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night was a proposal to provide pre-kindergarten education for 4-year olds in all fifty states, an expansion of the Head Start program first started in 1965. While Obama claims that this initiative, and indeed all proposals outlined in his speech, will not expand the federal budget deficit, it’s difficult to imagine how universal preschool provision by the state could be accomplished without a great deal of additional spending. But supposing we take the president at his word, there is still little reason to believe that such a program would be either necessary or useful. Previous studies on the effectiveness of the Head Start program have employed a flawed counterfactual, comparing Head Start students to students with no education status at all, instead of to the alternative educational strategies actually available to and used by parents. In fact, most working mothers already have regular access to child care for their preschoolers even without the Head Start program, calling the necessity for such a program into question. Additionally, the Government Accountability Office has found significant evidence for fraud within the program and that families are routinely encouraged to collect benefits for which they do not qualify. Such findings lead us to question whether the federal government is spending more than $8 billion a year on a program that is neither needed nor effective. The president’s proposal to expand access to preschools is predicated on the assumption that pre-kindergarten education is actually beneficial to children. In fact, there is considerable doubt as to whether this is so, and whether preschools actually confer any long term benefits to students. At an age when they are meant to be exploring and absorbing their surroundings, is it really wise to remove children from their parents and impose a structured, one size fits all educational system on them? There is relatively little that can be formally taught to a child as young as four, and preschool activities typically focus on basic concepts like shapes, colors, letters and numbers. The idea that a child who does not learn the difference between a circle and a triangle at age four, but is instead left to discover it in his own time, will somehow be mentally crippled at later ages in patently ridiculous. Several recent studies have found little in the way of evidence that preschool is useful to students, and in fact it may even hurt, with directed teaching impairing children’s abilities to find answers on their own and exercise creative solutions to problems. At the same time, the methodology and unbiased nature of previous studies linking preschool education to positive outcomes have been called into question, as many of these studies were performed by organizations with a vested interest in the outcome. The very fact that we as a nation have become increasingly obsessed with early childhood education while continuing to fall behind the rest of the world in outcomes should be enough to show that these programs are fundamentally wrongheaded, and that rather than throwing good money after bad we should rethink our entire approach. Obama’s desire to expand the Head Start program is merely another reflection of his philosophy that more government is the solution to every conceivable problem, and that if a program fails it is only due to insufficient funds. Rather than pushing for more expensive, top-down education programs that don’t work, we should focus on empowering parents by supporting school choice and homeschooling. Every child is different, and so decisions about education are best made at the individual level, not handed down from an isolated, out of touch Washington bureaucracy.

On Monday, the Senate is expected to vote on reauthorizing and expanding the so-called Violence against Women Act (VAWA). This unconstitutional law was originally signed by President Clinton in 1994 and has shown no signs of actually reducing violence against women. The real purpose of the VAWA is to shell out taxpayer dollars to liberal organizations that help elect Democrats—which is why the reauthorization bill passed out of committee on a straight party-line vote. Original sponsors of the bill assumingly called it the “Violence against Women Act” in order to pressure their colleagues into voting for it. Supporters of the VAWA attempt to politically hurt those opposed to it by painting them as anti-woman or somehow in favor of violence against women. Clearly, domestic violence— whether it is against a woman or man—is tragic and no one in their right mind supports it. This is the kind of dishonest tactics used by Washington insiders to pass terrible bills. They give pieces of legislation deceptive titles so that they can chastise any reasonable opponents. A case in point being the so-called No Child Left Behind Act, supporters accused all opponents of wanting to leave children behind in the classroom even though the massive bill was fundamentally flawed.  Like the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act, there are many reasons to oppose the VAWA. First, domestic violence was already prosecuted in every state prior to the passing of the VAWA. Why do we need a federal law for something that was already illegal in all 50 states? Isn't that redundant?  The VAWA made domestic violence a federal crime but it is not an issue that should be handled by the federal government because it is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Like other wrongdoings such as murder and theft, it is properly handled on the state and local level, in accordance with the 10th amendment.  The VAWA cost a lot of dough—$660 million, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates— for a duplicative law that has shown no real evidence of reducing domestic violence. What exactly counts as domestic violence? The newest version of the VAWA, S.47, contains very vague and broad definitions of domestic violence. A man that raises his voice at his partner, calls her an offensive name, stalks her, causes her any emotional distress, or simply just annoys her can potentially be prosecuted under the VAWA. Calling your spouse a mean name is not advised or polite, but it isn’t the same thing as violence towards her. Violence against anyone is bad —that shouldn’t even need to be said. Unfortunately, the VAWA reinforces ugly stereotypes about men and women. Supporters of the law portray men as natural predators that are never on the other side of domestic violence. However, in a 2010 national survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it was found that 40% of the victims of domestic violence are men and half of all partner violence is mutual.  Supporters of the VAWA portray women as helpless victims—this is the kind of attitude that is setting women back. Thank goodness that there are many strong and independent women, including the female members of the Independent Women’s Forum, who believe that there are real reasons to oppose the VAWA.

