In light of the ongoing debate in the Senate over whether to approve the Obama Administration’s New START treaty with Russia, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and I recently sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asking that they delay action until the 112th Congress can convene and review the treaty.

While we recognize that it is the role of the Senate to give advice and consent to the ratification of this treaty, it will be the role of those of us in the House of Representatives to ultimately appropriate the funding necessary to modernize our nuclear weapons complex, stockpile and arsenal, as well as to conduct oversight of the implementation of the treaty.

In light of this role, we outlined in our letter specific concerns with the treaty as it is currently written:

It is our understanding that, in the latest version of its program for modernizing the nuclear weapons complex and stockpile, the Administration is proposing to spend approximately $84 billion over ten years, which will have to be approved by the House. In advancing this proposal, the House could find itself in a circumstance where meeting its legislative responsibilities in the area of national security is made more difficult by the entry into force of New START.

Most importantly, many House Republicans believe this treaty may weaken the ability of the U.S. to defend itself against missile attacks. This is largely because the Administration has made indications to Russia that in the context of this treaty the U.S. will not pursue missile defense options that could affect the strategic balance between the two states.

The Administration has also proven to show a lack of transparency during this process by refusing to provide senators with the full negotiating record or specific details of the Tauscher-Rybakov discussions. The Reagan Administration provided updates during the original negotiations to staff on the Arms Control Observer group. We believe Senators should not be a rubber stamp for the Administrations diplomatic agenda and should demand access for the treaty negotiation record. Furthermore, the hearing process for New START in the Senate has been biased. The overwhelming majority of the witnesses were treaty proponents.

We have clear concerns that, should the Senate approve this treaty in a premature manner, it would impede the ability of the House and the Senate to draft future defense measures that will meet the nation’s essential security requirements. The threat of rogue nations like Iran and North Korea make it imperative that we not ratify a treaty absent the necessary review and scrutiny that would be afforded by permitting the Senate to debate this treaty in the 112th Congress.

For the full text of the Franks/Price letter, please click here.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) is Chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) is Chairman of the RSC’s National Security Working Group and Chair of the House Missile Defense Caucus.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently made a vow to a large gathering of liberal activists that should have every American concerned.

Frustration with the Democratic Party was a major theme during the four-day event, where progressives voiced their loss of patience with those in power for not doing enough to make major policy changes. … “We’re going to have to have a lame-duck session,” Reid promised. “So we’re not giving up.”

Leftists do not think ObamaCare’s unconstitutional mandate to buy insurance went far enough. They do not think the failed $862 billion stimulus created a large enough deficit. They do not think Democrats have done enough to “change” America into an economically and militarily weak cradle-to-grave welfare state. They want more – and Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi are planning to give it to them in a lame duck session of Congress.

Of course, most Americans have had enough. And more Democrats are beginning to realize that their agenda is incredibly unpopular. They know the American people’s dissatisfaction could cost them control of one or both chambers of Congress next year. And they know if that were to happen, a lame duck session would be their last chance to defy the will of the public and enact the remaining items on the liberal wish list.

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The last few years of taxpayer-funded bailouts, backstops, and so-called “stimulus” spending have left Americans with a political economy in which Washington, not the market, decides where to allocate capital. Until now, Washington’s interventions have been put together in haphazard fashion – $300 billion here, $700 billion there, etc. But under the guise of “financial reform,” Democrats last Friday unveiled their plan to make this political economy permanent.

As the language of the 2,000-page Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform package was finalized, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) channeled Speaker Pelosi’s now-infamous line about ObamaCare. According to The Washington Post, a teary-eyed Sen. Dodd proudly proclaimed:

“No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.”

While Sen. Dodd’s comment speaks volumes about the endless unintended consequences of this legislation (and the fact that Democrats really don’t know what they’re doing), he is not entirely accurate. There are quite a few things we already know about how Dodd-Frank will work.

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As you read this, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid are lining up their troops to drag their government takeover of health care across the finish line. This is no easy task considering how strongly the American people have objected. Even so, they are absolutely determined to jam this through with an iron fist regardless of the electoral consequences.

Some of you may be worried by news reports that President Obama is again trying to appear bipartisan by giving lip service to ideas supported by Republicans. Don’t be. As long as the basis of his plan puts Washington in charge of Americans’ health care, there is nothing more to discuss. Don’t get me wrong. We’d love to see him support our ideas on their own merits. But the half measures he’s offered to toss on top of a trillion dollar bill are not a serious effort at bipartisanship.

