The presidential primary is ostensibly over, but there are still many primary elections taking place that should be of interest to conservatives.  We often find ourselves bemoaning the lack of conservative members in Congress during the legislative session.  Well, it is during primary season that we have the opportunity to shape the orientation of Congress.  On Tuesday, Indiana and North Carolina will be holding primaries.  Here is what is at stake for conservatives:

Indiana

Senate: The marque race is the battle for the Senate seat between Richard Lugar and Richard Mourdock.  We clearly have the momentum, but it would be nice to send an unambiguous message that we are tired of insipid pale-pastel politicians in our party.  We should all rally behind Mourdock to ensure that this is not even close.  Over the weekend, I saw an interesting story from Jack Hoogendyk, the conservative running against Fred Upton in south Michigan.  He is suspending his campaign until after Tuesday’s election, so his volunteers can cross the border into Indiana and help with GOTV for Mourdock.  This is a great idea for team play in future primary battles.

District 5: Dan Burton is retiring and a number of candidates are vying for the open seat.  David McIntosh is, by far, the most viable conservative in the race.  He has a stellar record as RSC chairman during his first time in Congress in the 90s.  He is endorsed by the Club for Growth and the Madison Project.

District 8: Freshman Republican Larry Bucshon has been a tremendous disappointment.  He ran as a Tea Party candidate, but has turned in a mediocre performance during his first year in office.  Kristi Risk, who came close to beating him in 2010, will be on the ballot again.  I have not had time to interview her, and therefore, cannot issue an official endorsement from the Madison Project, but she is clearly the better choice.

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The headline number from the BLS’s Establishment Survey was an addition of 115,000 jobs for the month of April.  That is a terrible number for this far into the recovery, as it fails to keep up with population growth.  At this time in the Reagan recovery, the economy added a population-adjusted 480,000 jobs.  So why did the unemployment rate (U3 number) drop another 0.1% to 8.1%?  Let’s delve through some of the data from the Household Survey:

• Size of civilian labor force:  So why did the unemployment rate fall?  Well, if you shrink the size of the pool, the unemployment rate will actually go down.  While a net-115,000 jobs were added in November, the civilian labor force shrunk by 342,000.  In March, the civilian labor force stood at 154.707 million.  Now, there are only 154.365 million in the labor force.  Moreover, the Civilian noninstitutional population grew by 180,000, yet there are now 522,000 more people not in the labor force than there were in October.  Consequently, the labor participation number dropped from 63.8% to 63.6%.  That is the lowest rate since 1981. This has caused the U3 rate to drop by .1%.  The broader U6 number is unchanged at 14.5% – still amazingly high for this long after the official end of the recession.
• Duration of unemployment: The average (mean) duration of unemployment is 39.1 weeks, a record high. By comparison, the average duration was 19.9 weeks in January 2009.
• Comparison to January 2009- The size of the working age population grew over 8 million from 234.739 million at the time Obama was sworn in.  Yet, the labor force has grown by just 130,000.  The labor-participation rate has dropped 2.1%.  Also, there are still 325,000 less people in raw numbers that hold jobs than there were at the time of his inauguration.  Overall, there are almost 8 million more people not in the labor force relative to January 2009.  So we have a larger population, a smaller workforce (resulting from discouraged workers), and more unemployed.  As AEI’s James Pethokoukis points out, if the labor force was the same size as when Obama took office, the U3 rate would be 11.1%.

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It’s becoming clear that many rank-and-file members of the House Republican Conference are chomping at the bit to resurrect earmarks after a two-year moratorium.  Some are complaining that earmarks cede authority to the executive branch; others are lamenting the lack of “grease” to facilitate passage of statist legislation; still others are trying to push miscellaneous tariff bills, which violate the rules of the earmark ban.

Yesterday, Politico published a reveling account of Republicans who are having a difficult time coping with the earmark ban, particularly as it relates to transportation projects.  Here are some excerpts:

House Republican freshmen are figuring out that it’s hard to hate Washington and need Washington at the same time.

