Obama’s Effort to Force Women into Combat, Allow Transgender Troops Results in $135 Billion Cover-Up, Deaths

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Just as the newly-elected Trump administration is preparing to take office, America gets a surprise reveal from The Washington Post that President Obama’s Pentagon deliberately suppressed a 2015 report revealing $125 billion in wasteful spending could be saved over five years. Secretary of Defense (not for long, thank God!) Ashton Carter, his deputy Robert Work and other underlings squashed the report and its findings, placing secrecy restrictions on it and removing it from public view. They were busy with more important things like getting women into combat units and people with gender identity confusion to serve openly. Exposed just three days after the $619 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 was passed, it reeks of a cover-up.

The Post reports:

Pentagon officials knew their back-office bureaucracy was overstaffed and overfunded. But nobody had ever gathered and analyzed such a comprehensive set of data before…Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management. The data showed that the Defense Department was paying a staggering number of people — 1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel — to fill back-office jobs far from the front lines.

Despite the recommendations to address the waste, namely through attrition and redirection of the funds to weapons repair and development and the troops themselves, officials used the scare tactic that revealing it would result in budget cuts. They used this excuse to hide it.

As I’ve previously reported, our military aircraft are at a mere 30 percent readiness, with the Marines even cannibalizing museum pieces to get some aircraft working. Our carrier fleet is in a similar state of disrepair and decline. The Heritage Foundation’s 2016 Index of U. S. Military Strength notes, with emphasis added:

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), testified in his March 2015 posture statement, the Navy was “compelled to further reduce the capacity of weapons and aircraft, slow modernization, and delay upgrades to all but the most critical shore infrastructure” due to continued budget shortfalls of $11 billion.

The Obama administration has slashed military personnel — 20,000 Marines in 2012, 20,000 from the Army in 2015 and another 30,000 this year — as well as military pay and pensions. While drawing down, however, they’ve prioritized spending for more recruiters to go after women for combat jobs because they want to see an increase in female representation in the ranks. Also on their priority list are mobile “unconscious bias” training units to disabuse grunts of believing in the physiological differences between men and women that are reconfirmed every time they test against men’s standards. And then there’s the “Transgender 101” training, sex change operations and safe spaces now being provided at taxpayer expense.

Reduced flight training due to budget cuts imposed on the services has resulted in several fatal crashes, including one last January that killed 12 Marines. The waste revelation is more than just a disgrace. Marines have died directly due to a lack of funding for the training they need, but Obama’s Pentagon wouldn’t deign to divulge the waste, let alone slash office jobs held by civil servants. The stink of Washington elitism is repugnant. Far from the fray, detached from the consequences of their actions, they’re willing to put men and women in harm’s way without the things they need to succeed and to survive.

The government’s first and most basic responsibility is to protect citizens against enemies foreign and domestic. Yet the hard-earned dollars of those same citizens are being squandered in the worst way. More importantly, the lives of those actually defending the country are not only being put in greater peril but are being squandered just to fund more overpriced contractors and civilian desk jockies. Ashton Carter couldn’t care less.

Luckily for us, far better leadership is soon to take over in the form of retired Marine General James Mattis, a man who cares deeply for America’s defenders. His oversight of the Pentagon can’t come soon enough. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Effort to Force Women into Combat, Allow Transgender Troops Results in $135 Billion Cover-Up, Deaths” please click HERE)

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Team Clinton Can’t Stop Whining, and It’s Getting Embarrassing

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When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, you didn’t see Republicans whining. Quite the contrary: They got to work and launched the Tea Party wave. Unsurprisingly, after spending the year insulated in their Brooklyn safe space, the Clinton team has perfected the art of whining since voters rebuked them in early November. They are blaming everyone and everything but themselves and their horrible candidate for their loss. It’s really starting to get embarrassing.

While it is hard to select just one whine as the whiniest, there seems to be a winner.

Drumroll, please …

And the award for whiniest Clinton team whine goes to … Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for Clinton’s campaign. You know the person most responsible — after Clinton herself — for the tone-deafness of the campaign.

Palmieri got into a verbal altercation with Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway last week at Harvard University. The disdain was palpable.

