Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

New York Times

Trump Budget Guru, Long a Fiscal Hawk, Now Has to Sell Spending New York Times WASHINGTON Making the rounds at the Capitol on a recent evening, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump's budget director, decided to add an unscheduled stop: a meeting of the House Freedom Caucus, the group of hard-line conservatives that once ... Trump's Budget Blueprint Puts Washington on NoticeThe National Interest Online Pentagon's FY17 supplemental sets up budget caps fightDefenseNews.com Trump Budget Would Abolish 19 Agencies, Cut Thousands of Federal JobsDefense One Los Angeles Times -Washington Business Journal -Fox News -The White House all 1,523 news articles »

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Trump Budget Guru, Long a Fiscal Hawk, Now Has to Sell Spending - New York Times

CeciandNotley in the legislatureearlier this month(CP)

For budget speechwriters, a common ploy is to begin and end the finance ministers address with a specific charactera compellingindividualwith a captivating personal story, whose needs and challenges perfectly encapsulatewhat the budget is trying to achieve. For a government investing in health care and seniors care, it might be Deborah, the sandwich-generation single mom whose son has a rare disease and whose mother needs home-care service. For the belt-tightening minister, theresoldtimer Dwight at the small-town coffee shop, who worries about the debt burden his grandchildren will pay. For a province that wishes to tout a new skills program: Mo the plumber, from Syria.

Alberta now has the perfect individual to help frame the Rachel Notley governments vision and fiscal narrative. His name is Straw Man.

Straw Man wants to write budgets with machetes, with deep cuts to public services, Finance Minister Joe Ceci says near the start of his address. Straw Man wants to give grandparents second-class health care. Straw Man will cram as many kids as possible into a classroom, Ceci says near his monologues end. Straw Man gives tax cuts to his corporate friends, he added in his news conference. Straw Man is not named thusly in the speech. The opposition Tories and Wildrose arent named in this 2017 budget speech eitherand nor is Jason Kenney, the man who will become Tory leader Saturday and try to fusetwo parties into one conservative monolith. But Straw Man is clearly a composite character.

Albertas budget is designed to knock down this villainous figures sinister plans. Its a fairly modest spending plan of lowered public school fees, hospital projects and a slow, optimistic climb to balanced budget early next decade. The plan, to the Notley cabinets credit, lacks wildly ambitious new programs, and through some restraint measures allows operations spending to grow by 2.2 per cent. Thats the slowest rate since the days when the premier was Ralph Klein (the Straw Man avatar of bygone NDP rhetoric) during the cuts of the 1990s and after the post-9/11 crash. This years budget does not let the premiers right-leaning foes depict her as a wild-eyed socialistthough both partisan sides like to play with strawbut the plan does place the long-term and possibly even the short-term future of Albertas public-sector system atop a dangerously flimsy foundation.

RELATED: The line item that shows the NDP cant clean up Albertas balance sheet

The provincemay finally be crawling out of itsdeepest recession since the dreadful 1980s, but its a slow crawl, and years will pass before the economy makes up the ground it lost. The provinces oil and natural gas revenue is projected to shoot up by 54 per cent to the highest level in three years, but those three years combined will beequal to what a good year used to be for Albertas coffers.

The deficit will be $10.3 billion, which isbarely lower than last years record mark. The province stakes most of its future balanced-budget hopes on comfortably higher oil prices than might be realistic: $55 US per barrel this year when theyre now below $50, and a rosy-seeming $68 in two yearsfor every dollar theyre off, add $310 million to the deficitand the timely completion of oil pipelines which could be held up by various challenges and resistance. The accumulated debt will soar to $71.1 billion in two years, compared with the $20-billion debt when the NDP took in 2015, and approaching triple the size of liability that Klein inherited a quarter-century ago, when he branded the situation a grave crisis demandingrevolutionary action.