Take New York Rep. Michael Grimm for example, who has lobbied for a revamping of the Bayonne Bridge that connects commuters to New Jersey. Or New York Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, who has said the “federal government can have real and legitimate impact on the economic health of a region by supporting improvements to local infrastructure” — as she pushed the Syracuse Connective Corridor road project. And even Florida Rep. Allen West has touted a $21 million grant to help construct a second runway at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. [...]

“When we went around to each of the freshmen to ask them what their main concerns were, a lot of those were more specific things to their district or specific highways or different things like that,” said Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.). [...]

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), founder of the Tea Party Caucus, has said earmarks shouldn’t count when they’re for transportation projects. And just last week, the Transportation panel’s top Democrat, Nick Rahall of West Virginia, made a public plea that Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) join him in writing a letter asking Boehner to bring back earmarks.

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Editor’s note: This is the next endorsement on behalf of The Madison Project PAC in a continuing series of conservative endorsements for the 2012 congressional elections.

Over the past year, we have learned the hard way that not all freshmen House members turned out to be the Tea Party champions that they claimed to be.  Many of them cast their lot with leadership, eschewing all of the values that buoyed them into office.  One such member is Paul Gosar in Arizona’s 4^th district.

Arizona’s new 4^th district, which spans from the central part of the state to the entire western portion, is now the most conservative district in the state.  Yet, Paul Gosar is, by far, the lowest performing member of the delegation.  Gosar was the only member of the Republican delegation to vote for the debt ceiling deal and all the spending bills that violated the GOP pledge.  He even refused to sign the Cut, Cap, and Balance pledge.  Based on his voting record, it’s par for the course.

If Gosar cannot stand up to leadership, even in the company of conservative colleagues in his home state, he will never improve over the years.  We must do better from this conservative district, and with state Sen. Ron Gould, we will do better – a lot better.

Gould is one of those rare candidates who is a conservative on the full spectrum of issues, is viable, and has a solid record to buttress his campaign promises.  In his 7 years in the state senate, Gould was a leader on all issues related to taxation, spending, and illegal immigration.  He was rated the most conservative member by the Goldwater Institute each year in office.

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In a matter of just a few years at the beginning of the millennium, we succeed in adopting marriage amendments in 30 states.  It looked like we were well on our way to preempting one of the greatest assaults on our values.  But over the past few years, between the liberal courts, the Obama administration, and blue states adopting gay marriage, we have lost a lot of ground.

Next Tuesday, North Carolina voters will get a chance to launch a counterattack by voting for a marriage amendment on the state’s primary ballot.  The language of the amendment also bans civil unions.  Civil unions are one of the biggest tools of the homosexual lobby in their aggressive and officious push to redefine marriage.  That’s why 19 other states have adopted a similar marriage amendment.  It goes without saying that all elected Republicans in North Carolina will enthusiastically campaign for the marriage amendment, right?

Well, everyone except for freshman Renee Ellmers.  Ellmers has been one of the most disappointing freshmen in the entire class.  Not only did she throw in with leadership to support the debt ceiling deal and all the budget capitulations last year, she allowed herself to be used as an on-camera prop to whip other freshmen in line.  Her district has been redrawn in a way that makes it dramatically more conservative, yet Ellmers has not moved rightward.  Quite the contrary, she is publicly announcing that she will vote against the marriage amendment – but only because of the civil union issue, of course.

Now she has the unbridled temerity to air the following TV ad to her conservative constituents:

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We are constantly hearing the DC chattering class bemoan the toxic partisanship that is endemic of congressional politics.  These supercilious wizards of smart contend that if we just had a little more bipartisanship in Washington, all of our public policy troubles would dissipate in short order.

The reality cannot be more antithetical to this ubiquitous line of thought from the media.  We suffer from a dearth of partisanship, not from too much partisanship.  It is precisely this bipartisanship that exemplifies the consummate problem in Washington.  It was both parties working together that bequeathed us this $15.6 trillion debt.  It was both parties trying to pander to special interests that has left us with a $63 trillion unfunded liability for just two programs, and more than half of Americans dependent on government.  Yes, we need more partisanship in Washington.