Palmieri started the fireworks by stating that she was “more proud of Hillary Clinton’s alt-‘Right’ speech than any other moment of the campaign.” This statement elicited an audible, “Wow” from Conway. It got more heated from there when Conway asked Palmieri to explain, “How exactly did we win?” after Palmieri said she would “rather lose” than “win the way you did.”

Conway got the better of the altercation.

Now Palmieri is taking another shot at Conway this time in a Washington Post op-ed. She pats herself on the back, with both hands, for “standing up” to Conway. Then goes off on a diatribe about how Clinton really won, and basically the Trump administration has no mandate.

But it’s also important for the winners of this campaign to think long and hard about the voters who rejected them. I haven’t seen much evidence of such introspection from the Trump side. That’s concerning.

She then says that Trump’s words hurt people. It is basically a rehash of their entire campaign. That Trump’s a mean bully who won’t be the president, even if he got elected. Because as Palmieri likes “to note, Clinton received more votes for president than any white man in U.S. history.”

You can just feel the condescension with those words. Of course, they are meaningless because Trump actually won where it mattered. As far as a mandate goes, Trump has a pretty strong one. Conway explained to Chuck Todd after the encounter about the mandate:

People open up their mailboxes and fire up their computers and see these premium increases. But, you know, the idea that he doesn’t have a mandate, when on President Obama’s watch they now lost the White House, 60 seats in the House, over a dozen Senate seats, over a dozen governorships, and over 1,000 state legislative seats, this Democratic party is having an identity crisis in a circular firing squad, and what I heard at Harvard is the same thing I hear all the time, “It’s Jim Comey’s fault, it’s Bernie Sanders’ fault.”

There is most definitely a Republican-governing mandate. When folks like Palmieri claim there is none, they are trying to delegitimize a Trump presidency like they did to George W. Bush. Trump and his team seem willing to fight back hard against that.

Almost daily you hear another Democrat, or media analyst, talking about how Trump’s picks for his administration are going to destroy the country — or most laughably the environment. Take for example Dan Pfeiffer, a former member of the Obama administration.

That’s right. Up until the end, global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism.

These folks wonder why Trump can’t be gracious and consensus building like — make sure you have no fluids in your mouth for this — Barack Obama. (If you did a spit take, I warned you.) That’s right. They still can’t see that to many everyday Americans, Obama was worse and more divisive than their wildest fantasies about Donald Trump.

So maybe they should just take what Obama said after the 2008 election to heart. I’ve slightly edited it for them, “Elections have consequences and …” Donald Trump “… won.” (For more from the author of “Team Clinton Can’t Stop Whining, and It’s Getting Embarrassing” please click HERE)

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Donald Trump Is Appointing (Gasp!) Conservatives to Serve in His Administration

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The perplexity, outrage, and shock of the left over the election of Donald Trump has been hilarious for those of us watching the liberal commentariat and its (sometimes unwitting) journalistic allies.

In recent days, the geyser of leftist anger has been given new life by the President-elect’s appointment of conservatives to prominent positions in his nascent administration. One headline after another seems to herald amazement that a man who promised conservative governance would appoint conservatives to leadership posts as he assembles his Cabinet. Incredible, right?

Mainstream Media Horrified at Trump’s Appointment of a Pro-Life Health Secretary

Tom Price is a physician who has served in Congress for more than a decade. A solid advocate for the unborn and opponent of the predatory abortion industry, Price is esteemed by his colleagues for his good judgment and sharp mind. Currently serving as chairman of the House Budget Committee, his “Empowering Patients First Act” is a comprehensive alternative to the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

Yet Price’s appointment to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services has been greeted with crass vitriol by liberals accustomed to using HHS as their political tool of choice to advance abortion on demand, whether surgical or contraceptive, in every facet of the American health care system. Here are some samples of Rep. Price’s reception by the Left:

“With Extremist Tom Price at Helm, the ‘War on Women Has Reached HHS’” – Reddit.com

“Tom Price, A Radical Choice for Health Secretary” – New York Times editorial board

“Women’s Health Care Threatened by Trump HHS Choice, Tom Price” – Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC

“Trump Pledged to Protect Medicare. His Choice for Health Secretary Has Other Ideas” – Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump promised to be a strongly pro-life President. He has appointed a man to lead the Department of Health and Human Services who is strongly pro-life; in fact, Price, has a 100 percent lifetime legislative score from the National Right to Life organization.

