by Bob Barr | Dec 15, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall As the Congress careens toward passing a multi-trillion dollar “omnibus” spending bill before adjourning sine die, at least two states – California and New York – are preparing their own massive spending sprees, called “Reparations.” If such multi-hundred-billion-dollar packages are enacted in these two most populace of states, it will lead to one of the biggest runs on government treasuries in American history – far more expensive and expansive than President Biden’s paltry-by-comparison “student loan forgiveness” program. While the concept of reparations – paying former slaves and their descendants for the horrors of slavery in centuries past – has been around since the end of the Civil War (and resurrected occasionally since then), it is only in the past several years that it has taken hold as a serious policy discussion at the federal and state levels. Considering that slavery has been outlawed in the United States by constitutional amendment and statutory law for more than a century and a half, and with the last actual slave having died in 1940, a threshold question to be posed to those officials pressing for reparations is, on what basis should those living today with no conceivable relationship to slavery be compensated? As with all things racial these days, the answer is, of course, “equity. A 2020 policy paper published by the Brookings Institute, Why we need reparations for Black Americans, makes the liberal case for mandating that governments and private entities pay reparations for every “Black person who can trace their heritage to people enslaved in the U.S. states and territories” as well as for all “Black people who can show how...
by Bob Barr | Dec 8, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall The “Convergence Accelerator” program, not to be perhaps confused with an atomic particle accelerator at a physics research lab, is part of a multi-faceted government program under the auspices of the taxpayer-funded National Science Foundation (NSF) to equip individuals to “identify [and] correct misinformation.” The NSF was established in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; [and] to secure the national defense…” Not surprisingly, the projects it now funds (with an annual budget of nearly $9 billion) have crept far beyond its original high-sounding mission, to now include what has become one of Uncle Sam’s top priorities: countering “misinformation.” “Misinformation,” defined as the “inadvertent spread of false information,” has proved an elusive target for the feds. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year actually created an office – the Disinformation Governance Board — to zero in on the threat, but was pressured just months later to jettison the idea in the face of extensive public pushback. With that setback, other, less visible parts of the government have stepped into the breach. Enter the NSF. A query of NSF’s website for grants awarded for “misinformation” reveals dozens of recent and ongoing taxpayer-funded projects on the topic, directed to numerous colleges and universities and ranging in amounts from a few hundred thousand dollars to the University of Georgia in April 2022, to a massive $5 million grant to the University of Wisconsin on September 15th of this year. This $5 million grant is particularly problematic, if by “problematic” one considers a federal government agency using taxpayer dollars to equip “journalists” and others with tools to identify and...
by Bob Barr | Dec 1, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Whether the adage, “no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse” is considered an optimistic or a pessimistic outlook, it perfectly fits the current state of the Republican Party. Even though the GOP’s gains in last month’s midterm election fell well short of predictions, it will, for the first time in five years, have a majority in the House of Representatives when the 118th Congress convenes next January 3rd. Rather than savoring this achievement, the Republican Party is fighting to define itself, its agenda, and even its leadership, both on and off Capitol Hill. The Party’s leaders and the entire 222-member majority-in-waiting should be busy finalizing membership and chairmanships for each of the House’s 21 committees and putting the finishing touches on its legislative priorities for the coming session. Were it so simple. Instead of using these weeks between the election and the convening of the new Congress in January to show the American people the GOP is well-organized and ready to lead the House of Representatives, it is mired in a wasteful internal fight about who is to lead the effort. California Republican Kevin McCarthy has led his conference for nearly a decade as both its Majority Leader from 2014 to 2019 and as Minority Leader since 2019. Until last month, McCarthy has been considered the clear favorite to be awarded the Speaker’s gavel in January. Apparently, however, McCarthy’s long history of leading his colleagues in the House, including raising huge sums for its candidates is, in the eyes of the far-right Freedom Caucus, an inadequate resume from which to serve as Speaker. Instead...
