This morning we awoke to find that the New York Times Editorial Board and Redstate’s Erick Erickson had aligned themselves on an issue by both taking a shot at the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act, a bill the House will consider next week. Usually when a situation like that arises, something’s amiss. And that is certainly the case today. It’s not surprising the New York Times hates the bill – it’s the most conservative plan for America’s infrastructure in anyone’s lifetime. That’s why Erick’s post this morning was so surprising. But there’s an explanation. Put simply, he has his facts wrong. I’ve known Erick a number of years, and he’s usually a straight shooter, but his critique this morning missed the mark – big time.

If the bill did what Erick suggested, heck, we’d be against it too. So let’s clear up some things.

For starters, let me explain quickly the central premise of the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act. By breaking down government barriers, it expands domestic energy production and puts in place a long-term plan for America’s infrastructure that is controlled by the states and completely paid for –without raising the gas tax. The bill starts by opening up additional federal land for drilling and energy exploration and uses those royalties to shore up current shortfalls in the highway trust fund. Then, it completely overhauls the way highway spending is done and gives states the ability to set five-year plans to meet their local needs.

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From the diaries…

We had a smallish political brush-fire here in Michigan in 1982.

The grizzled old William Milliken had finally decided that 124 terms was enough as Governor, and he was hanging up the cleats.

Jim Blanchard, a weirdo Democrat downriver Detroit Big Labor congressman decided he would run, as did a few other miscreants from the Democrat party. Even the benighted John Conyers toyed with the idea, until someone pointed it out to the congressman that if he were elected Governor, he’d actually have to LIVE in Michigan, and to heck with that.

On the Republican side, all the usual suspect lined up: Jim Brickley, Bill Milliken’s lieutenant governor, filed early. Robert Tisch (a proto-Tea Partier if there ever was one, and a bit of a strangenheimer in his own right), the Shiawasee County Drain Commissioner– jumped into the race , as did several earnest, yet stilted, go-along republican state legislators. And finally, Richard Headlee, the founder of the Alexander Hamilton Life Insurance company, threw his hat in the ring.

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From the Diaries by Leon…

Keith Impink runs Westmoreland Electric, a small business in Tarrs, Pennsylvania which was founded in 1988 with two employees and a truck.  His company, now 65 employees strong, is the type of job creator we should empower to move our state and country out of these difficult economic times.

The painful irony for local job creators like Keith is their very own Congressman, Tim Murphy, has consistently voted to make it harder for small businesses to grow, thrive and prosper.

Small business can’t compete against Big Labor, and it’s tough to find a more reliable vote for Big Labor than Tim Murphy.  And it’s really no surprise why: Half of his top ten campaign contributors are labor unions.  In fact, according to a recent report, Murphy receives more money from Big Labor than all but six of his Republican colleagues.

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From the diaries by Leon…

Let me begin with two brief qualifiers.  First, I believe in fiscal conservatism.  I am a 100% fiscally conservative believer in small government.  I also happen to be 100% in favor of social conservatism and a strong national defense.  So, in short, I am a Reagan conservative.  The following diary is not a critique of fiscal conservatism but rather those fiscal conservatives who continually bash social conservatives while at the same time asking for their vote.  Second, those aforementioned fiscal conservatives were not exactly loners.  They simply wanted social conservatives to shut up and move to the back of the bus.  Despite their rhetoric, they still very much need social conservatives to triumph at the ballot box.

Throughout 2010 and 2011, fiscal conservatives loudly proclaimed that the upcoming presidential election was their election.  Jobs, the economy, and small government would be the issue.  Now was not the time, we were told, for a divisive cultural war or social conservative issues so we needed to call a truce and work with like minded Democrats to get the economy going again.  Now, less than 10 months away from the general election, we find ourselves hoping for the Sweet Meteor of Death to save us from our own potential nominees.  Where did we go wrong?  The fault lies with the Fiscal Conservative “Go It Alone” strategy.

The strategy first failed us in the area of leadership.  Surprisingly, in the year tailored made – we were told – for fiscal conservatism, no fiscal conservative leader stepped forward to take up the mantle.  Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, etc. all shuck their heads and walked away.  Now, all three of our nominees can legitimately be called “big government” conservatives with establishment ties.  Way to go fiscal conservative leadership.

The strategy failed us again because it unnecessarily provoked a rivalry between fiscal and social conservatives.  Mitch Daniels provoked the struggle and ended his own candidacy with his call for a truce on social issues.  Others, here on RedState and elsewhere, have trumpeted that refrain.  Many fiscal conservatives [although not all] mocked and dismissed Rick Perry due to his social conservative credentials and for his call to prayer in Houston.  Articles abounded about how social conservatives were no longer a force in the Republican party.  Even a few days ago we saw articles about how Rick Santorum’s social conservatism was a liability that he had to overcome.  The rivalry was unnecessary.  It weakened the field.  And it helped pave the way for Romney.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Robert Kagan to discuss his new book, The World America Made, the importance of America’s military muscle, and how the world may change if America is no longer the world’s superpower.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Our friends at Hertiage Action have a great piece out today that looks at CBO data and says that if House Republicans vote for the Highway Bill, they are basically guaranteeing a $54 billion bailout of the Highway Trust fund over the next five years.

It’s incredible that anyone would even consider this good policy, let alone conservative. The Club for Growth is advocating that members of Congress vote NO on the Highway Bill and instead call for devolution of the gas tax and highway spending to the states.

Let your member of Congress know that you support the Club’s position on the Highway Bill. Why should taxpayers be on the hook for another unfunded government boondoggle?

