Justice Thomas: Supreme Court Must Stop Adding Rights to the Constitution

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The U.S. Supreme Court must cease granting so-called rights demanded by some in the 21st Century that are not found in the Constitution, Justice Clarence Thomas said Thursday night.

Speaking to the Federalist Society at a dinner honoring the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Thomas referenced the Supreme Court’s decision last year to legalize same-sex marriage as an example.

“Today it is the view of many that the Supreme Court is the giver of liberties—what an odd conception of governance that We the People are dependent on the third branch of government to grant us our freedom,” Thomas said.

“With such unchecked judicial power, the court day-by-day, case-by-case, is busy designing the Constitution—as Justice Scalia once quipped—instead of interpreting it,” he added.

Thomas said this practice leads to judges adding to the Constitution.

“With such unchecked judicial power, we leave it for the least accountable branch to decide what newly discovered rights should be appended to our Constitution,” Thomas said.

Thomas argued that conservative judges and legal minds must work to make government once again conform to the what the authors of the Constitution intended.

“Whether we in this room tonight ultimately win or lose the effort to reclaim the forms of government that the Framers intended, it is our duty to stand firm in the defense of the Constitutional principles and structure that secure our liberty,” Thomas said.

“Like Justice Scalia, we must do what the Constitution obliges us to do. It is now for us, the living, to be dedicated to the unfinished business for which Justice Scalia gave his last full measure of devotion,” Thomas said, paraphrasing the words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Federalist Society President Eugene Meyer noted that last week’s election has changed the world as conservative legal scholars know it.

“On November 8, Hurricane Trump hit. The future can be difficult to predict,” he said.

Leonard Leo, the society’s executive vice president, met with Trump this week to discuss the transition and potential Supreme Court picks. He told the group that change means opportunity.

“Any time there’s a major shift in the power of government, it’s an enormous opportunity for what is probably the collection of the smartest, most talented and most publicly minded lawyers in the country to roll up their sleeves and help advance the cause of constitutional government,” he said. (For more from the author of “Justice Thomas: Supreme Court Must Stop Adding Rights to the Constitution” please click HERE)

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Possible Breakthrough in Mysterious Murder of DNC Staffer

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A spokesman for the family of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer mysteriously murdered this summer, said there may be a breakthrough in the case.

Jack Burkman, appearing Tuesday on The Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV, reported that some additional private surveillance footage, pertinent to the murder, may have surfaced.

“Some of the surveillance footage has legs. We know there’s two people, we strongly suggest there’s two people instead of one,” Burkman said.

Then he provided the newest details in the case.

“Now interesting Steve we can break some news here. We just learned that there may be additional private video,” Burkman said. “We believe we have located additional private video that could be useful.”

According to Burkman, the video came to light thanks to Rich’s parents canvassing his old neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. with fliers offering a $125,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the case. Previously, DC police were offering a $25,000 reward, and Burkman put up an additional $100,000.

Rich, 27, was shot twice in the back in the early morning hours of July 10, just a short distance from his apartment.

DC police have not been able to ascertain a motive or any suspects.

Rich’s father, Joel, told Omaha, Neb., CBS affiliate KMTV shortly after his son’s murder, “If it was a robbery, it failed because he still has his watch, he still has his money, he still has his credit cards, still had his phone. So it was a wasted effort except we lost a life.”

Less than two weeks after Rich’s murder, Wikileaks released emails revealing collusion between the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign, as well as its efforts to undermine the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders. (For more from the author of “Possible Breakthrough in Mysterious Murder of DNC Staffer” please click HERE)

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Federal Judge Blocks Implementation of Controversial Overtime Rule

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A federal judge blocked implementation of a controversial rule addressing overtime pay from taking effect next week, a rule that had businesses, nonprofits, and higher education institutions bracing for the impacts of the measure.

The Department of Labor’s rule was supposed to take effect Dec. 1, and under the new measure, any employee making up to $47,476 each year would’ve been eligible for overtime pay.

The Obama administration finalized the rule in May, and the federal government’s announcement sent many companies and nonprofits scrambling to figure out how to comply with the law while also protecting both their businesses and employees.

