Answer: all three received subsidies from the Export-Import Bank. Here’s the Club for Growth’s new web video:

The Export-Import Bank is nothing more than a fund for corporate welfare backed by the American taxpayer. It’s time for Congress to shut down the Export-Import Bank for good.

Chris Chocola
President – Club for Growth

There’s a lot to like about Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. It cuts some spending. It flattens the tax code down to just two individual marginal tax rates. It also includes some innovative policies designed to halt the unsustainable growth of health care entitlement spending. However, on balance, the budget is disappointing for fiscal conservatives for two main reasons: It waives the spending restraint that was agreed to in last year’s debt limit deal, and it doesn’t balance the budget until 2040. Broken promises and unbalanced budgets as far as the eye can see are neither good policy nor a good campaign rallying cry.

Last year, an agreement was reached in which Republicans gave President Obama a massive increase in the debt ceiling, in exchange for promised spending cuts that supposedly had “real teeth.” As part of the deal, Congressman Ryan and most Republicans voted to require an annual spending cap and $110 billion in automatic spending cuts for next year – otherwise known as “sequestration” – if the so-called “super-committee” failed to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.

Since the predictable collapse of the super-committee, the House GOP should have been working toward a budget proposal that allows for the sequester to take place for the coming year. Such a budget would include the $110 billion in reductions. Ryan’s budget achieves vastly less. It contains $19 billion in discretionary savings and, at most, $53 billion in cuts to mandatory spending — $38 billion short. Thus, it leaves House Republicans breaking the terms of the deal they agreed to just seven months ago.

That debt ceiling agreement provided that half of those cuts would come from defense spending, and half from non-defense spending. Some conservatives object to that level of defense cuts. Fine. The key to the agreement was securing the total $110 billion reduction in spending, not which part of the budget was cut. If some want to rearrange the location of the cuts, that would be fine, as long as the overall magnitude of the spending restraint was sustained.

House leaders claim they are making more overall cuts. However, they are clearly short of the requirements for next year and are pushing the deepest cuts out into the future. We’ve seen this movie before. Lots of times. In other words, they are kicking the can down the road . . . again. No matter how you slice it, the Ryan budget breaks the promise of spending restraint that was agreed to in exchange for raising the debt limit. And make no mistake, we’re not just arguing over $38 billion. Now that this budget breaks that deal, both parties will work to unravel the entire $1.2 trillion in sequestered cuts. Don’t be surprised if the full unraveling happens later this year.

A group of fiscal conservatives in the House, the Republican Study Committee, has proposed a budget that balances in five years. It contains strong tax reform and spending restraint. In addition, the RSC deals with Social Security, an entitlement program left untouched by the Ryan budget. And just like the Ryan budget, the RSC plan shifts the burden of the sequester away from defense, but preserves, and in fact exceeds, the overall spending reduction level agreed to last year. That is the right way forward.

By waiving the sequester and refusing to balance the budget until 2040, the Ryan budget and the Republican Party are playing a dangerous game. It is hard to have confidence that our long-term fiscal challenges will be met responsibly when the same Congress that passed the August debt deal wants to ignore it less than one year later.

America does not have thirty years to balance the budget. We may not have ten. We hope that fiscal conservatives will take a harder look at the House GOP budget, and ask themselves if they can and should demand more.

Chris Chocola
President – Club for Growth

From the diaries.

There’s a lot to like about Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. It cuts some spending. It flattens the tax code down to just two individual marginal tax rates. It also includes some innovative policies designed to halt the unsustainable growth of health care entitlement spending. However, on balance, the budget is disappointing for fiscal conservatives for two main reasons: It waives the spending restraint that was agreed to in last year’s debt limit deal, and it doesn’t balance the budget until 2040. Broken promises and unbalanced budgets as far as the eye can see are neither good policy nor a good campaign rallying cry.

Last year, an agreement was reached in which Republicans gave President Obama a massive increase in the debt ceiling, in exchange for promised spending cuts that supposedly had “real teeth.” As part of the deal, Congressman Ryan and most Republicans voted to require an annual spending cap and $110 billion in automatic spending cuts for next year – otherwise known as “sequestration” – if the so-called “super-committee” failed to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction.