While Republicans stand strong, however, the Associated Press reports that at least 10 House Democrats who voted against the Pelosi bill may be considering changing their vote if given the opportunity.

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The Democrats’ $862 billion stimulus bill turns a year old today, but don’t fret if you didn’t get a party invitation. Most Americans haven’t seen much in the past year of stimulus worth celebrating.

Democrats claimed their stimulus bill would have an immediate impact on job creation and the economy. Clearly, that was ridiculous. Just take a look at the bill – it’s mostly a hodge-podge of expensive giveaways and programs with little real impact on job creation.

Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), who just announced that he won’t seek reelection this year, recently had some sharp comments about this Congress’ record on jobs:

“If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months,” Bayh said.

That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of Democrat policies, and no wonder. The number of jobs our economy has lost in just the last year is approaching 4 million, and the unemployment rate has hung around 10% for the past 6 months. And then there’s the 6.1 million unemployed Americans who want to work but aren’t included in the oft-quoted unemployment rate.

Even these numbers don’t paint the whole picture. Conventional wisdom says the U.S. needs to create about 125,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with population growth. That’s where the Democrats’ job-killing agenda rears its ugly head. Employers aren’t likely to risk hiring and expanding without confidence that their businesses will be able to thrive in the future. When confronted by a government takeover of health care, a national energy tax, card check, skyrocketing debt, and higher taxes, most job creators aren’t trying to expand. They’re hunkering down in self-defense.

For robust and sustainable job growth, our entrepreneurs, small businesses, and other job creators require a job-friendly environment in which individuals and businesses can keep more of their hard-earned money without seeing the future mortgaged by irresponsible spenders in Washington.

Lately, President Obama has tried to assure the American people that he’s working really hard to get our money back from that TARP bailout he’s been using as a revolving slush fund. Nonetheless, since yesterday was a day ending in “y”, it was evidently time for another bailout. Rules are rules, after all.

This time it was $30 billion for loans to small businesses:

“The $30 billion in loan financing would come from money repaid by big banks that got help from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program…That $30 billion would be used to create the Small Business Lending Fund, separate and distinct from TARP, according to two senior administration officials who outlined the program on condition of anonymity before Obama’s announcement.”

Did you catch that little two-step? Small businesses can get money for lending that comes from TARP but somehow…isn’t TARP. The distinction sounds like nothing more than window dressing, but why hide the truth? Maybe it’s because past TARP recipients (sometimes forced recipients) have been stigmatized and demonized by their association with this seemingly endless bailout fund. Or maybe it’s because businesses have learned an important lesson about TARP: where there’s a carrot, there will be sticks. Big sticks, and if I was a business owner considering an entanglement with TARP, I’d be more than a little wary of getting whacked.

Anyone can see that small businesses have been struggling. But even if President Obama assigned every last penny of TARP to this new TARP-redux for small businesses, he still won’t have addressed the real issue preventing robust private sector growth – the looming impact of smothering new taxes, mandates, regulations, and payoffs for Big Labor. These are some serious sticks that will beat down private enterprise with or without a loan from TARP.

If we continue down this path, the sustainable economic growth and long-term job creation we want simply won’t appear. Instead, we need to provide a commerce-friendly environment of lower taxes, lower debt, and lower spending. Not to mention we need to close down TARP to prevent the White House from using $700 billion of your money to bailout whatever company, industry, or sector it wants.

Last August, you went to public forums and town halls across the country to hold your members of Congress accountable for their votes. You made your firm opposition to a government takeover of health care crystal clear. And on September 12, hundreds of thousands of you descended upon Washington to say once again that you would not be ignored.

Congress took notice. But now, Speaker Pelosi and other top Democrats in Congress think you’ve been lulled to sleep.

As they try to secure votes with deals for individual members, Democrat leaders are attempting to create a sense of momentum by claiming they have the necessary 218 votes for passage in the House. They want you to think a government takeover of health care is inevitable. They want you to throw in the towel.

Don’t let them fool you.

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Jobs are being lost everyday, the deficit continues to explode and the American people are angry.

It’s now been six months since President Obama moved into the White House and in that short time, we have seen all his economic policies fall flat on their face. The unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 9.5%, and the stimulus package has been defined by delays, fraud, and poor management.