“The more I learned, the more shocked I became that a rule like this would pass with so little input from those who were going to be impacted by it,” Albert Macre, a small business owner in Steubenville, Ohio, told The Daily Signal. “It’s the law of unintended consequences.”

In anticipation of Dec. 1, some businesses decided to reclassify workers who were previously salaried to hourly, while others gave raises to employees who were close to the $47,476 threshold, exempting them from the new rule.

Macre himself runs several small businesses, and the new overtime rule will impact one, Payroll+ Services, which opened in 1995 and offers payroll processing services.

“I thought it was a typo,” Macre said of the new rule. “I know that there are some pretty bold unilateral moves that have occurred in the executive branch in the last few years, but that just seemed like a big one—a complete doubling of the threshold and the number of people involved.”

Macre’s business fluctuates throughout the year, so his employees typically work less than 40 hours a week for approximately eight months out of the year, but work overtime during the remaining four months of the year when they become busier.

Three of Macre’s employees at Payroll+ Services qualified for overtime under the Department of Labor’s new rule. To make sure that his workers’ pay remained consistent throughout the year, Macre decided to implement a system of salary advances that will be recovered during the overtime months.

Macre toyed with the idea of changing his employees from salaried to hourly, but he ultimately decided it would’ve hurt his workers.

Compared to other new policies like Obamacare, Macre believes the overtime rule was to be ushered in too quickly.

“Here’s one they just jammed down our throats and thought we were just going to be able to work miracles and find this money magically,” he said. “Any time you do too much too soon it’s crazy.”

And the new rule wasn’t going to only impact Macre’s employees’ pay, but also the benefits they receive.

Macre’s business previously covered all of its employee’s health care costs. But now, he’s asking his workers to pay for a portion of their health insurance.

“Essentially what we’re going to give with one hand in terms of additional compensation will be taken away by having the employees be responsible for some of their own benefits,” he said.

Macre, a member of the National Federation of Independent Business, testified on behalf of the organization before the House Committee on Small Business in June.

He’s hopeful that under a new president the rule will either be rolled back or policymakers will come to a “new amicable solution.”

‘Devastating Impacts’

The Department of Labor first announced its proposed rule regarding overtime pay in July 2015, which revised the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime regulations.

The current salary threshold for overtime pay is $23,660, and that salary level was last updated in 2004.

Under the Obama administration’s originally proposed rule, the threshold for overtime pay would’ve risen to $50,440—more than double the salary ceiling set more than 10 years ago. But the rule was revised and the salary was lowered to $47,476.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, 3.9 million additional workers would’ve become eligible for overtime under the new rule. Of those, 900,000 “occasionally or regularly” work overtime and would’ve earned more or worked less because of the proposal, the agency found.

In response to the proposal, nonprofits, colleges, small and large business owners, and workers submitted close to 300,000 comments to the Department of Labor.

The proposal found organizations like Habitat for Humanity on the same side as large companies like Wal-Mart, which decided to raise minimum salaries for its entry-level managers from $45,000 to $48,500.

While businesses and nonprofits had been bracing for the impact of the overtime rule, congressional Republicans attempted to provide companies with relief.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., introduced legislation in September that would further delay implementation of the overtime rule to June 1.

The bill stalled in the Senate, but a companion bill introduced by Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., passed the House, 246-177, in September.

“This federal overtime rule is devastating for small businesses, colleges, and nonprofits all across America, but particularly in states with a low cost of living,” Lankford said in a statement to The Daily Signal.

“The economic realities and regional cost-of-living differences that exist throughout the country were completely ignored in favor of yet another one-size-fits-all approach taken by the Obama Department of Labor,” he continued.

A second bill introduced in the Senate and House would’ve stretched out implementation of the salary increase over five years.

Making Adjustments

Though the new overtime rule was set to take effect in just over a week, those opposed to the rule closely watched the courts for further guidance on what will happen with the regulation.

In September, 21 states, the majority led by Republican governors, filed a lawsuit against the federal government in an attempt to block the rule. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups filed a second lawsuit the same day.

In their lawsuit, the states argued the new rule violates the 10th Amendment and stressed that under the proposal, state budgets will be damaged and services and programs cut.