(Theres a charming chart in the budget book that shows Alberta with the lowest provincial debt-to-GDP ratio, at six per cent. The fine print shows these are 2015-2016 figures. On that same page one can find the real 2017 ratio, 13.8 per cent, set to grow to 19.5 per cent by 2019, still lower than most provinces but ahead of British Columbia and Saskatchewan.)

Notley and Ceci seeno real crisis, despite warnings frombond-rating agencies whocould again slash Albertas credit rating, already below its formerly sterling AAA. To the NDP, the crisis is whatever the opposition parties wishto unleash. But heres the problem: the last time province was approaching fiscal basket-case territory, when Klein took over in 1992, even his Liberal opponents were pledging austerity to restore some alignment to the money Alberta spent and the money Alberta took in. The Notley government has already done plenty to increase revenues, including corporate tax hikes, bigger rates for high-income earners and a much-maligned new carbon tax. Any further taxes would solidify the political doom that polls suggest theyll face in the 2019 election. But on spending, theyre unwilling to go farther than they have so far, with measures to freeze civil service managers pay, target a few Crown agency executive packages and find ill-defined savings worth 0.3 per cent of the current budget.

Contrast this with Newfoundland and Labrador, where the Liberals responded last year to financial shambles with much higher taxes and fees, and Saskatchewan, where Premier Brad Wall wants to scrub a deficit by demanding a 3.5-per-cent cut to public sector compensation, through lower salaries or unpaid days off being dubbed Wallidays.

Ceci hopes Albertans like his plan to maintain services and lower school costs, but isnt sure how voters will receive a future $71.1-billion debt after the good, old Tory-ruled days of high oil prices and debt freedom.I just want to win this press conference actually; so Im focused on that, joked to reporters before his budget speech.

Whatever white knight of the right faces off against Notley in two years (Kenney? Wildrose Leader Brian Jean?)he or she will undoubtedly campaign on restoring fiscal sanity, fending off the straw-man claims that they will ravage public health and education. But the worse the situation they inherit shouldthey win,the more the budgetary beast rages untamedby the current government, the tougher the fiscal conservatives will eventually have to be.

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Alberta marches forward, on boggy fiscal footing - Macleans.ca

Fiscal junks appeal of ex-mayor | SunStar Sun.Star After a careful review of the case, it is clear that respondent's remarks were made in exercise of his right of freedom of expression. Meanwhile, Osmea said Rama should undergo drug rehabilitation instead of denying he is a drug addict. Osmea ...

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Fiscal junks appeal of ex-mayor | SunStar - Sun.Star

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2017 In a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan today, President Donald J. Trump asked for another $30 billion for the Defense Department in this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, to rebuild the armed forces and accelerate the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The fiscal 2017 budget amendment provides $24.9 billion in base funds for urgent warfighting readiness needs and to begin a sustained effort to rebuild the armed forces, according to the presidents letter.

The request seeks to address critical budget shortfalls in personnel, training, maintenance, equipment, munitions, modernization and infrastructure investment. It represents a critical first step in investing in a larger, more ready and more capable military force, Trump wrote.

The request includes $5.1 billion in overseas contingency operations funds so the department can accelerate the campaign to defeat ISIS and support Operation Freedom's Sentinel in Afghanistan, he said, noting that the request would enable DoD to pursue a comprehensive strategy to end the threat ISIS poses to the United States.

Continuing Resolution

At the Pentagon this afternoon, senior defense officials briefed reporters on the on the fiscal 2017 budget amendment. The speakers were John P. Roth, performing the duties of undersecretary of defense-comptroller, and Army Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Ierardi, director of force structure, resources and assessment on the Joint Staff.

Our request to Congress is that they pass a full-year defense appropriations bill, and that the bill includes the additional $30 billion, Roth said. We are now approaching the end of our sixth month under a continuing resolution, he added, one of the longest periods that we have ever been under a continuing resolution.

Crying Needs

The continuing resolution run for the rest of the fiscal year, Pentagon officials would find that extremely harmful to the defense program, Roth said.