Every day, I talk to Americans who are terrified about the path the country is going – the spending, the borrowing, the government intervention. That’s why we have introduced a bill that attempts to save the country from economic and fiscal disaster. It’s called the “Reducing Barack Obama’s Unsustainable Deficit Act” and it makes a much needed turn in the direction of fiscal responsibility.

On May 14th of this year, the President said, “The long-term deficit and debt that we have accumulated is unsustainable. We can’t keep on just borrowing from China, or borrowing from other countries…At some point they’re just going to get tired of buying our debt.”

While true, I think the American people are also getting tired of buying the President’s empty rhetoric.

To actually match word to deed, we have offered legislation to give Americans their money back. The first step is to cancel the spending portion of the stimulus package and recall the $460 billion that has not yet been spent. The money hasn’t gone out the door and we can still get it back.

The second step is to reclaim all unobligated TARP money so none of the remaining $150 billion can be wasted. The legislation then requires that all TARP money paid back must go directly to paying down the debt.

This simple measure will save taxpayers billions and help reduce this year’s projected $1.85 trillion deficit – by far the largest in U.S. history!

A lot of folks out there are saying they want their ‘change’ back, but the truth is Obama’s into us for a lot more than pocket change. And it’s clear buyer’s remorse has set in across this country. I, for one, think it’s time we get our money back.

In response to a question from Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), FBI Director Robert Mueller gave the House Judiciary Committee a rundown of the Bureau’s concerns about transferring Guantanamo terror suspects to the United States.

President Obama and his Democrat friends in Congress would be wise to take note of Mr. Mueller’s warnings.

Yesterday, Congress heard a report that yet another government bureaucracy that failed in its duties to the American people. Now, imagine what would happen if those same people were in charge of your health care.

Today, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Congressional Democrats have taken their false outrage over AIG bonuses a step farther by introducing a plan to limit pay for employees who work for TARP recipients. The entire controversy over executive pay demonstrates why the government has no business interjecting itself into the private sector. Washington has gleefully jumped at the opportunity to rack up political points over an episode that involves a small fraction of the total taxpayer money wasted during the bailout spree, but unfortunately has left the larger problem unaddressed.

As political outrage over bonuses continues to spawn more bad legislation, we can see the precise folly of mixing government intervention with the free market. Washington has done enough to damage the private sector by injecting itself into businesses with no discernible exit strategy. Now, Democrats are pushing legislation that would do irreparable harm to already-struggling recovery efforts by driving away the folks who are needed to repair our financial sector. Government bailouts have led us down the path of institutionalized tyranny. And, all signs out of the White House and the Speaker’s office point to more bailouts and more wasted taxpayer money.

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Congress just passed another pork-stuffed omnibus spending package this week. Buried in the bill, however, is a provision that paves the way for Democrats to revive the misnamed ‘Fairness Doctrine’. Currently there is protection of free speech over the airwaves by prohibiting federal funds from being used to control and censor media content. Yesterday, the Majority elected to remove that protection.

There is no place for government control of political discussion over the air. The guarantee to free speech is one of the most vital pillars of the American political system – and a constitutional right. Yesterday’s action to restrict this freedom should raise red flags as to the intent of the majority party. President Obama has stated his opposition to airwave censorship, but his party’s leadership in Congress is determined to flex their political muscle at the expense of the First Amendment. Remember Lord Acton’s admonition: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

It’s time to do away with the outdated ‘Fairness Doctrine’ once and for all. But instead, Democrats have used the smokescreen of a $410 billion spending bill to cynically take a huge step toward censorship and free speech restrictions. As a result, the voice of free people everywhere got a little bit quieter. This does not bode well.

Just over two years ago, when Democrats gained the majority on Capitol Hill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to run the most open Congress in history. And President Obama made providing the most transparent government a central promise of his campaign. As the House and Senate move to negotiate the final text of the so-called stimulus bill, I have called on Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make good on that promise and allow any and all House and Senate negotiations to take place in an open and public forum. By allowing television cameras in the room as negotiations take place, we can provide the transparency American taxpayers expect.

Unfortunately, we have learned this morning that negotiations have already begun under the dark of night. In closed room somewhere in the Capitol Building last night, Congressional Democrats and Obama administration officials met with no Republicans present.

