by Bob Barr | Aug 24, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Knee-jerk responses by government officials and legislators following incidents in which individuals have been killed by police can cause lasting harm to law-abiding citizens. One of these dangerous policies is something called the “Driving Equity Act,” which is now the law in Philadelphia. The Driving Equity Act, known also as the “Driving Equality Act,” is an overreaction to isolated incidents of alleged police misconduct, and reflects a troubling trend going back nearly a decade. For example, following the 2014 death of Michael Brown during a confrontation with police in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Justice Department launched a drive against a number of local police departments that resulted in “consent decrees” – mandatory edicts that made it demonstrably more difficult for those departments to carry out their mission of protecting the public. Several years later, the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers sparked a nationwide backlash against law enforcement generally which led to policies that reduced or defunded law enforcement agencies, causing problems that resonate still today. Early this year in Memphis, Tennessee, members of a “special” police unit beat Tyre Nichols to death, a tragedy that revived calls for state and local governments to defund and disband specialized anti-crime units. Often camouflaged as “restorative justice” or “reimagined policing,” legislative and executive actions to curtail police funding and powers usually are premised on the notion that traditional police powers, including traffic stops, are inherently racially biased and thus have been abused as tools to target members of racial minorities, especially Black men. It is not, however, as if there are not ways to deal...
by Bob Barr | Aug 3, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Somewhat lost in the public’s fixation on the scandals surrounding President Biden and his prodigal son Hunter, and the lengthening string of indictments against former President Trump, is a revealing and disturbing survey published last month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The poll released in July found that most Americans now favor government restrictions on their freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment – specifically, freedom of expression. Until recently, the freedoms enunciated in the First Amendment, which was ratified in 1791 to stop government from restricting expression and publication of ideas, has been considered part of the essential fabric of our culture. Apparently, this is no longer the case, at least for 55% of Americans who now consider government – not the individual – to be the best and final arbiter of what information is worthy of expression or publication; a full 65 percent would turn to “tech companies” to make such decisions for them. Regardless of the reasons behind this failure to grasp the fundamental principle that liberty is lost when ideas can be restricted by authorities, these findings are fundamentally far more troubling than past or current misdeeds by Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The scope of the restrictions many Americans now appear willing to surrender on their expressive freedom, as revealed by the Pew survey, are breathtaking – extending broadly to information deemed “false” or “violent.” The degree to which a majority of Americans appear content allowing government and tech companies to censor information has increased significantly in just the past five years. As the Pew survey discovered, the percentage of adults who are ready to have their right...
by Bob Barr | Jul 27, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall There remains but two months before the current federal fiscal year ends September 30th. Half of that remaining period will be spent by lawmakers in their home states and districts during the traditional August recess. When the Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, the Republican Party will be in a position to either strengthen its currently slim majority in the House, or risk losing it. Much depends on whether the GOP can discipline itself to stick to a strategy that is laser-focused on the 2024 election, rather than on passing bits of legislation playing largely, if not solely to its base for short-term gain. A key factor in this equation is whether the appropriations process — which even in the most nonpartisan of times presents a messy picture to the American electorate – can be managed by Speaker McCarthy in such a way as to avoid a government “shutdown,” which already is being whispered in the corridors under the Capitol dome. Some Republican budget hardliners claim to not “fear a government shutdown,” and others look to “stare down” Democrats. The fact of the matter is that in recent decades, so-called “shutdowns” rarely benefit the Party orchestrating them. Forcing a shutdown over specific issues (even very important ones), such as spending on abortion or constructing a few more feet of a border wall, may reap short-term political gain, but likely will come with long-term political harm. Historically, pushing the budgetary process to a stand-off with a president of the other political party rarely has demonstrably helped the party driving the process in the Congress; and then only if it is part of...