Since the predictable collapse of the super-committee, the House GOP should have been working toward a budget proposal that allows for the sequester to take place for the coming year. Such a budget would include the $110 billion in reductions. Ryan’s budget achieves vastly less. It contains $19 billion in discretionary savings and, at most, $53 billion in cuts to mandatory spending — $38 billion short. Thus, it leaves House Republicans breaking the terms of the deal they agreed to just seven months ago.

That debt ceiling agreement provided that half of those cuts would come from defense spending, and half from non-defense spending. Some conservatives object to that level of defense cuts. Fine. The key to the agreement was securing the total $110 billion reduction in spending, not which part of the budget was cut. If some want to rearrange the location of the cuts, that would be fine, as long as the overall magnitude of the spending restraint was sustained.

Read More →

Yesterday, the Club for Growth released a statement saying that the Ryan budget was “on balance, a disappointment to fiscal conservatives.” We applauded the strong pro-growth reforms in the bill, but the reasons for our opposition were twofold:

First, the budget doesn’t balance within 10 years, or for that matter, even 20 years. Our country is currently enduring unsustainable trillion-dollar deficits. We cannot wait until 2040 — the year the Ryan budget balances (page 84) — in order to arrest our ever-growing national debt.

Read More →

Friends, below is a copy of the open letter I sent today to the House GOP leadership today regarding the Republican primary race in Arizona’s sixth congressional district between Reps. David Schweikert and Ben Quayle.

SENT VIA MAIL AND FACSIMILE
The Honorable John Boehner, Speaker of the House
The Honorable Eric Cantor, Majority Leader
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy, Majority Whip

Dear Republican House Leaders:

In the just completed Illinois Republican congressional primary between incumbent Congressmen Don Manzullo and Adam Kinzinger, the Club for Growth PAC chose to stay neutral. We did so because neither candidate’s record was entirely satisfactory. Over the course of his long House career, Rep. Manzullo has cast several bad votes. As a first-term Member of Congress, Rep. Kinzinger has an even worse record than Rep. Manzullo. In fact, in the only year in which their records can be compared, in 2011, Rep. Manzullo had a clearly better record of voting for limited government then did Rep. Kinzinger.

Despite our neutrality in this race, we were alarmed to see Majority Leader Cantor, Majority Whip McCarthy, and their Young Guns Action Fund aggressively take sides in favor of Rep. Kinzinger, and even use the committee to promote a false picture of Rep. Kinzinger’s record.

We raise this concern in the context of another upcoming redistricting-induced primary between two incumbent Republican Congressmen. In Arizona’s sixth congressional district, incumbent Republicans David Schweikert and Ben Quayle are facing each other. The Club for Growth PAC’s position in this race is neutral, because in this case both first-term Congressmen have outstanding pro-growth voting records.

However, we note that Speaker Boehner’s Leadership PAC has already made a maximum contribution to Rep. Quayle’s campaign. That contribution was made before redistricting put both men in the same district, and it is our hope that it does not signal that the House leadership has decided to take sides in this primary. In the name of neutrality, we urge Speaker Boehner to contribute the same $10,000 to Rep. Schweikert that he has already given to Rep. Quayle. We also urge Leader Cantor, Whip McCarthy, and their Young Guns Action Fund to join us in staying neutral in the Arizona race.

Should it become apparent that you are choosing sides on behalf of Rep. Quayle, the Club for Growth PAC will consider it necessary to intervene on behalf of Rep. Schweikert. As is our practice, if the Club’s PAC entered this primary, it is highly likely that our 75,000 members would donate considerably more funds to Rep. Schweikert’s campaign than the Republican House leadership would contribute to Rep. Quayle’s campaign.

It is our preference to remain on the sidelines of the Arizona race, as both candidates have fine records. However, we will not sit back and allow House Republican leaders to invest resources with impunity against an incumbent fiscal conservative like Rep. David Schweikert. Rep. Schweikert stands for the principles of economic freedom even when members of his own party pressure him to do otherwise. If those same Republican leaders attempt to defeat him, the Club for Growth PAC will vigorously come to his defense.