Chris Chocola
President, Club for Growth

Throughout the week, Republicans have expressed their shock and dismay that we would have the unbridled temerity to oppose a highway bill.  They want to know why we are suddenly opposed to such basic things as transportation bills, even ones that will leave us with a $70 billion budget shortfall.  They are impugning our motives, charging us with opposing everything that emanates from leadership.

Well, once upon a time, it wasn’t just conservative outsiders who supported the notion that we peg transportation spending to the level of gas tax revenue.  In fact, just last July, members of the T and I Committee, led by Chairman John Mica, introduced a bill that would do just that.  They drafted a plan for a 6-year reauthorization bill that would cost $230 billion, roughly commensurate to the gas tax revenue over that same period.  At the time, we heaped accolades upon that bill.  On July 18, I wrote the following in these pages:

“As a new spirit of fiscal discipline slowly seeps into Washington, John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has drafted the framework for a new highway bill that will cap the funding for highway and transportation projects to the amount of revenue supplied by the gas tax and other highway user fees.”

In fact, it wasn’t just conservative outsiders who stressed the importance of maintaining the integrity of the highway trust fund as a pay-as-you-go system.  The draft proposal from the T and I Committee made that the selling point of their legislation.  It appears that the document has been removed from the committee’s website (the link in the aforementioned quote is defunct), but I still have the pdf from the time I wrote the article.  It reads like this:

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Since February of 2009 when President Barack Obama began his aggressive push for stimulus into the American economy, he focused on one core area — infrastructure.

In fact, in his stimulus speech before Congress in 2009, his States of the Union in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and his Jobs Act speech of late 2011, the President repeated referred to spending government money to create jobs to fix America’s infrastructure.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), leader of the Republican Study Committee, is confirmed to be leaning toward supporting the plan. His public pronouncements that he is leaning toward supporting the plan is leading House conservatives as a whole to support this new stimulus plan — a stimulus plan to create jobs fixing and expanding America’s infrastructure.

The plan will most likely necessitate a federal bailout of the Highway Trust Fund, which is typically funded through the gas tax and is used to pay for highway projects. But Obama’s new stimulus busts the cap on the trust fund and, like social security, gets into general fund money to pay for the spending binge.

With the House bill, as is typical of Barack Obama’s legislation, spending will outpace income over the next five years by $69.6 billion. Moreso, as is also typical of President Obama’s stimulus schemes, Washington would retain the bulk of control, even though the money would be going to state transportation projects. Federal strings and federal money will come with the legislation.

Oh, and if the House goes along with the Senate’s version of this stimulus plan, Americans could see new taxes on their IRA’s.

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Since February of 2009 when President Barack Obama began his aggressive push for stimulus into the American economy, he focused on one core area — infrastructure.

In fact, in his stimulus speech before Congress in 2009, his States of the Union in 2010, 2011, and 2012, and his Jobs Act speech of late 2011, the President repeated referred to spending government money to create jobs to fix America’s infrastructure.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), leader of the Republican Study Committee, is confirmed to be leaning toward supporting the plan. His public pronouncements that he is leaning toward supporting the plan is leading House conservatives as a whole to support this new stimulus plan — a stimulus plan to create jobs fixing and expanding America’s infrastructure.

The plan will most likely necessitate a federal bailout of the Highway Trust Fund, which is typically funded through the gas tax and is used to pay for highway projects. But Obama’s new stimulus busts the cap on the trust fund and, like social security, gets into general fund money to pay for the spending binge.

With the House bill, as is typical of Barack Obama’s legislation, spending will outpace income over the next five years by $69.6 billion. Moreso, as is also typical of President Obama’s stimulus schemes, Washington would retain the bulk of control, even though the money would be going to state transportation projects. Federal strings and federal money will come with the legislation.

Oh, and if the House goes along with the Senate’s version of this stimulus plan, Americans could see new taxes on their IRA’s.

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RedState Morning Briefing
For February 9, 2012

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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A Tuesday New York Times article called “U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by as Much as Half” purported to describe the plight of U.S. State Department employees in Iraq, whose diplomatic efforts are being rebuffed by a host nation and government that has little use for them. According to the Times, the 16,000 employees (including 2,000 diplomats) at “the $750 million embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between two countries linked by blood and mutual suspicion. But the Americans have been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.”

Times reporter Tim Arango goes on to describe the hardships being suffered by State employees at the hands of the Iraqis (emphasis added):

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If you walk by the National Archives on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. you will most likely see a line of people waiting to get just a glimpse of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These two aged documents are browned with time and sealed under layers of a secure glass enclosure in the domed lobby of the Archives. But they still manage to impress their visitors. The inked words of the Constitution, many of them carefully penned by Gouverneur Morris over 200 years ago, are now barely visible. While some foreign visitors may struggle to make them out, we Americans know them by heart. “We the people in order to form a more perfect union…” the Constitution starts, and what follows is one of the most awe inspiring and heartfelt treatises to freedom in the history of man. After all, this one document founded the most successful country the world has ever known.

Unfortunately, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t believe in the importance of the U.S. Constitution. Ironically, though her job is to “support the Constitution” (Article 6, U.S. Constitution) she instead did everything but uphold it last Wednesday. During an interview with Egyptian television network Al Hayat in Cairo, she was asked to give her opinion regarding the type of government Egypt should adopt as they try to rebuild their country following the Arab Spring. Her response?  “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” Though she extolled certain parts of the U.S. Constitution, she went on to propose Egypt instead use South Africa’s Constitution as a basis for their new government.

I am deeply saddened and disappointed in Justice Ginsburg’s answer. As a Supreme Court Justice who daily delves into the U.S. Constitution looking for answers to the nation’s top cases, I would hope she would have developed a love for this crucial founding document. Yet instead, she implied its irrelevancy! Why would our Constitution not be just as good a foundation for a nation’s government today as it was in 1788?

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