It’s amusing to watch the media applaud the recent bipartisan string of legislation in the Senate.  Here is a revealing paragraph from Roll Call:

Don’t call it a comeback, or even a detente, but a strange thing is happening in the Senate: Democrats and Republicans are working together to pass legislation.

While President Barack Obama has railed on the trail against a “do-nothing” Congress and House Republicans have struggled to unite around major legislation, the Senate has recently passed sweeping bills on a bipartisan basis. From a two-year transportation bill to U.S. Postal Service reform to the Violence Against Women Act, the Senate has flipped convention on its head by becoming the chamber that works.

And it’s not going without notice.

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Undoubtedly, as we pursue a limited government agenda, we face an arduous task in reducing personal dependency on government.  Democrats have successfully created a scheme where almost half the population pays no income taxes, while 40% receive something from the government.  Their relentless demagoguery makes it difficult to wean people off welfare and entitlement programs.  However, there is a lower hanging fruit in the statist garden that we can attack with a higher degree of success; crony capitalism and corporate welfare.

Headed into this election, we have a golden opportunity to draw a sharp contrast with Obama on the issue of government involvement on behalf of corporations, otherwise known as crony capitalism.  While we have a long way to go in educating people about the vices of personal entitlement programs, we have already won the political battle against corporate entitlements.  So why won’t Republicans pocket the victory and oppose all corporate welfare?

Unfortunately, a number of House Republicans sent a letter to Boehner and Cantor asking them to precede with reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank – the poster child for corporate welfare, fraud, and corruption.  This, from CQ:

On Thursday, 30 Republicans wrote to Cantor and House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, urging them to “give serious consideration to a multi-year authorization over one for a shorter period of time.” The lawmakers said a multi-year deal would provide more certainty to businesses, and allow them to enter into longer-term contracts.

Among those signing the letter were tea party-backed members Cynthia M. Lummis of Wyoming, Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, Bobby Schilling of Illinois and Nan Hayworth of New York.

Tea Party members?  I don’t think so.  The Tea Party was born out of opposition to this sort of corporate welfare.  And arguing that we need to mimic the policies of socialist countries in order to remain competitive is not a Tea Party message.

Congress is in recess this week and will reconvene Monday, May 7.  That will leave just 3 weeks until the May 31 expiration date of the Ex-Im Bank.  With so many Republicans supporting it in both houses, we clearly have our work cut out for us this May.

Below the fold is a list of members who signed the letter.  Of course, there is no mention of Boeing in their letter, even though it is the primary recipient of the below-market loans.  As you will notice, most of them hail from solid Republican districts:

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I’m at a loss for words; I’m really not sure what to think of this.

What word would you use to describe someone from party A asking members of party B to vote down a member of party A for supporting a fundamental view of party A?

Politico’s Maggie Haberman is reporting that the leadership-affiliated Young Guns Network has sent out mailers asking Democrats to vote for Dick Lugar (not exactly a young gun) in the Indiana Republican primary against Richard Mourdock on May 8.  But that’s not all.  They are stirring up Democrats by referring to Mourdock as extreme.  In what way is he extreme?  He wants to eliminate the Department of Education!

Do you want to know what is really extreme?  The creation of the Department of Education, after surviving almost 200 years without it.  Since the DOE was created, the cost of college tuition has increased over 439% adjusted for inflation!  The rate of increase is almost exactly commensurate with the rate of growth of DOE subsidization.  As you can see from this chart, the government-induced housing bubble pales in comparison to the government-induced Big Education bubble.

US News and World Report

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This has been a tough week for conservatives in Washington.  Republicans in both houses are caving on the postal bailout, highway bill, appropriations, Ex-Im Bank, Violence Against Women Act, and the student loan bailout.  It’s not going to get easier when they come back from recess in May.  This is why we need game-changers like Scott Keadle in Congress.  Keadle is running in NC-8, the seat currently held by born-again blue dog Larry Kissell.