by Bob Barr | Jul 13, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Slavery – a stain on our history by any reckoning – met its constitutional end in the late 1860s when the 13th and 14th Amendments to our Constitution were ratified. Additional constitutional amendments, in conjunction with numerous civil and criminal laws, especially those passed in the mid-20th Century, cemented the rights of African Americans into a meaningful legal system. For advocates of race-based reparations, however, none of these corrective measures suffice; for them, taxpayers today must be forced to make monetary and other amends for the sins of their forebearers. Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago with a population of about 80,000 residents (and dealing with a sharp increase in crime), has put its taxpayers’ money where its political priorities lie, becoming the first municipality in the country to actually make cash payments to atone for past racial injustice in housing. The City in 2019 had earmarked $10 million for this project and recently began disbursing cash, with the first $25,000 payments going to 140 “elderly” residents. Obviously in Evanston, atoning for sins of the past trumps concern for addressing problems of today. New York City is moving slower but still aboard the reparations train. The Empire State’s legislature last month passed a bill creating a commission to study reparations for slavery (which ended in New York nearly two centuries ago, in 1827). It is California, however, that has dived head-first into the racial reparations controversy. Late last month, the “California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” which was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom three years ago, sent the state legislature its “Final Report.” If judged by...
by Bob Barr | Jul 6, 2023 | Townhall Article, Uncategorized |
Townhall For more than a decade, China has been carefully and strategically making commercial, diplomatic, and even military inroads in Latin America and the Caribbean. Now, Beijing reportedly is building a military facility on the northern coast of Cuba, less than 100 miles from the United States. Our response has been less than impressive. It is not as if Beijing’s multi-pronged strategy to increase its presence in the Western Hemisphere has escaped Washington’s attention. Even in the late 1990s, I and several other Members of Congress expressed concern that Chinese companies (all of which ultimately answer to the governing Chinese Communist Party) were establishing commercial beachheads at both entrances to the Panama Canal, just as Panama gained control of the strategic waterway pursuant to the treaty signed with the Carter Administration in 1977. Our concerns fell on deaf ears. In 2018, a smiling President Xi Jinping was photographed next to Panama’s president, alongside the Panama Canal. Chinese trade with countries in the region has soared in recent years, ballooning from $180 billion in 2002 to $450 billion last year. China’s investments have included everything from mining and agriculture projects to infrastructure and communications technology that has surveillance capabilities. China’s diplomatic gains in the region have been no less significant, with Paraguay the only South American country that still recognizes Taiwan. Even in the Bahamas, a one-hour flight from Miami, China’s presence is far larger than ours. Not coincidentally, the U.S. Navy maintains a major test and training facility in the Bahamas. While there is little the United States can do to directly thwart China’s commercial and diplomatic moves in the region, our...
by Bob Barr | Jun 29, 2023 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Governments love to tax. It matters little if it is your local county commission looking to raise the millage rate on property taxes, or the federal government searching for new ways to tax income pursuant to the authority granted it by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution – the default for government is to increase revenue. There may, however, be a bit of light at the end of the tax tunnel. Predictably, of course, the Biden Administration and its cohorts on Capitol Hill and in lobbyist offices on the K Street Corridor remain adamantly opposed to any talk of tax “cuts.” The cautious optimism many experts see on the tax horizon, is thanks to the reality that Republicans maintain majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and in state governorships and legislatures. Tax policies that are supportive of both families and businesses are reasons why states including my home state of Georgia attract jobs, while high-tax states such as California are losing both people and businesses. Even at the international level, where President Biden two years ago embraced a G-7 plan for a global minimum tax of 15%, recent pushback by the GOP-controlled House has thrown a monkey wrench into Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s plan to move the United States closer to that competition-killing policy. Few public policy issues define more clearly the divide between Democrats and Republicans than taxes, and thankfully the GOP by and large remains the party that understands if you reduce the tax burdens on individuals and on businesses that create jobs, sufficient funds will still flow into government coffers with which to provide essential services. Democrats, on the other...