“Enforcing [Fair Labor Standards Act] and the new overtime rule against the states infringes upon state sovereignty and federalism by dictating the wages that states must pay to those whom they employ in order to carry out their governmental functions, what hours those persons will work, and what compensation will be provided where these employees may be called upon to work overtime,” the lawsuit states.

A federal judge issued an emergency injunction against the rule Tuesday, blocking it from taking effect.

In addition to action from the courts, the Trump administration could also roll back the overtime rule.

Trump often spoke on the campaign trail about repealing many regulations implemented by President Barack Obama.

Already the president-elect and congressional Republicans are looking to eliminate more than 140 regulations after Trump takes office on Jan. 20, and the president-elect said in August he would roll back the overtime rule.

But now that businesses, nonprofits, and colleges have figured out how they’ll comply with the rule, some worry rolling back the proposal won’t be that easy.

“What if it goes three to six months or a year [after implementation] and you’ve already made your changes, your employees have already gotten used to it? You’ve given raises, adjusted salaries, hired part-time workers, and you’ve sort of learned to live with it?” Mike LeFever, president of South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, Inc., told The Daily Signal.

“From a practical point of view, can you just go back to the way things were?” he continued. “You just don’t do that.”

LeFever’s organization represents 20 private colleges and universities in the Palmetto State, and he said he initially expected his member institutions to either switch workers who made significantly less than $47,476 to hourly or give those who made close to $47,476 raises so they’re exempt from receiving overtime pay.

Some of the colleges and universities did end up boosting the pay of those who were close to the new threshold so they would’ve been exempt, LeFever said. But others have decided to hire additional part-time workers to take over some of the responsibilities of their full-time workers to avoid paying those employees overtime.

This approach was taken mainly for those working in student affairs positions, which may require weekend work if there is an event happening on campus.

Initially, LeFever was concerned that the new overtime rule could eventually lead to a rise in tuition rates if payroll went up significantly.

But he said the colleges and universities he works with might instead make cuts elsewhere, such as departmental budgets or in future raises.

“It’s not the best of arrangements,” LeFever said, “but everybody has to make adjustments to comply with the law.” (For more from the author of “Federal Judge Blocks Implementation of Controversial Overtime Rule” please click HERE)

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Mark Levin Exposes Potential DNC Chief’s Ties to Muslim Brotherhood

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Opening the week on the attack, Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin sounded off on the Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (F, 2%)-endorsed frontrunner to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. (F, 28%).

“This guy’s a hater, he is a radical leftist … and he has connections to very dangerous organizations.” Levin said. “And Chuck Schumer supports him!”

Rep. Ellison’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are disturbing. Almost as disturbing as Democratic leadership pushing Ellison to be the public face of the party as DNC chair despite those ties to a terrorist group. And yet still more disturbing is the mainstream media’s complete silence on this subject.

“Let me ask you a question,” Levin said. “Have you heard about this much NBC or ABC or CBS? Or CNN or MSLSD? Has this been headlined everywhere, like it should be?” (For more from the author of “Mark Levin Exposes Potential DNC Chief’s Ties to Muslim Brotherhood” please click HERE)

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Carson Says He Won’t Rule out Cabinet Job If Trump Offers

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If President-elect Donald Trump calls, Ben Carson isn’t ready to rule out accepting a job in Trump’s Cabinet.

Carson, who supported Trump’s candidacy after dropping his own bid for the Republican presidential nomination, had said last week he is not interested in a spot in the new presidential administration.

Media reports that came out before Carson said he would not be part of the Cabinet suggested Carson may be offered the job of Secretary of Education, and had also been frequently mentioned as a potential pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services

On Sunday, Carson appeared on Fox News’s Fox Report Special and offered a different version of his intentions.

“Basically, I’ve said my preference is to be outside and to act as an adviser, but if after going through the process they all conclude it would be much better to have me in the Cabinet, I would have to give that very serious consideration,” Carson said. “It’s just not my preference.”

The retired neurosurgeon said his healthcare expertise gives him a unique perspective.

“… there is no question I have very strong opinions about healthcare and how it should be returned to the private sector, and you — the patients and the physicians — should have a quality experience, not be forced into something,” Cason said.