As I search out conservative candidates throughout the country on behalf of the Madison Project PAC, I’m struck by how few candidates truly grasp the problems at hand within the Republican conference.  Sure – they all talk about repealing Obamacare, a balanced budget, and out-of- control spending.  But it is some of the aforementioned issues that separate the real supporters of free-markets from those who merely offer a pale-pastel contrast from the Democrats.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Scott Keadle, and have come to realize that he is one of the biggest super stars of this election cycle.  This is a guy who will get it right on every issue.  And he truly understands the problems inherent with our current leadership.  Perforce, it comes as no surprise that Eric Cantor and his “Young Guns” are taking their show on the road to NC-8.  This, from Hotline:

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Every elected Republican came to Washington promising to slash spending and balance the budget.  Yet, when it comes time for the most direct way to enact those spending cuts; namely, the annual appropriations bills, most of them are missing in action.

In an ideal world, Republicans should hold the upper hand in negotiations over spending bills. They enjoy complete control over the House, while Harry Reid only has a tenuous hold on the Senate at just 53 seats.  Unfortunately, as we chronicled extensively here at Red State, House and Senate GOP leaders agreed to jettison the Ryan budget halfway through the process in favor of Harry Reid’s minibus and omnibus bills, which vitiated every worthy goal of that budget.

There were two consequences of that betrayal.  First, House Republicans were denied the opportunity to vote on all 12 appropriations bills individually.  Second, because the bills were shunted off to conference straight from the Senate, House conservatives were denied an open floor process to offer conservative amendments cutting more spending or eliminating harmful and wasteful programs.  It is these bills that offer us the opportunity to truly cut spending, at least on the discretionary side, yet that opportunity was completed surrendered to Harry Reid.  The net effect was that not a single penny of discretionary spending was cut from the previous year’s budget and not a single program was eliminated.

As we noted earlier this week, Republicans are on track for more of the same this year.  Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans already disregarded the House budget in favor of Obama’s spending levels, while statist House appropriators are signaling they wish to do the same.  In order to preempt a repeat of last year’s insanity, Tom McClintock has drafted a letter to House leadership requesting adherence to their promise of an open amendment process on all 12 bills individually:

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There is an interesting factoid that was overlooked from last night’s largely pro-forma presidential primaries.  According to University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier, Romney was the first GOP frontrunner who failed to reach 60% in contests “conducted after his last major challenger dropped out of the race.”  Romney won just 56% of the vote in Delaware and 58% in Pennsylvania.

Over the past few months, we’ve been implored by the GOP establishment to coalesce around Romney in the all important battle to defeat Obama.  Undoubtedly, despite my serious concerns about the presumptive nominee, I plan to fully support Mitt Romney in the race for the White House.  The alternative is just too perilous. I suspect that there are millions of Republicans who feel the same way.  However, we must remember that ultimately it’s not conservatives who must coalesce around Romney; it’s Romney who must coalesce around conservatives.

During the Bush years Republicans in Congress (and many outside of Congress) abrogated their conservative principles to conform to the policies of the Republican president.  We must not make the same mistake this time around.  Again, it is vital that we replace Obama with Mitt Romney, but we must not corrupt our cherished principles in order to accommodate him.  Quite the contrary, it is he who must accommodate our principles.  After all, he is running as the Republican nominee.

It is in this vein that I call attention to this article from Alexander Bolton at the Hill about Republicans caving on the issues of Violence Against Women Act  (VAWA) and student loans:

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Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution (the Guarantee Clause) directs the federal government to guarantee the states protection from invasion.  Yet, in the case of Arizona, which has been disproportionately effected by the invasion of illegal aliens and drug cartels, the Obama administration has guaranteed them nothing but lawsuits.

In April 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, a bill designed to curb illegal immigration, into law.  Among other things, this law (section 2) requires police officers who were already apprehending suspects for other crimes to check with federal authorities whether that individual is in the country legally.  That inquiry can be made only if there is a reasonable suspicion that the suspect is an illegal alien.

Instead of working in concert with Arizona to protect its citizens from border-related violence, as prescribed by numerous laws of Congress, the Obama administration filed a lawsuit against Arizona in federal court.  Most egregiously, that lawsuit was first announced by Hillary Clinton while she was overseas.  The administration basically argued that states are preempted from enforcing immigration laws, and because the Obama administration has decided not to enforce those laws, Arizona was supplanting federal authority.  The Obama Justice Department has also filed lawsuits against several other states that have passed similar legislation last year.

