by Bob Barr | Nov 1, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller In August 2022 Congress passed President Biden’s signature “Inflation Reduction Act” without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. There were several reasons for this purely partisan vote, one of which was that the legislation included a mechanism for a major tax increase on many prescription drugs used mainly by Medicare enrollees for treatment of certain cancers, heart conditions and diabetes. Already flush with the 87,000 new employees authorized by the very same Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS is drafting regulations to start collecting the prescription drug “excise tax,” which can virtually double the market price for the medications. To win the Senate votes — including hold-out Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who switched his vote in favor of the bill at the last-minute following secret parleys with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — Biden presented the proposed excise tax as a way to reduce the cost of many common, Medicare-covered prescription drugs, rather than what it really is — a measure that will lead to shortages and increased prices. What Biden and the Democrats actually did was impose price controls on Medicare-covered prescription drugs, disguising them as “negotiated prices” between Uncle Sam and the drug manufacturers. This sleight-of-hand might sound reasonable, even perhaps positive, except for the fact that refusal by any of the manufacturers to “accept” Washington’s proposed prices, would result in a mandated tax on the final, consumer cost of the drugs that would in short order reach 95% — effectively doubling its price. Moreover, while disguising an “excise tax” as a “price negotiation” may sound great, it does so only until you realize...
by Bob Barr | Oct 24, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller A recent, nonpartisan poll of 2,008 registered voters, conducted by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, concludes what many Americans already know, which is that our two-party political system is a chaotic mess. Far more disturbing, however, are the survey’s findings that a significant percentage of voters consider that violence, suspension of democratic norms and states seceding from our union, all are acceptable alternatives to our current troubles. These troubling findings certainly can, at least in part, be attributed to pronounced ignorance that has for at least a decade, characterized many Americans’ understanding of the structure of our national government. For example, a 2014 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that more than one-third of adults surveyed could not name a single one of the three branches of our government. Coupled with historic lows in the public’s trust in government, such a disturbing level of civic cluelessness makes the most recent finding by the University of Virginia even more troubling. Having so many voters remaining fundamentally ignorant about how our government operates, while at the same time having little or no trust in that government, and with some forty percent considering it “acceptable to use violence to stop” those in the opposing political party “from achieving their goals,” is a recipe for disaster. If voters engaged directly with political leaders and parties, there might be at least some check on these disturbing trends, but, as the Pew Research Center has discovered, the vast majority of Americans get their news the easy way, from “digital devices,” which are by definition more subjective, less transparent and more easily...
by Bob Barr | Sep 26, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Last week, the House Judiciary Committee demonstrated once again that the GOP does not know how to conduct effective oversight of the Executive Branch. The occasion was the appearance of Attorney General Merrick Garland before the Committee for an entire day, at the end of which nothing of value was revealed. Oversight, along with the appropriations power and passing substantive legislation, is one of the three great responsibilities of the Legislative Branch. It has the power to employ congressional committees to question witnesses and gather evidence supposed to ensure that the president and all executive officers, departments and agencies, are operating within the law and consistent with the intent embodied in legislation passed by the Congress. It is, unfortunately, the one power possessed by the Congress that is the least understood and the most often squandered. The Judiciary Committee hearing on September 20th was billed expressly as “Oversight of the Department of Justice,” but the Republican members demonstrated little interest in actual oversight of the massive Department, which includes the FBI, ATF, every United States Attorney in the country and our government’s immigration and border control agencies. Instead, they took the opportunity to beat up on Garland over one matter — Hunter Biden. To be sure, the failure of the Justice Department to seriously investigate or prosecute the “First Son” for what appear to have been numerous, and serious violations of federal law, is a matter deserving of oversight. Additionally, the failure by this Administration to carry out the myriad powers of the Justice Department fairly and transparently, constitutes a political failure that is fair game for the...