We are essentially kind of muddling along right now in terms of borrowing resources against third- and fourth-quarter kinds of finances in order to keep things going, he said. But that game gets to be increasingly difficult as we go deeper into the fiscal year.

Under a continuing resolution, the department has to operate under a fiscal 2016 mandate, creating a large mismatch between operations funds and procurement funds, Roth explained. The department cant spend procurement dollars because theres a restriction on new starts and on increasing production, he said, but we have crying needs in terms of training, readiness, maintenance ... and in the operation and maintenance account.

The continuing resolution expires April 28, so before then, we would want a full appropriation and, of course, a full appropriation with this additional $30 billion, he said.

The Next Challenge

Roth said much of the money in the fiscal 2017 request is funding for operations and maintenance.

We're asking for additional equipment maintenance funding, additional facilities maintenance, spare parts, additional training events, peacetime flying hours, ship operations, munitions and those kinds of things, said he told reporters. This is the essence of what keeps this department running on a day-to-day basis. It keeps us up and allows us to get ready for whatever the next challenge is.

The officials said full support from Congress is key to improving warfighter readiness, providing the most capable modern force, and increasing the 2011 Budget Control Act funding cap for defense.

(Follow Cheryl Pellerin on Twitter @PellerinDoDNews)

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Trump Seeks $30B More in Fiscal 2017 to Rebuild Military, Fight ISIS - Department of Defense

It restricts the freedom of commerce and implies an intrusion into the market, says Attorney General

Q COSTA RICA It restricts the freedom of commerce and implies an intrusion into the market, says Costa Ricas Attorney General, Julio Jurado, commenting on the decree emitted by the government last August, that prevents importers of new vehicles from introducing into the country late-models before the month of September.

This year, for example, 2018 models cannot be in the market before September.

The Attorney General considers the government decree restrictive of freedom of trade, unconstitutional, and lacking the legal authority.

Jurado presented his written arguments before the Constitutional Court or Sala IV as it is commonly refered to, that is studying the action of unconstitutionality presented by the Asociacin de Consumidores Libres (ACL) Association of Free Consumers against the decree promulgated by President Luis Guillermo Solis and the Ministry of Finance in August 2016.

Jurado added, the restriction cannot be classified as a reasonable and adequate measure to achieve uniform fiscal (tax) values.

According to the Attorney General, the decree is also unreasonable because the Tax Administration has extensive powers, which would allow it to seek alternative mechanisms that are proportionate to address the situation it seeks to regulate by decree.

The government and the Ministry of Finance argue that the early importation of late-model vehicles, devalues the rest of the vehicles in the country, in effect lowering their fiscal (tax) value. Since the fiscal value is used to calculate the property tax payable for the year, included in the cost of the Marchamo (circulation permit), the lower values will mean a lower tax revenue.

For its part, the Association of Free Consumers argued before the Constitutional Court argues that the decree violates freedom of trade, freedom of contract and freedom of enterprise, as well as the rights of choice, among other points of law.

Rogelio Fernndez, vice-president of the Association of Free Consumers, said he was happy that the Attorney General is on their side. We are hopeful the action will finally be declared valid (accepted by the Court), because the State lawyer himself is concluding, like us, that the decree is unconstitutional, he said.

For his part, Fernando Rodrguez, Deputy Minister of Finance, said he was surprised at the Attorney Generals position.

There is no date for the Constitutional Court to decide on the merits of the action. Such processes may take several months or even years.

Source La Nacion

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Attorney General: Decree Restricting Importation Of New Cars Is Unconstitutional - Q Costa Rica News

WASHINGTON Republican U.S. Representative Todd Rokita keeps a clock hanging on the wall of his Capitol Hill office that tracks the U.S. government's rising debt in real time and reminds him of his top priority: reining in federal spending.

I was sent here on a fiscal note, said the Indiana lawmaker and vice chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, who rode a Republican wave during his first election to Congress in 2010.

When President Donald Trump unveils his budget for the 2018 fiscal year on Thursday, Rokita will be among many conservative Republicans cheering proposed cuts to domestic programs that would pay for a military buildup.