Thousands of Americans are voting with their feet and heading to the Lone Star State. Despite a national economic slump, Texas boasts a rock solid economy and pro-active leadership committed to fostering a business friendly environment. And it's just this type of climate that's attracting the nation's best and brightest.   Not content to let word of Texas' prosperity trickle out, Texan leaders are pro-actively recruiting in failing states. Texas Governor, Rick Perry is running an ad in California this week encouraging Californians to bring their businesses to Texas.  "Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible," the Rick Perry says, "come check out Texas.  There are plenty of reasons Texas has been named the best state for doing business for eight years running."  Today, the Office of the Governor announced that Governor Perry will visit California on an economic development trip:  Gov. Rick Perry will travel to San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Orange County, departing Sunday, February 10 and returning Wednesday, February 13, to meet with business leaders in the high tech, biotechnology, financial, insurance and film industries. The governor's trip will be paid for by TexasOne - no tax dollars will be used for his travel and accommodations. News of Governor Perry's California recruitment efforts come just weeks after Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott ran ads in New York. The Google ad campaign targeted New York gun owners saying, "Wanted: Law abiding New York gun owns looking for lower taxes and greater opportunity.” Other ads read, "You’ll also get to keep more of what you earn and use some of that extra money to buy more ammo." The message from Texas' leadership is clear: want a regulatory-free, business friendly, individual freedom loving home? Texas is hiring. 

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released a new report revising its economic projections for the next ten years. The most striking feature of the report is a marked decline in the federal budget deficit, which the CBO has pegged at $845 billion for the fiscal year 2013. If accurate, this would be the first time the deficit has fallen below $1 trillion since 2008. At first glance, this may appear encouraging to deficit hawks, but a closer examination of the numbers gives cause to be cautious in our optimism, and not to allow ourselves to slip into complacency. The projected deficit reduction comes entirely from new revenues, while spending continues to increase. It is important to remember as well, that the CBO’s projections are based on assumptions that current law will not change. For example, the budget sequestration process scheduled for March 1st is set to cut $1.2 trillion dollars over the next ten years. CBO guidelines require them to incorporate these cuts into their analysis, but whether they will actually happen is far from certain. If the process continues to be delayed, or is averted altogether, the current spending projection will significantly understate the budget deficit.    Furthermore, the new revenues included in the report are not the result of government action, but rather arise from last year’s increase in GDP. Any increase in economic activity will bring with it a corresponding increase in tax revenues. The economy grew at a meager 1.9% in 2012, and is projected to slow even further this year. Rather than continuing to raise taxes and impose draconian regulations on business, Congress should focus on adopting free market policies consistent with economic growth if they are serious about controlling the deficit. The most worrying thing about the CBO’s report is the continued pattern of increased spending it depicts. Despite a great deal of talk about cutting spending, Congress has showed both a lack of will and ability to make the meaningful cuts that are the only way to reduce substantially the deficit in the short term. The so-called cuts that have been reported and touted by the media are illusory in nature, due to the baseline level of spending from which they are calculated. Thus, a reduction in the amount of spending planned for next year is counted as a cut, with no need to actually reduce the spending levels from last year.  Even taking the CBO’s report at face value paints a grim picture of our fiscal future, with deficits continuing to expand after 2015 and no indication that a balanced budget will ever be achieved. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has said of the report: “The CBO’s report is yet another warning that we need to get spending under control. The deficit is still unsustainable.” The reality is that we cannot continue to run deficits of this size without there being serious, long-term consequences for the economy. It is vital that we not be overly sanguine about our fiscal future and act now rather than later to balance the budget and bring responsible governance back to Washington.