Rules for the conference committee dictate that there must be an open hearing for negotiations, but that hearing is controlled entirely by the majority party. It is the prerogative of congressional Democrats as to whether the hearing will be an honest and open forum or instead a dog and pony show while real negotiations take place in a smoke-filled backroom. With a trillion dollars of taxpayer money currently at stake, it is critical to provide the American people a full and complete understanding of how it is going to be spent. In addition to allowing open media access to conference committee negotiations, the bill itself must be made available to the public by placing a full searchable, downloadable final draft online for 48 hours before holding a final vote. A Republican proposal adopted earlier today does just that.

As the public has learned more about this enormous spending bill, support has plummeted. If, as is expected, Democrats use the conference committee negotiations to jam through a bill full of non-stimulative spending projects, they deserve to be held responsible by those they are supposed to represent. Instead of using a cloak of privacy to dole out taxpayer money through shady backroom deals, all negotiations must be held under the watchful eye of the American people.

Dear Fellow Conservative:

Election Day 2008 produced a liberal governing majority that no one envisioned even as little as two years ago. The Democrats control both chambers of Congress as well as the Presidency. And while they are motivated by politics rather than solutions, Americans perceive them as the true agents of change and reform.

Buried within election data is troubling news. The Republican Party is losing grassroots support, and conservatives are peeling away from the party. According to exit polls, one-in-five self-identified conservatives voted for Barack Obama, clearly illustrating the Republican Party’s inability to project conservative values with credibility.

And this reality has been manifested into a set of greater truths: Americans in 2009 believe that Republicans are tied to the status quo, cannot be trusted on the issues that matter most to them, and are incoherent when articulating a positive vision for the future.

But in light of this, I believe Republicans, by firmly embracing conservative solutions-based traditions, can rise again and set the best course for America. From the desk of an eternal optimist, better days are ahead.

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Twenty-five days ago, an arrogant act by Speaker Pelosi as she exercised her iron-fisted control over the House resulted in the initiation of our ‘Speak-In’. She cut off the microphones, turned off the cameras, and shutdown the House in an attempt to silence the voices of representatives of millions of Americans. Pelosi stopped debate because she knew she would lose if she allowed a vote. Unfortunately, what the Speaker continuously forgets is that her position is entrusted to her by all citizens, not just by extreme-left special interest groups.

Over the last four weeks, we have stuck to our mission of advocating a comprehensive energy policy that includes conservation, new energy technologies, and developing American resources for Americans. We have continued to give voice to the American people to anyone who would listen – relating the harmful effects of incomprehensible inaction and dangerous obstruction by Democrats in Congress.

In this advocacy, several points have been demonstrated:

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It is rare that one gets a chance to realize the historic nature of a series of events while they are still ongoing – to watch history unfold before your very eyes. But, this is one of those times. We need not look back in reflection to see how the winds of change are sweeping through America this week. With the nation more despondent with their leaders than ever before, one act of arrogance allowed the American people to see that there is a voice for them in Washington.

Last Friday, as we stood ready to speak on behalf of the millions of Americans crippled by high gas prices, the microphones in the House of Representatives were cut off and members were denied an opportunity to speak to and for the American people. As the lights fell, House Republicans became energized around one shared understanding: the American people will not tolerate having their voices muzzled. So we began to speak. Instead of being shut out, we fought for American energy in the dark until the last tourists were shuffled out of the hallowed House chamber.

One week later, our voices are still going strong in the darkened chamber, and a gust of change has been carried from Washington out to the American heartland.

The American people are no longer willing to allow their leaders to put partisanship, special interests, or vacation before serious solutions. They will no longer accept an abandonment of the American can-do spirit. We are a nation of achievers, and we will no longer allow the Speaker and a liberal Democrat majority tell us we cannot meet our energy needs.

As the events of this past week have shown, and the coming months will continue to demonstrate, the American people are taking back the People’s House. They don’t want Speaker Pelosi to have free reign to impose her anti-energy views on unwilling Americans. Citizens across this great nation have risen and realized they have a voice in the House, even if the majority is intent on silencing it.

It took an act of arrogance to spark a fire, but it has been lit. In the coming weeks and months, House Republicans pledge to hold the feet of this liberal majority to that fire. Just as the American people, we will not accept the Democrat majority’s indifference to America’s challenges.

With your help, we will fight back. We simply ask this of you: call your representative, Democrat and Republican, and ask them to join our call for more American energy. Prove that they are with the American people and not beholden to Speaker Pelosi. If they are serious about changes, serious about progress, every member will join us and demand Congress return to work for a positive solution to this energy challenge.