On July 28, 2010, federal district judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction on most of the key components of the law.  That injunction was upheld by the Ninth Circus court last April.  Despite the fact that most of the law has been enjoined for almost two years, the illegal population in Arizona has dropped precipitously.  The law has served as a paradigm for ‘attrition even before enforcement,’ let alone through enforcement.

On Wednesday, Arizona will finally get its day in the Supreme Court, as the highest court in the land hears oral arguments in Arizona v. United States.

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As we’ve noted in recent weeks, there is an effort to bail out the Postal Service with phony accounting measures.  Democrats are currently voting on amendments to  a bailout bill (S. 1789) that leaves taxpayers on the hook, without reforming the USPS with structural changes that the Postmaster General himself supports.

This bill will offer a backhanded channel to grant the USPS $41 billion from the Treasury.  This is accomplished in two ways.  First, the bill would rebate $11.1 billion in “overpayments” to the Treasury.  The problem is that these are not overpayments. Last year, the GAO ruled that the Postal Service was wrong in their assertion that they overpaid for employee retirement benefits. After all, like anyone who pays a fixed amount into a pension fund with a variable rate of interest, there are ups and downs depending on the market. As such, any money recouped from the Treasury would engender more taxpayer funding.

Second, this bill would re-amortize the entire prefunded payment structure, denying the Treasury of nearly $30 billion. Supporters of the bill refer to it as an intra-governmental transfer. In reality, it is a backhanded bailout.
Even the Postmaster General, Patrick Donahoe, wants to reform the Post Office and cut $22 billion in costs by closing offices and ending Saturday delivery.  This bill precludes those reforms and ensures that the USPS will remain insolvent, exposing taxpayers to future bailouts.

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Last April, House Republicans released the Ryan budget for FY 2012 with much fanfare and promise.  The budget resolution was approved almost unanimously among the members of the conference, and they spent the subsequent spring months working on individual appropriations bills that reflected the goals and the spending levels established in that budget blueprint.

Later that year, Republicans summarily jettisoned the Ryan budget for the debt ceiling deal, the minibus, and the megabus.  Ultimately, they wound up spending more than the previous year on the discretionary side, and failed to enact any of the transformational change on entitlements and welfare as prescribed in the Ryan budget.  They also agreed to fund Obamacare and every other program that was defunded in the Ryan budget.

Fast forward to April 2012, and we are experiencing deja vu with the FY 2013 Ryan budget, albeit at a quicker pace.  Ryan introduced a watered-down version of last year’s budget, both in terms of entitlement reform and discretionary spending.  On the discretionary side, he set the topline spending at $1.028 trillion, just $15 billion below last year’s level, but $95 billion above the pre-Obama levels.  Yet, this is too harsh for the Republican establishment because it is $19 billion below the level set by the debt ceiling deal – a bill they should be ashamed of supporting in the first place.  Now it turns out that the entire budget was a joke.  This, from Roll Call:

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One of the oldest legislative schemes of the left is to hide terrible statist laws behind mellifluous sounding names.  There is no better example of this outrage than the Orwellian Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994, which is up for reauthorization before the Senate.  Democrats want to expand the role of this already ill-conceived bill in a way that will subvert our judicial system and shred the Bill of Rights.  Their tactic is working, as most Republicans will blithely let it pass the Senate – and possibly even the House.  After all, who would want to go on record as supporting violence against women?

Under our criminal justice system, states and local governments are vested with the police power to deal with crimes committed against its residents.  Those powers are just as robust, whether the crime has been committed against a man, a woman, and everything in between (except for the unborn, thanks to Roe v. Wade).  In 1994, the Clinton Administration waded into the criminal justice system by imposing a federal prosecutorial and investigative regime to combat domestic violence.  This new layer of government, housed in the Department of Justice, focused on redistributing judicial power to female victims and undermining equal protection, due process and the presumption of innocence for men – all to satisfy the cult of group victimhood.  Moreover, the billions spent on sundry social programs have shown no success in reducing incidents of domestic violence, while precluding state and local governments from dealing with the problem as reflected by the reality in their areas of jurisdiction.