More moderate Republicans are less enthusiastic and worry Trump's budget could force lawmakers to choose between opposing the president or backing reductions in popular programs such as aid for disabled children and hot meals for the elderly.

What you would hope is that the administration is aware of the difficulty of some of these things," said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma.

The release of Trumps budget, which comes as the Republican president is facing an intraparty revolt over proposed legislation to replace the Obamacare healthcare law, could open another fight among Republicans who control both houses of Congress. To keep the government running, lawmakers will need to approve a spending plan later this year.

The White House has released few details about Trump's budget, other than making clear the president wants to boost military spending by $54 billion and is seeking equivalent cuts in non-defense discretionary programs.

But several agencies, including the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, have been asked to prepare scenarios for steep reductions, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

While supporting deficit-reduction efforts, Cole said a major research university in his district could get hit by National Institutes of Health cuts, as could sewage treatment facilities funded by the EPA.

Republican Senator Rob Portman, whose home state of Ohio sits on the southern shores of Lake Erie, expressed concern about media reports saying the Trump budget had penciled in sharp cuts in a cleanup program for the Great Lakes.

NOT AUSTERE ENOUGH

While Rokita, who was among a group of Republican lawmakers who met with Trump last week, appeared comfortable with what he had learned so far about Trumps budget, some Republican members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said they wanted to see even further budget cuts.

Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama said the outcry from lawmakers over the expected cuts underscored to him that the blueprint would be a a very large step in the right direction of reining in the debt.

Brooks added: My fear is that the Trump budget will not be austere enough to minimize Americas risk of suffering the kind of debilitating insolvency and bankruptcy that is destroying the lives of Venezuelans right now.

OPEC member Venezuela is immersed in a deep economic crisis, with inflation in triple digits, shortages of basic goods, and many people going hungry.

Brooks and other members of the Freedom Caucus are among the most vocal critics of the legislation backed by the White House to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obamas signature healthcare plan, known as Obamacare.

To try to woo the conservative lawmakers on Trump's legislative agenda, budget director Mick Mulvaney, himself a former member of the House Freedom Caucus, has invited them to a bowling and pizza night at the White House on Tuesday night.

Another Freedom Caucus member, Representative David Schweikert of Arizona, said Mulvaney was encouraging lawmakers to submit maverick fiscal ideas to the White House.

Schweikert said he hoped to revive a proposal from a few years ago, in the midst of a fight over raising the U.S. debt limit, that would have allowed the government to take a series of alternative, albeit controversial steps, such as paying some creditors ahead of others.

'SLASH AND BURN'

One senior Republican aide, who referred to Trumps budget as a slash and burn proposal, said one fear of some House lawmakers was that they would be pressured to back big spending cuts only to have them rejected by the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer majority. The risk for House members is that their votes could prompt a backlash in the 2018 congressional elections.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said a budget that cuts State Department funds by one-third is unlikely to pass in his chamber.

Other high-ranking Republicans are setting off alarms.

Senator Lindsey Graham, following a White House lunch on Tuesday with Trump, said: "What I told him is that when we get in a deadlock between the House and the Senate, different factions of the party ... you're the guy who needs to come down and close the deal."

Cole said Congress would ultimately have the final say on the budget.

At the end of the day, well have a budget. Well pass the budget, he said. Our budget is not necessarily the presidents budget.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Caren Bohan and Peter Cooney)

AUSTIN, Texas Former Democratic U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Sunday in one of his first major speeches since leaving office this year that he would have liked to have been the U.S. president who ended cancer as we know it.

BERLIN She is controlled and cautious, a physicist from East Germany who takes her time making decisions and has never relished the attention that comes from being Europe's most powerful leader.

A federal judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump's revised travel ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S. entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the United States.