Laura Bledsoe wasn't that interested in politics of any kind, least of all conservative politics. The back-to-nature farmer would be considered a bit of a hippie to many traditional Republicans. But Laura's foray into community-supported agriculture has turned her into a Tea Party hero, highlighting a growing alliance between limited-government activists and small organic farmers. In October 2011, Laura hosted a "farm-to-fork" dinner in her southern Nevada home. This locally sourced, all-natural meal celebrated all the virtues of the modern environmentalist and “food justice” movements; what could go wrong? I’ll give you one guess. Two days before the one-off event, the Southern Nevada Health District Office demanded the farm get a government-issued health permit. When Laura’s husband immediately complied, the office demanded a health inspection on the day of the event. And that’s when it got ugly. The health inspector raised several concerns, but chief among them was the meat the Bledsoes were preparing to serve. Because the event was advertised as a "zero mile footprint," the meat hadn't been sent through a USDA processing plant, as is required for any meat purchased at a grocery store or restaurant, so the inspector deemed it illegal to serve. "She immediately demanded that we send our guests home and cease the event, and if we didn't she would call the police and have them personally escorted off the property." Increasingly panicked, flustered, and "having a nervous breakdown," Laura attempted to reason with the inspector without success. In addition to being ordered to send their guests home, the farmers were also told they needed to pour bleach over all the meat to ensure it would never be served. "It's one thing when you throw out a piece of food that you have no relationship to," Laura says. "But we raised these animals. When you raise animals and slaughter them and then prepare them, it's with great reverence that you eat this food. The total disregard for any of that was just appalling to me." In Old Testament times, animals were sacrificed to please God. Now a bureaucrat was ordering an animal sacrifice to please the government. After quick thinking by the Bledsoes and a friendly lawyer’s advice, they sent the petty tyrant packing. The Orwellian tale went viral spreading first among the burgeoning farm-to-table movement. But much to the foodies' surprise, the story really gained traction through Tea Party activists. The public outcry was intense. The Bledsoes are now working with Nevada legislators to shred some of the red tape suffocating small food producers. Meanwhile, activists on the left and right agree that top-down mandates from an ever-expanding government are not the answer. As with culinary contentions over foie gras, raw milk and other traditional delicacies, left-leaning food producers are recognizing the wisdom of a freer market. And by welcoming these organic farmers and gourmet chefs, Tea Party activists are creating a formidable, if unlikely, alliance. Follow Jon on Twitter at @ExJon.

On Monday, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) announced that he plans to introduce legislation this year that would “allow workers to earn paid sick days that can be used to recover from a short-term illness, care for a sick family member, obtain preventive or diagnostic treatment or seek help if they have been victims of domestic violence.” Of course, in the typical parlance of the left, the phrase “allow workers to earn paid sick days” actually means “force employers to give paid sick days,” and the word “earn” loses its significance entirely. Harkin claims that a greater amount of productivity is lost from workers coming to work sick than from staying home, but this is plainly nonsense. Businesses strive to maximize profits. Why would they then fail to offer paid sick days if doing so would save them money? What Harkin is essentially asserting is that businesses must be forced by the law to act in their own best interests, a claim which is ridiculous on its face. This kind of thinking is typical for advocates of the nanny-state, who believe that a panel of experts and statisticians can assess your needs better than you yourself can. If employers have a financial incentive to offer paid sick leave, you can bet they will take advantage of it. The current state of the economy demands maximum efficiency from firms struggling to survive. However, the burden on businesses is not the only cause for concern here. Supporters of a paid sick leave requirement point to research indicating that the cost to employers is very low in the aggregate, and studies differ when it comes to pinning down an actual figure. But regardless of how high such costs are, it will ultimately be the employees who will bear the brunt of them. When the cost of labor increases, companies hire fewer workers. One study investigating the potential impact of a paid sick leave requirement in Florida found that 40% of affected employees would see their compensation reduced in other ways and more than half of the affected businesses would see a decrease in profits as a result. It is worth noting that the two areas which have implemented a statewide mandatory sick leave requirement, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, rank 42nd and 41st respectively in terms of statewide unemployment, well above the national average. With similar initiatives being pushed in Portland and New York, we can soon expect to see adverse employment impacts in those areas as well. Some business owners have come out against the proposed regulations, warning that they will cost jobs and reduce competitiveness, especially among the smaller firms who rely heavily on just a few employees. The owner of one Seattle-based coffee shop has already begun raising prices to cover the additional costs, even though he personally supports the city’s sick leave requirement. The idea that government can help workers by continually tightening its fist on employers is a persistent fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. With a mandated health insurance requirement looming ominously overhead and an economy that has been stuck in post-recession malaise for years, the last thing small businesses need is another regulation that increases the cost of creating jobs. The impact of a mandatory paid sick leave requirement will not only hurt businesses, but also consumers and the very workers it seeks to protect in the form of higher prices, lower employment and a further drag on an already weak economy.