Sincerely,
Chris Chocola, President – Club for Growth

From the diaries by Erick

I have an OpEd in the National Review today about the Club for Growth PAC endorsement of Richard Mourdock for U.S. Senate in Indiana:

“Earmarks,” also known as pork-barrel spending, are considered a “gateway drug” to corruption and bigger government in Washington. They got that well-deserved title because there’s a history of both Republicans and Democrats using earmarks as a currency to buy votes for all sorts of bad policies. Sometimes, members of Congress have actually taken bribes in exchange for obtaining earmarks. The system was abused so badly that Americans shamed both parties into passing a temporary ban on the practice.

Thankfully, there are very few Republicans left who still support earmarks. Regrettably, one of the remaining few is 35-year Indiana senator Richard Lugar. He continues to stand in favor of earmarks to this day. Recently, Lugar was one of only thirteen Republicans to join Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid in voting against a permanent ban on earmarks.

That was the final straw for the Club for Growth PAC, which has now endorsed Lugar’s conservative challenger, Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock.

Click here to read the whole thing. I hope the RedState community will join the Club for Growth PAC in support of change in Indiana.

Chris Chocola
President, Club for Growth

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

One of the biggest pick-up opportunities for Republicans next year is going to be in Wisconsin, where the Democratic Senator Herb Kohl is retiring. There is a three-way primary, and the Club for Growth PAC has already endorsed one candidate.

That candidate has already been endorsed by Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservative’s Fund, Senator Rand Paul, and Senator Tom Coburn.

His name is Mark Neumann, and he was tea party before being tea party was cool.

Erick has written many times on here about how conservatives need to “hold the freaking line”. Mark Neumann’s already been there in Congress as an original member of the class of ’94, and he’s done it under enormous pressure from the big-spending establishment.

Here’s one example: in 1995 Mark fought against a Republican spending bill, and Republican leaders, including the uber-powerful Bob Livingston, informed him they were going to kick him off the Appropriations Committee as punishment. In response Neumann sent an open letter to every Member of Congress, which said in part:

Read More →

Folks,

I don’t want to repeat a lot of the great points that Erick has made already about the McConnell “contingency deal.” The proposal is a dereliction of duty and everything that we all hate about Washington. It punts responsibility at exactly the point when Republicans want Americans to give them more. The Club for Growth has announced that we oppose the McConnell-Reid-Pelosi deal and we’ll be Key Voting against it for multiple reasons.

This is a critical moment in the debate over the debt ceiling. I can tell you now that any Republican who votes to give President Obama MORE power, allowing him to RAISE the debt ceiling WITHOUT guaranteed spending cuts and a Balanced Budget Amendment …well, I can tell you that voting to do so is selling out. It means you put politics before principle. It means you put elections before doing what’s right. It means you care more about protecting your job than saving America.

Senator McConnell and the rest of the Republicans in the Senate and in the House need to hear it from the Tea Party movement. They need to hear it from the grassroots. Erick has written on here many times for Republicans to “hold the freaking line.” I couldn’t agree more.

Call your Reps and Senators now and tell them you oppose the McConnell-Reid-Pelosi “contingency deal.”

Best,
Chris Chocola
President, Club for Growth
www.ClubForGrowth.org

We’ve Key Voted a “Yes” vote to Senator Coburn’s Amendment to kill Ethanol Subsidies.

Bad economic policy should be eliminated. Period. Exclamation point. End of story.

We have an opportunity to strike deep into the heart of Big Ethanol – Senator Coburn’s Amendment repeals not only the tax credit, but it also repeals the tariff on imported ethanol. It’s a great first step on the way to ridding the tax code of market-distorting energy subsidies and sends a message that Republicans are serious about tax reform.

Ethanol subsidies are an abomination. They are simply a form of corporate welfare. Their elimination would be pro-growth.

Senator Coburn’s Amendment is #436 to S. 782 and will most likely be voted on tomorrow. He needs 60 votes for cloture. Please join me in supporting his efforts.

Best,
Chris Chocola
President, Club for Growth