Now, in an attempt to reauthorize VAWA for the third time, Harry Reid is bringing S. 1925 to the floor later this afternoon.  Like every social engineering statist law of the left, this one includes massive mission creep from the original intent.  Here are some new previsions in S. 1925:

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There’s got to be some way to create a legislative scorecard on committee votes.

Last month, House Republicans almost unanimously passed the “Ryan” budget resolution for FY 2013.  It established the topline discretionary spending level at $1.028 trillion, just $15 billion below last year’s levels and $19 billion below the cap set in the Budget [Out of] Control Act.  To put that in perspective, the discretionary spending level was as low as $933 billion in 2008 – pre-Obama.  We’re not exactly going back to the last century here.

Yet, even these modest cuts were too much for Obama.  Earlier this week, he threatened to veto any appropriations bill that reflects the spending figures in the Ryan budget as opposed to those working with the $1.047 cap of the BCA.  We would all expect Mitch McConnell to side with the House Republicans and the impregnable Ryan budget over Obama and Reid, right?

Wrong!

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up an overall spending bill that sets the discretionary caps pursuant to the BCA – just like Obama demanded.  The vote? 27-2!  This from, CQ:

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Recently, some of my friends have expressed shock and dismay over the Chamber of Commerce’s endorsements of big-government establishment Republicans like Dick Lugar and Jon Bruning.  After all, they suggest, isn’t the Chamber a bastion of free-market, pro-growth policies?

The answer is really simple.  It is no enigma.  The Chamber of Commerce is not conservative, pro-free-market, or even necessarily pro-growth.  They support the special interests of big business.  Period.  When those interests intersect or overlap with free-market, pro-growth policies, such as advocacy for tax cuts and lower regulations, they will side with conservatives.  But when those interests require the stewardship of big government intervention, they will side with the forces of statism.  Hence, they are not paragons of free-market commerce; they support government-run commerce, albeit with tendentious policies towards their interests.

Chamber of Commerce Republicans are the embodiment of “big-government conservatism.”  They support lower taxes and regulations, but have no desire to limit the size of government.  In fact, a powerful and officious federal government is part and parcel of their special interest agenda.  When they desire to tilt the playing field towards their special interest, big-government is their friend and the free-market is their enemy.

It is for this reason that the Chamber joined with the AFL-CIO in supporting a massive expansion of federal transportation spending.  Instead of allowing each state to pay for its own infrastructure needs, the Chamber wants unlimited federal funds flowing to contracts with their clients.  In fact, they were even willing to go against their tendency to oppose tax increases, by calling on Congress to raise the federal gasoline tax to do so.

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It’s time we invoke a new rule when discussing the federal budget:  don’t focus on spending cuts; focus on limiting the size of government.  All too often we get caught up in dollar figures of various government programs and agencies, instead of focusing on their imperative to exist in the first place.

The first step in approaching a spending bill is to determine if the given venture is constitutionally sound.  If the answer is no, there’s nothing more to debate.  The second step is to determine if that venture, which is constitutionally sound, is helpful or harmful.  Needless to say, if it is harmful to the public then it should be scuttled.  Finally, once the constitutional rationale and the imperative for the venture are established, we can discuss the funding level of that venture.

The case in point is the Energy-Water appropriations bill, which funds the Department of Energy and parts of the Department of Interior.  There is no reason for the DOE to exist.  Period.  The nuclear program could easily be transferred to another part of the federal government, while we eliminate all of the wasteful programs that have not only failed to increase our energy supply, but encumbered its growth over the past few decades.  Now that Republicans have focused so much attention on merely trimming the DOE budget, it turns out that they failed to cut anything!

CQ reports that the Energy-Water bill passed out of the Energy-Water Appropriations subcommittee yesterday by voice vote actually appropriates $32.1 billion, an $88 million increase above fiscal 2012 levels.  But here is the most egregious part of the bill:

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