Idaho is among the reddest of red states, and would seem to be an obvious frontrunner among the states resisting ObamaCare's health care exchanges.  Indeed, Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter has long been a vocal opponent of ObamaCare, and even signed an executive order banning his state's employees from enforcing ObamaCare. And yet, Gov. Otter vetoed a bill to ban health care exchanges, and eventually announced that  Idaho would set up a fully state-run health care exchange.  In his veto letter to the legislature, Gov. Otter declared that Under ObamaCare, individual states retain control of the creation of an insurance exchange. The fact is, the federal government will develop and operate an exchange for us if Idaho elects to forgo the creation of our own exchange... The problem with this logic, as most other Republican governors have realized, is that the states do not have the final say over any of the most crucial aspects of the exchanges.  The federal government still decides what insurance plans comply with ObamaCare, they still decide who gets health care subsidies and how much, and they still use the exchanges to help enforce the unconstitutional health care mandates.  State control over exchanges is merely a veneer over the federal leviathan that effects the "Affordable Care Act". Nebraska Governor Dave Heinemann summed up the nature of health care exchanges nicely: A state exchange is nothing more than the state administering the Affordable Care Act with all the important and critical decisions made by the federal government. Fortunately, a number of Idaho's state legislators continue to oppose the exchange, and there is still time to push the Governor to reverse his course.  Idaho residents can visit FreedomWorks' action page to contact the top state officials by email and phone and urge them to stand against ObamaCare.  The Idaho Freedom Foundation is also collecting a petition asking state officials to cease implementing a health care exchange.  You can sign the petition HERE. Over half of the states are currently standing against the government's unprecedented takeover of health care, and it's not too late for Idaho to join them!  Find out where all the states stand, and more information on the exchanges, at blockexchanges.com.

Dear FreedomWorks member, As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your Representative and urge him or her to co-sponsor the “Require a PLAN Act”, H.R. 444.  Introduced by Rep. Tom Price (GA-6), the bill would require the President to submit a budget plan that specifically details when and how it would achieve balance. By law, the President is required to submit a budget by today, the first Monday of February.  Yet, for the fourth time in five years, President Obama has declared that he will miss this deadline, showing contempt for both the law and for his obligations to the people who elected him.  Furthermore, on the occasions when the President has bothered to put together a plan, he laid out a budget that would never achieve balance. It is because of this “leadership” that the federal government has piled up a record $6 trillion in new debts in just the first four years under President Obama.  Thus, Rep. Price’s H.R. 444 requires that the President submit a budget plan that specifies when it would achieve balance, with specific details about what policies he would see enacted in order to eliminate the annual budget deficit. Hopefully, H.R. 444 will remind the President that he has a duty to lay out a fiscally responsible plan that places America back on the road to sustainability.  I urge you to contact your Representative and ask him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 444, the Require a PLAN Act, today. Sincerely,   Matt Kibbe President and CEO, FreedomWorks File Attachments LoS_2013-02-04_Require_a_PLAN_Act.pdf193.49 KB

