I keep a close eye on Rep, Virginia Foxx (RNutjob-NC5) these days, and I'm used to her regular drivel (government is wasteful," "taxes are too high," "health care scheme"). But I had to wonder what the hell she was talking about in this column published today in The Stokes News.
There are other simple ways to curtail the negative impact of these stealth taxes. Sometimes politicians’ "good ideas" go awry and need to be unwound. That’s why I’m a member of the congressional Sunset Caucus. It’s a group dedicated to retiring failed and underperforming rules or programs by attaching expiration dates to laws.
Putting an expiration date, or sunset date, on new mandates or costly programs would do two beneficial things. First, sunset provisions would help drive down the cost of government. Secondly, sunsets force Congress to reconsider programs and rules every five years or so to see if they’ve served their purpose or if they only wasted money or caused headaches for taxpayers. After all, if a program or regulation is so valuable, it should be able to withstand a periodic debate about its merits.
By the way, the word "stealth" is apparently the word de jour from Frank Luntz. Foxx used it 8 times in today's short column (including the title).
But I digress.
Joiner that she is, Rep. Foxx has just thrown herself in with the new Republican Sunset Caucus, a group of 42 Republicans who want to prove their commitment to good government by targeting progressive programs in the the name of "wasteful" spending.
While we're all working to get something at all going in Washington that even looks or smells remotely progressive, these Republicans are busily working to elimiinate what little we have managed to get through over the years.
According to Media Matters:
Reps. Kevin Brady and Jason Chaffetz will co-chair the caucus, which has 42 initial members. Among them is Rep. Michele Bachmann, who explained, "As a member of the Sunset Caucus, I will select some program or agency that has outlived its usefulness, duplicates other government programs or that Congress never had any business creating in the first place." Members will publicly advocate for the repeal or de-funding of their targeted programs and introduce appropriations amendments and legislation to do so.
Based on a preliminary list of targets, however, it seems the caucus is more interested in sticking it to the Obama administration -- and progressives in general -- than eliminating truly unnecessary programs. For example, the very first program listed is "the unspent portion of the Economic Stimulus Package." In other words, the Sunset Caucus' top priority is to undo President Obama's biggest legislative achievement before it's had an opportunity to take full effect.
In addition to targeting the stimulus package, other current targets are:
Americorps
Amtrak
International Panel on Climate Change
Payments to Palau to take Gitmo Detainees
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Appearing on Fox News, Smith made the bogus statement that his new caucus was necessary because liberal media "bias" is "the greatest threat to America."
According to the Committee report:
Each member of the RSC Sunset Caucus will:
(1) Adopt one or more federal program they believe has outlived its usefulness or never should have been enacted.
(2) Publicly champion the repeal or de-funding of the program(s).
(3) Offer an amendment during the relevant appropriations bill to defund the program(s).
(4) Introduce stand alone legislation to sunset the targeted program(s).
Here are these beacons of light and accountability holding their press conference to sell this shit:
Damn, These guys are good at this political stuff. While we try to get something new through, they're out there working their asses off to erase what we've already done.