During his GOP campaign, Carson often spoke about issues related to the needs of urban youth

“I also feel very strongly about education,” Carson said Sunday. “I mean, you educate people, and you give them the keys to freedom. It doesn’t matter where they came from or what their background is, they write their own ticket.”

Carson suggested last week that he would assist Trump without a specific Cabinet role.

“The way I’m leaning is to work from the outside and not from the inside,” Carson told The Washington Post. “I want to have the freedom to work on many issues and not be pigeonholed into one particular area.”

“I’ve said that if it came to a point where he absolutely needs me, I’d reconsider. But I don’t think that’s the situation with these positions,” he added. “My view is that if some people and the media are going to hate him, then he’s going to need allies on the outside to be there, to be there to move the country forward. I don’t care about a position.”

Also last week, Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager, said Carson did not have the management skills needed to run a federal department.

“Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency,” Williams said then.

In a guest column on WND, Williams noted that the issue was not what Carson lacks, but what he has.

“Part of what makes him so unique is his vision for what this country can achieve,” Williams wrote, noting that those who hold Cabinet jobs are managers, not visionaries.

“I have no doubt that Dr. Carson would have met and exceeded any challenge set before him and done a fantastic job,” he added. “However, it’s important to keep in mind that you can hire management, but not vision. It’s a unique attribute that people either possess or not.” (For more from the author of “Carson Says He Won’t Rule out Cabinet Job If Trump Offers” please click HERE)

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Markets Rise to New Records — Expert Says Trump Cabinet Picks Might Send Them ‘Through the Roof’

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Four days before President-elect Donald Trump was elected to the White House, there was one thing most of the economic experts agreed upon: If Trump won, the markets would lose.

Pre-election forecasts included one by Citigroup of a 5 percent drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500. Barclay’s was estimating a 13 percent drop. CMC Markets in Singapore projected the economic dismay would top that of Brexit, which led to a 5.3 percent decline in the S&P index.

As with a lot of other pre-election predictions, they got it wrong.

On Monday, for the first time in over a year, all three of the major American stock indices closed at record highs.

The Dow Jones industrial average went up 88 points, the NASDAQ rose 47 points and the S&P 500 climbed 16 points.

“So far, stock markets are betting that Trump’s fiscal polices, if implemented, would be bullish for stocks that have been waffling up until recently,” wrote Mark DeCambre on MarketWatch.

“The thinking is that a plan to increase infrastructure spending and cut corporate and personal income taxes will boost growth prospects, which is bullish for stocks,” he wrote.

Even the doom-and-gloom forecasters were coming around.

” … [P]resident-elect Trump has already left a significant imprint on financial markets. In contrast to many predictions before the election — including our own — and unlike the aftermath of the Brexit vote in the UK, the surprising outcome has generally lifted risky asset prices as well as nominal interest rates,” said a Goldman Sachs market letter cited by MarketWatch.

It may get even wilder.

“A name-brand Wall Street friendly Treasury secretary on top of tabbing [Mitt] Romney for state would send this market through the roof, that is if there even is a roof,” predicted Jim Cramer of CNBC, noting that the meeting between Trump and one of his fiercest foes in the GOP was a powerful signal that Trump could exceed expectations as president.

Wall Street investment banker Steve Mnuchin, who was a part of Trump’s campaign, and Rep. Jen, Hensarling, R-Texas, are considered two of the top candidates for the Treasury job, according to MarketWatch. (For more from the author of “Markets Rise to New Records — Expert Says Trump Cabinet Picks Might Send Them ‘Through the Roof'” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Pro-Second Amendment Platform Could End Gun Sales Boom

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President-elect Donald Trump is expected to push to relax gun laws when he takes office, but significant changes in the firearms industry began as soon as he was elected – and some put the law of unintended consequences squarely in the cross hairs.

For instance, while Trump’s unapologetic pro-Second Amendment stance may be good for gun owners, it has already dealt a blow to manufacturers, who enjoyed record sales throughout President Obama’s eight years in office. Stocks in companies like Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. plunged on Nov. 9, and experts say it is because Trump’s election erased fears that guns would become harder to get.