Dear FreedomWorks member, As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to vote YES on the Portman “End Government Shutdowns Act” amendment to H.R. 325.   Because the U.S. Senate has refused to pass a budget since 2009, the government has been funded through a series of Continuing Resolutions (CRs), which just continue spending at the levels approved under the last actual budget.  If Congress fails to pass a CR, all annually appropriated spending would cease until they pass either a real budget or another CR.   Each Continuing Resolution is an avoidance of the primary duty of Congress – to set forth a budget that is within the government’s means.  Worse, the CRs continue to spend at a level that will continue our nearly trillion-dollar annual deficit in perpetuity. Senator Portman’s amendment would force the Senate to do its job in the event that the current CR expires by scheduling automatic across-the-board spending cuts of one percentage point for every 90 days until Congress passes another CR or a real budget.  If Congress fails to respond to these automatic cuts, the worst that will happen is that the government’s unsustainable spending might be reduced to a manageable level. I urge you to call your U.S. Senators and ask them to vote YES on the Portman “End Government Shutdowns Act” amendment to H.R. 325.  We may count the vote on this amendment as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2013. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom. Sincerely, Matt Kibbe President and CEO, FreedomWorks   Dear FreedomWorks member,   As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to vote YES on the Portman “End Government Shutdowns Act” amendment to H.R. 325.    Because the U.S. Senate has refused to pass a budget since 2009, the government has been funded through a series of Continuing Resolutions (CRs), which just continue spending at the levels approved under the last actual budget.  If Congress fails to pass a CR, all annually appropriated spending would cease until they pass either a real budget or another CR.    Each Continuing Resolution is an avoidance of the primary duty of Congress – to set forth a budget that is within the government’s means.  Worse, the CRs continue to spend at a level that will continue our nearly trillion-dollar annual deficit in perpetuity.   Senator Portman’s amendment would force the Senate to do its job in the event that the current CR expires by scheduling automatic across-the-board spending cuts of one percentage point for every 90 days until Congress passes another CR or a real budget.  If Congress fails to respond to these automatic cuts, the worst that will happen is that the government’s unsustainable spending might be reduced to a manageable level.   I urge you to call your U.S. Senators and ask them to vote YES on the Portman “End Government Shutdowns Act” amendment to H.R. 325.  We may count the vote on this amendment as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2013. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.   Sincerely,   Matt Kibbe, President and CEO, FreedomWorks  800x600 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 File Attachments KVN_2013-01-31_End_Government_Shutdowns_Amendment_-_YES.pdf238.98 KB

In a previous post, I've discussed the horrifying effects on patients in Great Britain's National Health Service (NHS) when government bureaucrats make medical decisions based on a formula that measures the expected quality of life if a patient is allowed to survive. Despite the full-court press being run on reporters to influence them to positively report on Obamacare, the real, tangible results of bureaucratic medicine are plain for the world to see. Several more recent reports have detailed mistreatment of patients in the NHS due more to bureaucratic than medical decisions. The most shocking of which was an audit of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which revealed that almost half of all dying patients were never told that life-saving treatment had been withdrawn. According to the London Telegraph, The study suggests that in total, around 57,000 patients a year are dying in NHS hospitals without being told that efforts to keep them alive have been stopped. It also reveals that thousands of dying patients have been left to suffer in pain, with no attempt to keep them comfortable while drugs were administered. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the epitome of a death panel. Bureaucrats making life or death decisions, solely for budgetary concerns. These revelations have led public officials to begin a formal inquest: "the failure to consult patients would now be examined by an independent inquiry, which will also look at payments made to hospitals for meeting targets to place people on the pathway." [emphasis added] SR Larson provides a succinct analysis: The government-run, tax-funded NHS has payment standards that do three things: 1. Discourage physicians from sending patients to specialists, as specialists cost more money than General Practitioners (a.k.a., Gatekeeper Practitioners); 2. Demand the use of QALY, an instrument for evaluating the economic worthiness of a person’s life; and 3. Encourage hospitals to put patients on medical death row when treatment is considered fiscally futile. All these payment instruments are put in place by the British government to cap the costs of operating the National Health Service. Cost containment has infiltrated the practice of medicine to such a degree where the final word on a person’s health, even life, is fiscal, not medical. The practitioners of eugenics are nothing short of statist ghouls. The very idea that an individual is completely removed from making his or her own decision on how to survive is macabre and barbaric. Creating sophisticated mathematical formulas like QALY to back up a public policy doesn't make the policy smarter, if that policy removes the fundamental, innate right to live one's own life in favor of "the greater good". It seem obvious that it is impossible to serve the greater good if the rights of the individual are involuntarily sacrificed. But that's just what Obamacare promises to do. As Wesley Smith noted at National Review, Doctors Lose Humanity Serving Govt. Masters The implosion of UK healthcare quality is a warning for the U.S. … Loss of humanity is a predictable consequence of centralized control. As the quality of healthcare worsens, the technocracy kicks into high gear, issuing more regulations, guidelines, and treatment (or rationing) checklists–further devolving medicine into a deprofessionalized, connect-the-dots craft. And that can be deadly. The same thing will happen in the U.S. once Obamacare’s cost/benefit and best care standards bureaucracies are up and running. Many on the Left will argue that while rare examples may be found where the bureaucracy left one or two patients out in the cold, overall the system's benefits outweigh these occasional tragedies. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the bureaucracy is the sole cause in many cases of suffering and death. The cure is clearly worse than the disease.