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Trump budget opens new fight among Republicans - Reuters

House Speaker Paul Ryan sat down with John Dickerson of Face the Nation Sunday to talk about the American Health Care Act, the Affordable Care Act replacement that nobody but Paul Ryan seems to like. Throughout the interview, Ryan stressed that this bill would finally give the American people the freedom to not have health insurance, which is definitely what the main complaint about Obamacare was.

The interview is rocky from the start, as Dickerson runs down a list of organizations that have come out against the AHCA, such as AARP, the American Medical Association, and GOP congressmen, and questions how Ryan could be pleased with the reaction, to the proposed bill when the reaction has been awful.

I wouldnt say the reactions been awful, Ryan says, incorrectly. I think the reaction is, everyone wants to compare this to Obamacare as if they can keep these guarantees going. As if were going to have Obamacare plans, and were just gonna finance it a different way. This is repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Exactly. Thats why people are comparing it to Obamacare. They want to know if what we have now is being replaced with something even worse, and so far, all indications point to yes. Ryan talks a lot about how this is a better fiscal policy that will cost the government less, get more people covered, and drive down the price of insurance altogether. Theres no real proof of that, and early estimates put the number of people that will lose coverage somewhere around 20 million.

At this time, there is still no Congressional Budget Score for the AHCA, so naturally, Ryan was asked about that.

Ryan continued:

The score we believe will come out probably Monday or Tuesday. Well before we go to the floor, well have the score. The one thing Im certain will happen is CBO will say well gosh not as many people will get coverage. You know why? Because this isnt a government mandate. This is not, the government makes you buy what we say you should buy and therefore the government thinks youre all gonna buy it. Theres no way you can compete with, on paper, a government mandate with coverage. What we are trying to do achieve here is bringing down the cost of care, bringing down the cost of insurance. Not through government mandates and monopolies, but by having more choice in competition. And by lowering the cost of healthcare, you improve the access to healthcareBut were not gonna make an American go what they dont want to do. You get it if you want it. Thats freedom.

To be clear, what Ryan is doing here is spinning the inevitable outcome of people not being able to afford health insurance as a choice. You can argue the merits of a government mandate, but that doesnt change the fact that not having insurance simply because you dont have enough money to pay for it is not a choice. This also completely ignores the provision in the law that allows insurance companies to slap a huge surcharge onto people who have a lapse in coverage. The penalty for not being insured is still there, you just pay it directly to a corporation now instead of the government. Freedom!

Dickerson asks Ryan point blank how many people will lose coverage, and again, Ryan dodges and tries to make some grand point about how free we all are to die. I cant answer that question, Ryan says while seemingly trying not to laugh. Its up to people. Heres the premise of your question: are you gonna stop mandating people buy health insurance?

This, for the record, was not the premise of Dickersons question.

People are gonna do what they wanna do with their lives because we believe in individual freedom in this country, Ryan continued. The question is, are we providing a system where people have access to health insurance if they choose to do so? And the answer is yes.

This point has been made many times over, but access doesnt mean anything if you cant afford it. The go to example is usually cars. Anybody technically has access to buy any car, but if you dont have the money lying around for it, youre still screwed. This is apparently freedom, though.

In any case, why should anybody trust Ryan on this? Sure, he presents himself as a brilliant policy wonk, but whats the evidence that he actually knows what hes talking about? During his rolled-up sleeves presentation he made the point that its unfair for healthy people to pay into a system to support sick people. Thats literally the entire point of insurance. Everybody pays in so that nobody has to shoulder the burden alone.

Were counting on someone who either doesnt understand or is lying through his teeth about the most basic concept of health insurance. That should worry everybody.

[Face The Nation]

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Paul Ryan wants you to have the freedom to not be able to afford health insurance - Death and Taxes

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It turns out that isnt the case at all. The House Freedom Caucus and conservative groups like Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Freedomworks and Club For Growthamong otherscame out opposing the plan. And the furor began. Whats being revealed as this plays out is the real challenge it will be to drain the swamp. And as the fault lines between conservatives and leadership in the House widen, the Trump agenda is truly at risk.