“A lot of people were buying guns simply because they were worried Hillary Clinton’s regulations would make it more costly and more difficult to buy guns, and people are not going to feel quite the need to go out and buy guns now,” Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott told FoxNews.com. “I think the stock market is a pretty good predictor of what’s going to happen, and the fact that you see drops in stock prices by almost 20 percentage points –I think that’s pretty significant.”

While the government does not publish an official number of gun sales, background checks, a gauge of how many people try to buy guns, skyrocketed under President Obama. In 2008, 12.71 million background checks were conducted, a number on pace to double this year, to set an all-time record. (Read more from “Trump’s Pro-Second Amendment Platform Could End Gun Sales Boom” HERE)

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Like Obama’s First Term, Most Americans Want Trump to Address These Two Policy Areas

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In many ways, incoming president Donald Trump and outgoing president Barack Obama couldn’t be more different. Trump is brash, while Obama is smooth. Trump’s worldview is more nationalist, while Obama’s is more globalist. Obama is a liberal ideologue, while Trump is a centrist pragmatist. Yet, in other ways, it’s actually kind of startling to see how similar the two men are, and by extension, how similar the country is to where we were eight years ago.

A new poll from Reuters/Ipsos finds that a plurality of voters want President-elect Trump to make health care his top priority when assuming office. In second place was a concern over jobs and the economy. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

In 2008, America had just been rocked by one of the worst financial crises in history. After two terms of George W. Bush, the voters were ready for something different, and due to economic insecurity, they rejected John McCain’s promise of a foreign policy presidency for Obama’s promise of “hope and change,” with an emphasis on health care reform and salvaging the economy from ruin.

It wasn’t at all surprising that change should win out in those troubled times over the decayed establishment. People felt vulnerable and needed new ideas to try to push the country back on the right track. What is surprising is that after eight years of “hope and change,” people still largely feel the same way.

Donald Trump’s election is undeniably a call for change, as many commentators have pointed out. What this shows is that the status quo — the things people thought they wanted in 2008 — have proven utterly unsatisfactory. Back then, there was a sense of great urgency to repair the nation’s broken health care system. And make no mistake, it was broken.

But Obamacare, Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, has been such an abject failure that the same sense of urgency remains undiminished today. Rising premiums, sky-high deductibles, and a malfunctioning market where insurers continue to drop out of the program are making Americans less medically secure than ever, despite the president and his cronies repeatedly assuring us that it’s working great. We know through direct experience that it isn’t.

Similarly, the economy remains in heavy focus. While it’s clear that we are not in the same desperate position we were in 2008, the recovery has been one of the slowest in history. And despite the official jobs numbers coming out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, once again direct, personal experience tells voters that work is hard to come by, and small businesses struggle under a regulatory burden that is undeniably worse than it was before Obama took office. While again, the White House assures us that they “saved or created” millions of jobs through stimulus packages, bailouts, and quantitative easing, the results of all these policies have not inspired confidence in the electorate.

It’s hard to draw any other conclusion than that Trump’s election is serving much the same purpose as Obama’s election did in 2008, although with one important difference. While voters certainly viewed Obama as a condemnation of the Bush administration, Bush had not come into office promising to do the very things that formed the basis for Obama’s campaign. Today, we see that health care and the economy, the two policy issues Obama most aggressively tackled, remain the chief source of voter anxiety.

In other words, Obama didn’t just fail to keep the country happy, he failed at his own stated goals in such a spectacular way, that somehow Donald Trump (I still can’t believe it) is now going to be president. Eight years from now, will we once again be desperate for change? For all our sakes, I hope not. (For more from the author of “Like Obama’s First Term, Most Americans Want Trump to Address These Two Policy Areas” please click HERE)

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Schumer Says GOP Will ‘Rue the Day’ It Repeals Obamacare

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The man who will soon be the country’s most powerful elected Democrat is openly struggling with understanding the impact Obamacare has had on the country and the GOP, for anyone who cares to see it.

Judging by the comments incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (F, 2%) has made over the years, it’s apparent he can’t decide if Republicans were mistaken for opposing Obamacare, or if Democrats were mistaken for passing it.