Dear FreedomWorks member, As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to vote YES on the Toomey amendment to H.R. 325.  This amendment contains Senator Toomey’s “Full Faith and Credit Act”, to require the Treasury to fulfill critical payment obligations in the event that the federal debt limit is exceeded. In July of 2011, with the federal government rapidly approaching the debt limit, President Obama declared that if the debt ceiling was not raised he might not have the money to send out Social Security checks to seniors.  The truth is that even when the debt limit is reached the government still collects revenues, and the Department of the Treasury has the ability to choose which programs will be funded with the money that is still flowing in.  That funding is more than sufficient to pay for the most crucial spending items, such as entitlements and the interest on the debt, which means that the President has to actually choose to deny checks to seniors on Social Security. Senator Toomey’s amendment prevents the executive branch from holding crucial spending hostage in the event that the debt ceiling is reached, by formally requiring that the Treasury pay interest on the debt, Social Security benefits, and the salaries of our active duty armed forces before anything else. I urge you to call your U.S. Senators and ask them to vote YES on the Toomey “Full Faith and Credit Act” amendment to H.R. 325.  We may count the vote on this amendment as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2013. The Economic Freedom Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom. Sincerely, Matt Kibbe President and CEO, FreedomWorks File Attachments KVN_2013-01-31_Full_Faith_and_Credit_Amendment_-_YES.pdf236.5 KB

Last week, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved a reroute of the oft-disputed Keystone XL pipeline. Previously, the pipeline was slated to cross not only the Nebraska Sandhills but the Ogallala aquifer as well, two areas that had environmentalist groups ready for war.  The resultant pressure caused Gov. Heineman to withdraw his support for the pipeline as planned, and President Obama denied the required Presidential Permit in January 2012. TransCanada went back to the drawing board, and submitted several new potential routes to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ). The NDEQ, together with the Department of State, conducted an environmental assessment of each plan, finally choosing the now-approved blueprint. The new path cuts further east, bypassing the Sandhills but failing to avoid the aquifer (click here to see a map of the old route as compared to the new one). Now, the process rests squarely in the newly-reelected hands of President Obama, who has an enormous choice to make. Should he capitulate to pressure from environmental groups, or approve a politically-risky plan that could create thousands of jobs? Overall, the benefits of the pipeline far outweigh the costs. The NDEQ estimates the pipeline could generate more than $400 million in economic gain, including $16.5 million in usage taxes on construction materials and around $11 million in first-year property taxes. This revenue could go a long way to growing the economy of the state, to say nothing of the increased employment provided by such a project. In total, TransCanada estimates that up to 4,560 new or existing jobs will be supported by the new pipeline in Nebraska alone. Furthermore, many of the most important environmental concerns have been addressed in the reroute proposal. The new blueprints purposefully avoid the most environmentally fragile areas, including the areas in which the aquifer is closest to the surface.  The pipeline will now also circumvent the one wellhead protection area (a region where spills or toxins could have a serious deleterious effect on drinking water) covered by the previous plan. As a result, any oil spill would be localized, as opposed to creating a widespread regional problem. TransCanada has also promised to foot the bill for any leakage, and has offered proof of at least $200 million in liability insurance to cover potential spill cleanup. The report also provides case-by-case summaries of recent oil and toxin spills, and the ways in which TransCanada plans to avoid similar situations (for a quick summary of the NDEQ report, click here). Given all of the above, approval for the pipeline seems like a no-brainer. Unfortunately, as in most White House decisions, politics will likely play a huge role in the decision-making process. One huge opponent could be Warren Buffett himself, a prominent Obama supporter. Buffett is, in fact, one business tycoon who would not be well-served by the installation of the pipeline. He took on a great deal of risk a few years ago to purchase Burlington Northern Santa Fe,even sacrificing Berkshire Hathaway’s triple-A credit rating to acquire the railroad. Burlington Northern already carries a quarter of the oil from TransCanada’s Bakken oil fields, and would be a likely choice to haul the rest if efforts to build the pipeline are blocked. Unsurprisingly, one of Buffett’s oldest friends and close business partner, Dick Holland, has effectively bankrolled BOLD Nebraska, the environmental group leading the charge against the pipeline.  Other environmental groups have weighed in on the issue as well. In fact, Nebraska’s approval of the new pipeline route elicited official support for civil disobedience from the Sierra Club for the first time in the organization’s 120-year history. They’re following the lead of other protestors in Texas and Oklahoma, many of which have been arrested for trying to halt construction of the pipeline in tho