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Paul Ryan in his now famous PowerPoint Press Conferencesent a message to the House Freedom Caucus and conservative groups. They dont understand the reconciliation process, he said. He drew a line in the sand against to their efforts when he said, The time is here. The time is now. This is the moment, and this is the closest this will ever happen. It really comes down to a binary choice.

Its a binary choice over something which has no costs associated with it. The Congressional Budget Office has not released their report on its budget effect. And some members of Congress are openly concerned the report might show severe impacts on future spending. House leadership hasnt been forthcoming on the fiscal impact either.

Paul Ryan has been sending a message to conservatives. He is telling them to either accept the plan or not. And while conservatives arent yet falling into line, an effort to oppose them during the 2018 campaign is beginning to emerge. It may be a repeat leaderships 2016 efforts to take out conservative members.

Just this week, a group began a $500,000 ad campaign targeting 30 House Freedom Caucus members calling upon them to support what is now being called Ryancare. Similar efforts were initiated against Freedom Caucus members like Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) last year taking out Huelskamp.

Ultimately, Paul Ryan is causing severe harm to the agenda of President Trump. The Speaker knew the bill he released would have strong opposition from conservatives. Sen. Rand Paul was already explaining the reasons for opposition when he complained how the House was hiding the bill in the last few weeks. As the politics in the House continues to deteriorate, there is speculation that while feigning support for the Presidents agenda, House leadership is using the legislation to set up an electoral fight with conservatives next year.

I found myself in the middle of this give and take serving Cong. Tim Huelskamp as his Chief of Staff. Immediately after the 112th Congress began in January 2011, leaders in the House offered a spending cut of $38.5 billion in the budget. They claimed they were taking aggressive steps to get spending under control. But no CBO report had been issued to confirm that number. Our office found the actual CBO research which revealed the cut was only $352 million (not billion but million). House leadership was apparently hiding the report. We released it to a furor of condemnation in the House. I met with Boehners Chief of Staff Barry Jackson. He was furious. Ill just say this meeting set the tone for the ongoing backlash against House Freedom Caucus members and John Boehner ever since.

A typical pattern emerged in the House after 2011. Bills were written in the Speakers office. They were forced through the committees with limited amendments. They proceeded to the Rules committee which is stacked with members loyal to the speaker. Conservative amendments were killed there. And the bill reached the floor with rules taking away the right of members to amend the bill.

Conservatives have been shut out of the process for years. And it seems nothing has changed.

The House could have offered a full repeal bill. Speaker Ryan is making a passionate plea against the idea saying it would be filibustered in the Senate and die. But experts are saying that might not be the case at all.

Reconciliation is a mystery to the average Americanmostly because members of Congress make it so. Reconciliation is a process created through the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 that allows changes to budget items to reconcile with the then current budget on a simple majority vote. Spending items only are allowed under Reconciliation.

Some experts believe Congress can pass a full repeal of Obamacare in a reconciliation bill. Paul Winfree of the Heritage Foundation argued this in a Politico article last November:

it is clear that those rules are inseparable from the rest of the ACAs structure. In fact, the Obama administration argued this before the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell, the case over whether enrollees who buy insurance through the federal exchange are eligible for subsidies. As a result, Congress may repeal those regulations via reconciliation.

The Senate Parliamentarian could certainly rule against a bill with full repeal language, but there is a simple fix to that. The presiding officer can rule against the parliamentarian, and the Senate can overrule her with a simple majority vote.

GOP leadership in the Senate and House know this. But they are unwilling to take the risk.

This is where President Trump can use his political heft to bring a solution. And it just might save his agenda from an initial defeat.

He can sit down with Speaker Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and conservatives and hash out a full repeal now. President Trump can send Mike Pence to the Senate to override any negative ruling by the parliamentarian, and Obamacare can go to the ash heap of history.

The Swamp doesnt want this. But Donald Trump could once again defy the odds and make winning great again.