by Bob Barr | Nov 23, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall By extending the jurisdiction of newly appointed Special Counsel John Smith beyond the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation back to the events of January 6, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland is making the same mistake House Republicans appear poised to make by declaring their intent to conduct oversight of Hunter Biden as soon as the GOP majority is seated in early January 2023. Republicans and Democrats alike are set to use the powers within their jurisdiction – oversight by the Congress and prosecutorial power by the Executive Branch – to look backward for partisan political gain, rather than forward to solve real problems in behalf of the American people. Allow me to explain. Almost immediately after the midterm election results confirmed that the 118th Congress would be led in the House by the GOP, Party leaders stated that a primary focus of their oversight power would be to launch investigations of Hunter Biden. In this, the Party made clear its priority would be to investigate the past instead of focusing on ongoing abuses of executive branch power, which not only would increase its chances for victory in 2024, but also lay the foundation for correcting those abuses after winning the presidency. Days later, Garland decided that — rather than appoint a special counsel only to investigate possible violations of federal law in the current matter of the so-called “Mar-a-Lago” classified documents dump – the new Special Counsel’s jurisdiction would extendbackward to the far broader, and no longer current matters surrounding the January 6th violence on Capitol Hill and efforts by to impede the certification of the November 2020 election. Garland’s decision to thus expand the jurisdiction of the...
by Bob Barr | Nov 17, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall The United States House of Representatives wields three great powers –to appropriate money, to legislate, and to conduct oversight of every function and component part of the federal government to ensure compliance with the Constitution and congressional intent. While not express, Congress’ oversight power is universally recognized as implied through the “necessary and proper clause” in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution. It is this power that is the least understood of Congress’ powers, and which has in recent decades been the least effectively employed. In the coming 118th Congress that begins in early January 2023 with a Republican House majority, it is the oversight power that – if pursued seriously and effectively – will offer the Party the greatest opportunity to define itself in advance of the 2024 presidential election, and that will provide the key to reining in the disastrous policies of the Biden Administration. Continued Democrat control of the Senate effectively neuters the power of the Republican Party to pass legislation reflecting the Party’s conservative values. This shortcoming means as well that it will be next to impossible to attach significant limits to federal spending for the remaining two years of the Biden Administration. In the present environment, the only meaningful power remaining to Republicans is that of oversight, which can be employed regardless of what happens in the Senate. If Republicans decide to conduct oversight as a way to rehash old grudges, to wreak vengeance on the other Party, or to grab headlines, they will have squandered a major opportunity to define and advance the Party’s agenda as well as the interests of the...
by Bob Barr | Nov 10, 2022 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Uncle Sam’s benevolent, prying eyes are everywhere, especially on matters concerning medicine and health. Now, a little-known federal bureaucracy, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), is recommending that virtually every man, woman, and child over the age of eight be screened for anxiety. This will be an unnecessary and very expensive recommendation. Unlike recommendations made by other government task forces, those by this agency can have costly consequences. Under federal law, when the USPSTF recommends certain health care screening procedures, they must be covered by health insurers at no cost to the insured, regardless of how expensive or how little benefit results. Since it was established by the Congress in 1984, the USPSTF has amassed an uneven record when it comes to medical screening recommendations; alternatively recommended and then not recommended screening for breast cancer in women of a certain age and screening for prostate cancer in men. Notwithstanding this mixed record, the USPSTF has decided that Americans are such a fretful and anxious people, that health care providers should screen them for anxiety and depression, even in the absence of symptoms. Forcing insurers to cover such asymptomatic procedures at no cost to the insured, simply means that the cost would be passed on to the larger pool of people in those plans by way of increased premiums or reduced reimbursements to the health care providers. This is but the most recent example of the sleight-of-hand by which Uncle Sam tells a gullible electorate that they are getting something for free or at a reduced cost when the government is simply shifting the cost to be shared more widely. The Biden administration’s college loan...