In 2010, shortly after Obamacare became law, Schumer confidently projected that “[A]s people learn about the bill, and now that the bill is enacted, it’s going to become more and more popular.”

Then, in 2014, after Democrats lost control of the Senate, Schumer said “Democrats lost the opportunity the American people gave them. We took their mandate and put all of our focus on the wrong problem —health care reform.”

Now, Schumer is saying Republicans will “rue the day” they repeal Obamacare. “It’s a political nightmare for them,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press on Friday. “They’ll be like the dog that caught the bus.”

So what is it? Schumer’s arguments can’t be reasoned. If Obamacare was so popular, why did Democrats lose their Senate majority over it? If Obamacare is so unpopular, why would Republicans “rue the day” they repealed it?

None of it is logical or true.

Schumer was, and is, making real-time political arguments that expire almost immediately upon contact with the open air. The argument that Obamacare will become more popular was true to Schumer as long as he felt it would help the Democrats win. When they didn’t win, it wasn’t true anymore.

Similarly, Schumer will pretend his argument that Republicans will “rue the day” they repeal Obamacare is true until Republicans show him through their actions that it’s not.

Which, hopefully, will be very, very soon. (For more from the author of “Schumer Says GOP Will ‘Rue the Day’ It Repeals Obamacare” please click HERE)

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Trump Wants a Short-Term Spending Package. Will Congress Back Him?

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President-elect Donald Trump requested Congress pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government through March, according to reports.

House Republican members are looking to pass a spending bill, or continuing resolution, that would fund the government through March 31.

A continuing resolution funds government programs short term through appropriations legislation.

“I would say the simple solution for a lot of us here is just look at the [continuing resolution],” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told reporters Wednesday at a monthly forum with lawmakers and journalists on Capitol Hill. “Set the [continuing resolution] at the 1040 spending level [$1.040 trillion] … so there’s an opportunity for the new Congress to be seated and the new president to be sworn in and pick it up from there. We know what that path looks like. It’s clean, it’s simple, and it should be doable.”

Senate Republicans have raised concerns over waiting to allocate federal funds for 2017.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has told reporters he would support a spending bill that would fund the government through September. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., favors passing a long-term term spending bill now, CQ Budget Tracker’s David Lerman wrote in a Thursday morning email briefing.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says those who support a short-term spending bill are “idiots” and “will do great damage to the military and our ability to defend the nation.”

“Whatever the House can pass, we’ll pass over here,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said.

In a closed-door meeting Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was reported to have been in favor of a short-term spending bill.

“A long-term spending bill is a needless concession to Democrat priorities,” Rachel Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “It makes absolutely no sense for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to waste time cutting a long-term spending deal with a departing president, when Republicans will have unified control of the government in January.”

The now lame-duck Congress must pass a spending bill to keep the government from shutting down.

The government is currently funded until Dec. 9.

“I don’t think anybody expects that [Trump] balance the budget the day he gets here,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters on Wednesday. “So he’s got to have some runway for that.”

The Hill reported on Thursday:

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., told reporters that Trump was driving factor behind the short-term spending bill—which his committee had largely opposed.

“I would have certainly liked to have finished up our bills,” Rogers told CQ Budget Tracker. “And we were making good progress. But time is running out. And secondly, we thought it important that the new president have input on the spending plans.”

An omnibus spending bill funding the government for longer than a short-term package would be a “mistake,” Heritage’s Bovard wrote in a recent op-ed.

“Furthermore, any long-term bill will limit President-elect Trump’s ability to implement his agenda upon taking office,” Bovard said. “If Republicans are at all strategic, they will pass a short-term bill into early next year, therefore giving themselves and the new president the maximum ability to implement GOP priorities.”

Vice President-elect Mike Pence met with House Republicans Thursday morning on Capitol Hill.

“We’re going to be working with the administration to make America strong, more prosperous, and to do the things that frankly President [Barack] Obama hasn’t been able to do in the last eight years and we’re pretty excited,” Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, told reporters Wednesday.

Ryan met with Pence Thursday, both desiring to work “hand-in-glove over the next two months.” (For more from the author of “Trump Wants a Short-Term Spending Package. Will Congress Back Him?” please click HERE)

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