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Pfaff: GOP Leadership Undermining the Trump Agenda Setting Up 2018 Fight with House Freedom Caucus? - Breitbart News

Despite this unexpected burst of quasi-winter weather, its Sunshine Week in South Carolina.

Now, folks who believe this nonsense about the press being the enemy of the people may dismiss concerns about the Freedom of Information Act. They might think its just whining by the Fourth Estate. But its not.

Sunshine Week is about the peoples right to know what the government is up to. Anyone who has ever invoked FOIA to extract information from a police department, state agency or city council knows what a pain that can be.

Bureaucrats often delay requests for months and then charge unreasonable, unfathomable copying and research fees that are seemingly meant to deter people from access to information that, technically, they already own.

As a front-page story today notes, when reporters Lauren Sausser and Tony Bartelme asked to see emails regarding an incident at MUSC, they were given a bill for $275,000.

That is exactly why South Carolina needs more Sunshine not for the tourists, for the transparency.

The only people who can control this particular sunshine, however, are state lawmakers. And now they're getting push-back from state bureaucrats.

So they need to know this matters not only to the press, but to voters.

For more than four years, the General Assembly has tried to pass meaningful FOIA reform.

The House actually passed it in a previous session, and the Senate was ready to follow suit when those efforts were derailed by the objections of one senator.

These bills are not a huge sea change from what government is already supposed to provide, which is easy access to public documents and information. All this legislation does is set reasonable copying fees and turn-around times for requests, and establish a dedicated administrative law judge to quickly review disputed requests.

You know, when state officials don't think they should have to turn over certain documents.

This is common sense stuff, but over the years there has been some wrangling over the public's right to see autopsy reports, police car dash cams and officers body camera footage. One insidious bill in the hopper right now would even exempt nonprofits and chambers of commerce from the FOIA.

Sorry, but any group that takes public money must show how it is spent.

The real problem right now is a fiscal impact statement from the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs office which suggests it will cost state agencies about $800,000 to comply with the law. Which they are already supposed to be doing.

A half-dozen state agencies have claimed it would take of an average of $150,000 each to supply the manpower needed to honor FOIA requests in a timely fashion.

That could cost FOIA reform some support, even though many lawmakers believe those numbers are padded or agencies aren't complying with the law now.

Either way, it's a flimsy excuse to deny citizens' right to know how their taxes are spent.

State Rep. Weston Newton, the FOIA reform bill's primary sponsor, believes freedom of information is one of the fundamental duties of government. People have a right to know how their money is spent and what their elected officials are doing.

He's right.

Newton believes FOIA reform will pass this year, but state agencies have muddied the water a bit.

"The bill we have has been through a multi-year, multi-level vetting and it's a good bill," he says. "I am disappointed that a handful of state agencies have come in at the 11th hour to say it's going to cost taxpayers significantly more to do that which they are already supposed to be doing."

Cynical people might think elected officials, being politicians, would be the ones most opposed to complete transparency in government. Turns out it's the bureaucrats.

This is probably no conspiracy; state agencies are not likely hiding rampant malfeasance. The sad truth is they probably just don't want to be bothered with pulling the records and providing the information and being forced to get it done on a deadline.

The problem is their cries of added cost could result in some lawmakers wavering in their support. After all, these folks aren't real keen on spending money.

But let's keep this in perspective. This isn't just a media issue, it's meant to protect the people and their money. Frankly, regular citizens have the toughest time navigating FOIA red tape.

And they don't have First Amendment lawyers on speed dial.

These days a lot of folks are politically active and waste no time calling elected officials to voice their opinion. So maybe it's time they add Freedom of Information Act reform to their weekly calls.

Let state legislators know this isn't about the press it's about transparency.

Link:

Hicks column: Tell South Carolina lawmakers you believe in open records, meetings - Charleston Post Courier

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement SWAT Public Domain, Link

March 9, 2017; Washington Post

Immigration courts are buckling under a backlog of more than 540,000 cases, and in lockstep with the unstaunched refugee crisis coupled with soaring immigration bond prices, there is no mystery as to how 350,000-plus detainees (asylum seekers, visa violators and those charged with crimes) wound up swelling ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facilities between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016.