by Bob Barr | Sep 13, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller It appears the Left may no longer feel the need to cloak its gun control measures with even a pretense of legal imprimatur. In their zeal to restrict the ability of law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm for personal protection, some top Democrat public officials now are mandating new gun control policies without even a fig leaf of constitutional legitimacy. Late last week, for example, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Administration declared that no person, other than police or licensed security officers, could lawfully possess a firearm anywhere in public within the state’s largest city – Albuquerque – or in the surrounding county – Bernalillo. This blanket restriction applied also to “state property” located anywhere within New Mexico’s 121,591 square mile jurisdiction. The precise extent of “state property,” other than schools and parks, is left undefined. Unlike recent gun control policies announced by governors of other Democrat-led states such as New York’s Kathy Hochul, which have been at least presented as responses to last year’s Second Amendment-affirming Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, and clothed with a façade of legal respectability, Lujan Grisham’s action offered no such pretense. Her Administration’s new draconian measures – already being challenged in federal court – have been presented as an “action plan” to “do more” to stop criminal gun violence and rampant illicit drug usage plaguing the state. To Lujan Grisham, blatantly imposing her anti-gun will on the citizens over whom she maintains colorable power, is an appropriate (if nonsensical) way to spur a “debate” about gun control. The announced premises on which these highly restrictive measures are based is a pair of executive orders...
by Bob Barr | Aug 29, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller In the early years of the last century, as our country was flexing its new-found muscle as a major industrial power, Latin America and the Caribbean served as a primary arena where presidents including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson showcased our military might. Now, many 2024 GOP presidential wannabes appear eager to resurrect what would be a far more dangerous version of the early 20th Century’s “gunboat diplomacy” toward Mexico. This predisposition was displayed vividly during the first Republican primary debate on August 23rd, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared proudly that “on day one” he would send American troops into Mexico to strike suspected cartel-run fentanyl labs. While it was DeSantis’ debate rhetoric that forced the question of U.S. military action against drug labs inside Mexico to the fore, the notion has been percolating on the back burner for several years. During his presidency, Donald Trump apparently was so intrigued by the idea of striking facilities across our southern border, that in 2020 he reportedly requested that his then-Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, provide him a plan for launching “some Patriot missiles [to] take out the labs.” Thankfully, such plans were never consummated, but there remain many in the GOP who today openly support such moves, up to and including bills for the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against targets inside Mexico. Not all of the GOP’s 2024 hopefuls are as hawkish as DeSantis, but most have placed themselves in the same proactive camp as the Floridian. Vivek Ramaswamy is on record declaring he would send in American troops not necessarily on day one, but certainly in his “first six months.” Former South...
by Bob Barr | Aug 15, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller President Joe Biden claims regularly that his Administration is for the “middle class,” is there to help “American workers,” and is committed to support America’s families. The reality is otherwise, and it is not just “Bidenomics” that is to blame. Although little known to the average consumer, it is the legal and regulatory policies of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that demonstrate most clearly this Administration’s commitment to anti-free market policies that ultimately harm rather than help consumers. For more than a century and a quarter, one of the sharpest arrows in Uncle Sam’s quiver with which to target alleged uncompetitive forces in the marketplace has been antitrust laws, most enacted in the late 19th and early 20th Century to dismantle large monopolies such John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. To better enforce these laws, in 1919 the U.S. Justice Department grew a new enforcement arm – the Antitrust Division. It was not until 1968, however, that the Department set clear guidelines by which U.S. companies would be measured if they sought to consolidate. The touchstone was “consumer welfare,” and unlike many (perhaps most) policies designed and implemented by the federal government, this standard made sense. Mergers between companies would be measured by their effect on consumers in the marketplace. Dan Mitchell, a noted libertarian economist and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, described the “consumer welfare” metric best, when he wrote just last month, that the policy limits the damage that can be wrought on the marketplace because it “create[es] a presumption that mergers are okay if prices go down.” Of course, as with any...
