The United States Preventive Services Task Force this week released a report that encourages women to wait an extra decade before receiving breast cancer examinations.  Eyebrows were immediately raised not only in the cancer research community but also by lawmakers on the Hill.

Turning years of medical guidelines upside down, the report recommends against routine mammograms for women ages 40 to 49, and recommends that women 75 years or older refrain from having mammograms at all. And instead of increasing caution after waiting an extra decade, the Task Force also suggests that women wait a full two years in between screenings, as opposed to having screenings annually.

The timing here couldn’t be more ironic. While the Task Force is advising that less preventative measures be taken, President Obama and congressional Democrats have touted the need for an increase in preventative health care as an excuse to pass legislation which would allow the federal government to take over our nation’s health care industry.

Read More →

The cap and trade national energy tax is being sold to the American people as a free-market answer to environmental problems. Dressed in green as it is, people are led to believe that it was a scheme hatched by the environmentally conscious. The truth is that cap and trade is a product of the very same minds that gave us subprime loans and market bubbles, credit default swaps and the financial meltdown. Cap and trade is actually a child of Wall Street. But, nowadays, that doesn’t help in the marketing, does it?

Cap and trade is based on government setting a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally. Companies will then be allowed to buy or sell permits to emit carbon dioxide. So, at a time when Congress is already grappling with the appropriate solution for restructuring our nation’s financial regulatory system, Congress also wants to simultaneously introduce a new, and potentially the largest, commodity market into the mix? As Tyson Slocum, director of energy for Public Citizen, has stated, “You have to ask yourself if it is wise policy to create a new derivatives market on the heels of the collapse of derivatives markets.”

Read More →

Right now in Washington, D.C., we are seeing nothing short of the deconstruction of America’s free-market system. To be blunt, the strong arm tactics of the Obama Administration’s Auto Task Force are crushing the dreams of many American business owners – and simultaneously putting our future prosperity in jeopardy.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spoken with the GM and Chrysler car dealerships from my district that have been targeted for total or partial closure by President Obama’s Auto Task Force. They were given no reason, and really no recourse to challenge their closure. It is as if someone threw a dart at a dartboard to decide which dealerships would be given a pink slip. In fact, we still do not know the formula used to determine which dealers would remain open, and which ones would close.

At one dealership in my district, the owner received an envelope from FedEx with a closure agreement inside, informing them that their highly profitable and nearly century-old business was slated for closure, and that they had twelve days to sign the agreement, or face the consequences.

Read More →

When President Obama unveiled his cap-and-trade energy tax in January, he referenced the government-aided renewable energy policies of Spain as a model.  The Spanish plan aimed for renewable energy to saturate 12% of the energy market and 20% of the electric production by 2010.  Now, as cap-and-tax makes its way through Congress and nears reality for American consumers, we come to discover the less-than-rosy side to Spain’s policies.  Not only did the visions of so-called green-collar jobs not materialize, but the policies meant to create the green jobs have had a negative impact on the jobs already available for Spain’s working class.

After years of promoting green jobs, Spain has the highest unemployment rate of any developed country—currently at 17.5%, and that number is expected to climb to 20.5% by the end of the year.  That’s one in five workers out of a job.

According to a study by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, on the effect of public aid to renewable energy sources on employment, if the U.S. adopts the Spanish model as proposed by President Obama, for each job created, the “U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created.”

Dr. Calzada further found that the high-energy costs associated with these policies have driven high-energy reliant businesses, like manufacturing, to cheaper places.  And of the green jobs created, two-thirds were temporary installment and construction jobs.

Read More →

I have made no secret of my objections to a proposed cap-and-trade energy tax that will result in increased costs for every single American. The tax would require energy producers and businesses to pay to emit carbon emissions in the hope of reducing greenhouse gases.  You, the consumer, would be footing the bill.

I published an op-ed in the Star Tribune earlier this month highlighting the dangers of this piece of legislation and what it means for Americans. In the piece, I cited an MIT study that found the average American household would experience increased bills of $3,128 per year if this legislation became law.

This statistic has drawn much criticism in the local news and around the nation because the MIT professor involved with the study, John Reilly, questioned the validity of the interpretation used by myself and many Republicans.

But in an interview with the Weekly Standard, Professor Reilly clarified his critique and accepted the Republican use of the statistic.

Read More →

Without a doubt, our economy is facing a confidence crisis.  As the historic plummet of the markets last week demonstrated, Wall Street has little confidence in recovery right now.  And, as I hear from constituents every day, so has the public.

Though 92% of mortgage holders continue to pay their mortgages on time, they worry about joining the growing ranks of the unemployed, recovering their savings, and making the next mortgage payment.  The doom and gloom reporting from mainstream media and speechifying from Washington figureheads has the potential to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, pulling us down deeper into the spiral instead of lifting us out of it.  As former President Bill Clinton advised current President Obama:  America’s leaders must project optimism in the face of today’s uncertainty.

And, that would be good advice for President Obama’s friends in Congress as well.  Last week, the House passed mortgage cramdown legislation – a seriously misguided bill that will actually add more instability and uncertainty to the housing market.

Read More →

It’s official. Washington’s favorite word this year is “bailout.” It’s been overused by Congress’ elite in hopes of rescuing their corporate friends from poor decision-making. It’s been used to pick the pockets of the already hurting taxpayer. It’s become a euphemism for robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The last thing a struggling, hard-working family needs is another Washington bailout which forces them further into debt and financial turmoil – especially during these tough times.

Past bailouts have thus far failed. Whether it was Bear Stearns or the larger Wall Street bailout, these government handouts have not done what they promised. There’s no stability in the marketplace. The Dow continues to plummet or yo-yo, at best. The only goals the bailouts have actually accomplished are to anger the American people and leave them — and their children — to foot a massive bill.

Read More →