This federal fiscal year, President Trumps comfortless border security policies are going to give a huge bump to those numbers if his administrations simple and single-minded plans are implemented in full force. When it comes to protecting the rights of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants and other detainees, theres no one guarding this ICE henhouse. Very few among the imprisoned can afford to post their own bonds, and other undocumented immigrants face detainment if they attempt to pay on their behalf. However, now comes Libre by Nexus, exacting pounds of flesh in exchange for freedom and a GPS tracking device.

Libre (free in Spanish) by Nexus is a middleman connecting desperate detainees to bail bond companies who front a percentage of the bond in surety to the government, securing detainee release pending resolution of forestalled court proceedingswhich may be years off and counting. Detainees can rarely afford their own bail nor have substantial collateral like houses or other property to put up for bail bond companies.

Libre by Nexus was formed in 2013 by two highly seasoned check-kiting felons, chief executive Micheal Donovan and his husband Richard Moore. They had a long history of leaving large bills unpaid, highlighted by Donovans 1999 plea to eight felonies for ripping off four Northern Virginia hotels, which led to time served of seven months after Donovan failed to pay a $45,000 bond. Accordingly, Libre by Nexus cant act directly as bail bondsmen because of the founders felony convictions.

Of particular interest to NPQ readers, the pair claimed that Project Nexus, a former venture assisting general population criminal defendants, was a nonprofit organization, though Libre by Nexus staff concede it was never registered as such. Their new business model, though, is highly profitable, as is always the case when customers have no other choicespend bottomless time in insufferable ICE facilities, or pay twenty percent of the immigration bond plus fees, as well as $14 per day for the privilege of donning an uncomfortable and discomfiting GPS tracker on their ankle.

Detainees released with Libre by Nexuss help claim their contracts come with verbal threats of return to ICE facilities if they dont pay the $420 per month for the GPS tracking devices, the equivalent cost of leasing a car. There have been cases of burns and other injuries from the GPS devices, and also claims of usury, as clients who have spent sizable sums to repay Libre by Nexus for the cost of the bond find they have made little headway in reducing the principal.

Donovan paints a different picturethat of a benevolent service provider stepping in where detainees have no other means of obtaining freedom. I care about our clients, he says. It would be awesome to not have to charge them any money, but thats not really the system we live in. He denies threats of re-detention, states that detainees are offered contracts in their native language, and promises the tracking devices are safe and a good deal.

On the last part, at least the numbers tell a different storyBI, a company that contracts directly with ICE, charges the government $4.41 per immigrant per day for the same service, a $50 million dollar annual expense for the agency. Court documents show Libre by Nexus rents the tracking devices for merely $3 per day, which is a lowball figure according to the company, though it wont disclose a countervailing figureperhaps because there isnt one.

These numbers and stories of woe shed light on Libre by Nexuss seemingly predatory enterprise, whose success will likely breed competitors to step in and share the spoils. Libre by Nexus has found practically free money, with nearly 13,000 customers to date and more than $30 million in annual revenues, with 200 employees scattered over 30 offices, including one in El Salvador. Donovan plans to hire at least 150 additional employees this year and expects his client list to double. Donovan and Moore were once lobbyists for bail bond companies, seeking to enact legislation in Virginia and Colorado (under the euphonious Safe Streets Colorado slogan) that would limit programs for and rights of criminal defendants in favor of bail bondsmens bottom lines (both efforts fell flat). Now, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott is a lobbyist for their company.

Donovan attests to his efforts in support of immigration reform, including seeking protection for dreamers. Donovan states, I employ lobbyists every day that seek to pass legislation that would put us out of businessIm a bit of an enigma that way. More likely, this is a deliberately fashioned front in support of his underlying business model, knowing full well that there is little chance reform will occur against the current headwinds.Louis Altman

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Freedom's Just Another Word for $14 a Day - The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration)