House of Representatives

With Democrats having a majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, it will be nearly impossible for federal lawmakers on either side of the aisle to replace the Affordable Care Act in the next two years.

The U.S. House should invoke a revised version of its historical inherent contempt enforcement power to address the refusal of DOJ officials to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking information such as occurred with the Clinton email and Russia investigations.

Traditionally, conservatives have supported the Senate filibuster because, supposedly, it puts the brakes on government expansion. I’ve long thought conservatives should reconsider.

The idea of a carbon dioxide tax fits in seamlessly with the romantic, often quixotic, worldview of the modern environmental movement. It’s a well-intentioned notion that’s untethered to reality, and which would produce few appreciable gains, while causing major damage.

In my last post I discussed the apparent inversion of the responsibility of the executive branch of government, namely that it has taken on a far greater role in domestic policy while turning its back in large part on its traditional responsibility for foreign affairs. The result has been an over-mighty presidency at home, a weakened and ineffectual Congress, and a rudderless foreign policy. While I challenged the American public to rise against the tide of executive overreach, I did not thoroughly address what Congress itself can do to challenge the siphoning away of its traditional powers. There is in fact a great deal it can do.

It was long the case that American presidents held less power on domestic issues than the Congress. The executive branch could only enact the laws of the legislature with a limited tendency to veto. The president’s real power lay in setting foreign policy, as he had much more freedom of action in that arena than on the home front wherein the checks and balances of the Constitution were in full force. That traditional balance has been overridden in the current political system. The fault for this breakdown of traditional magisteria of influence lies with both the executive and the legislative branches.

Limiting the term of office served by elected politicians has been a controversial issue in the United States for many years. At one time the federal government had no term limits, with the president and Congress allowed to remain in office as long as they could get reelected. Today, the president is limited to two terms, but congressmen and senators are still free to run again and again. And they do.

David Jolly didn’t even bother fighting back against the constant global warming political onslaught. He still won.

Hundreds of thousands of government workers were laid off, national parks, monuments and other federal tourist attractions were closed, veterans were shortchanged, etc. All because the Republicans in the House of Representatives didn’t vote the necessary money for them, right? Wrong!

A survey conducted by the R-Street Institute and the National Taxpayers Union shows that voters across the ideological spectrum oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). If signed into law, the…