Donald Trump wants to block-grant Medicare to the states. “The state governments know their people best and can manage the administration of Medicaid far better without federal overhead,” explains his campaign website. “States will have the incentives to seek out and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources.”

This idea is fiscally sound and commensurate with the principles of federalism. And it is neither new or radical. Tom Price has long supported block-granting Medicare. Yet now he is “outside the mainstream” (says Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer) and a “radical.”

Getting Personal

The attacks against some of Mr. Trump’s appointments are also personal. Senate Judiciary chairman and 20-year Senate veteran Jeff Sessions has been tapped by the President-elect to head the Justice Department. Sessions, a man who for decades has served the people of his home state without a whisper of personal scandal or political defamation, is now being accused of hidden racism because of off-hand comments he made 35 years ago.

I do not defend any racial bigotry on the part of Senator Sessions or anyone else, for that matter. However, to say that the “Specter of Race Shadows Jeff Sessions” (New York Times headline) is ludicrous. His record speaks to his belief that “all men are created equal.” “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People … has, without question, done more probably than any other organization to promote racial progress in the South,” he said in his 1986 Senate hearing concerning President Reagan’s nomination of him to be a federal judge and, during the same hearing, strongly condemned the Ku Klux Klan.

Should a remarkably well-qualified, dignified, and decent man be denied a post in which his leadership and probity could do so much good because of remarks he made in 1981? And could it not be that the real concern of determined liberals is not those long-ago comments but the fact that Sessions is a principled conservative who will bring strength, resolve, and courage to the task of de-politicizing a Justice Department that for eight years has been a forum of the extreme progressive agenda?

Here’s what Senator Quinton Ross, the African-American leader of the Democratic minority in the Alabama State Senate, said about Sen. Sessions after the latter was nominated to be Attorney General of the United States: “We’ve spoken about everything from Civil Rights to race relations and we agree that as Christian men our hearts and minds are focused on doing right by all people. We both acknowledge that there are no perfect men, but we continue to work daily to do the right thing for all people.”

Trump Was Elected by the People to Appoint Conservatives

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. He has a constitutional duty to appoint people who will help him enact the agenda he was elected to implement. The Left should not be endlessly breathless over the conservatism of his appointees, nor so vicious in their hatred that they would destroy honorable people at whatever the cost.

They will continue their campaigns of disparagement and personal destruction, of course. But one thing is sure: If the media continue to parrot the excessive attacks of the left and if enraged liberal commentators continue to spew bile at the prospect of conservatives in charge of the executive branch, they will lose even more of the credibility they saw dissipate on the night of November 8, when their smug predictions and confident projections came to naught.

Even they should not be so out-of-touch as to recognize that. (For more from the author of “Donald Trump Is Appointing (Gasp!) Conservatives to Serve in His Administration” please click HERE)

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State of Georgia Finds Evidence That Feds Tried to Hack Official Election Computers

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The state of Georgia on Thursday accused the U.S. Homeland Security Department of apparently trying to hack its election systems.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp said a computer traced back to the federal agency in Washington tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the state office’s firewall one week after the presidential election. The letter speculated that what it described as “a large unblocked scan event” might have been a security test.

It sought details, including whether the agency did in fact conduct the unauthorized scan, who authorized it and whether other states might have been similarly probed. Kemp cited the federal law against knowingly accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, which is a felony. (Read more from “State of Georgia Finds Evidence That Feds Tried to Hack Official Election Computers” HERE)

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Trump Taps Open Borders Zealot to Head Department of Labor

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Amidst all of the political science theories analyzing the secret sauce for Trump’s victory, there is one factor we can say for certainly did not play a role in his victory. Nobody voted for him because they wanted him to be more like Bush on immigration. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Yet, that is exactly the sentiment expressed by Trump’s choice to head the Department of Labor, Andrew Puzder.

Puzder, the big restaurant mogul, is one of the most outspoken advocates for open borders in the business community and embodies everything the grassroots rejected in the elite mindset about immigration. Throughout his career, Puzder has parroted every straw-man, non-sequitur, and downright offensive talking point on immigration that we have heard from the elites all over Washington for years.

Here is a quick sample of Puzder’s ignorant open border talking points, each built upon a multitude of false premises:

Make the Gang of Eight great again

In 2013, Puzder praised the Gang of Eight bill, which was probably the worst piece of legislation introduced this decade after Obamacare. “A bill like the one before Congress could really be a benefit to the U.S. economy and it would be nice to participate in an economy that was constantly growing,” said Puzder at an open borders event in Washington.

Rather than learning the lessons of the rejected amnesty bill, Puzder wrote a patronizing column in the Wall Street Journal two years later, calling on Republicans to “end the drama” on immigration. Yes, as if we are the ones divorced from our history and tradition on immigration, not the Democrats. As the 2016 presidential primary began to heat up, Puzder advised that “every candidate should support a path to legal status — short of citizenship — for illegal immigrants willing to accept responsibility for their actions and take the consequences.”

Of course, it’s all about what to do for foreign nationals, not about putting American security, sovereignty, and fiscal interests first.

Make Bloomberg billionaires great again

That same year, Puzder signed a letter for a Bloomberg billionaire front group pushing Republicans to pass another amnesty bill. He joined a group of business moguls pushing the other candidates to follow in Jeb Bush’s footsteps: “People vote with their hearts… Our values indicate we should be the party of immigration reform,” Puzder said. “[Many undocumented immigrants] live in fear of being deported, losing what they’ve built and being separated from their families.”

Puzder also promoted endless low-skilled and high-skilled visas in the same op-ed: “The American Enterprise Institute found in 2011 that “temporary foreign workers — both skilled and less skilled — boost U.S. employment,” and that immigrants with advanced degrees working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields “boost employment for U.S. citizens.”

Then, in July of this year, after it was clear Trump would not follow in Jeb’s footsteps, Puzder wrote an op-ed together with Stephen Moore, in part, beseeching Trump to change his mind on immigration. They offered the classic false choice argument: “We believe that deporting 11 million people is unworkable, and we hope in the end Mr. Trump comes to this same conclusion. Deportation should be pursued only when an illegal immigrant has committed a felony or become a “public charge.”

Yes, in other words, send the message that anyone who comes here will never be deported. And history has shown that anyone who subscribes to this view will never deport those who are criminals and certainly not those who constitute a public charge either.

What happened to putting Americans first?

Every word of Puzder’s long record of advocacy for open borders stands in contrast to Trump’s intellectually clear immigration speech he delivered in Arizona in late August:

When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following, amnesty, open borders, lower wages. Immigration reform should mean something else entirely. It should mean improvements to our laws and policies to make life better for American citizens.…

The truth is, the central issue is not the needs of the 11 million illegal immigrants… Anyone who tells you that the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time in Washington… There is only one core issue in the immigration debate, and that issue is the well-being of the American people.

I’m hearing some conservatives dismiss these concerns by noting that Puzder is rock-solid on labor regulations and is the right fit for the job of labor secretary. After all, he is not being chosen to head the Justice Department or Homeland Security. The problem with this assessment is that Puzder has been such a high-profile supporter of all of the people and issues driving the open borders lobby. Historically, the labor secretary has wielded an enormous influence on immigration policy because they oversee all of the guest worker programs.

But it’s not just about guest worker visas. Anyone who has followed the immigration issue understands that the entire cabal of open borders lobbyists — which is essentially everyone in power in business, law, politics, lobbying, academia, etc. (“masters of the universe,” as Sen. Sessions, R-Ala. (C, 78%) calls them) — has formed an ideological logrolling gravy train. Every facet of the immigration expansionist community will vouch for each sphere of open borders policy, even if it doesn’t directly affect them. In other words, the agriculture lobby doesn’t care about H1-b visas, but they will support them because they view any restriction as an eventual threat to their turf. Likewise, Silicon Valley doesn’t need a flood of refugees from Somalia, but will fight any efforts to shut down the program.

With this understanding in mind, picture how the entire gravy train will have one of their own in a strategic position relevant to immigration (although not the most important position). Puzder will serve as a countervailing force against any effort to clamp down on refugees, mass migration from the Third World, and the endless scams with visa programs that place big business instead of the people as a whole in charge of our sovereignty and future destiny.

Make no mistake, we don’t need more countervailing forces on immigration. The inertia and political gravity on this issue is one-directional in Washington. Aside from Jeff Sessions, especially after passing over Kris Kobach as DHS secretary, there will be no strong force keeping Trump in line to begin with. He has already gone off message on the issue and has always been wobbly on visas. We certainly don’t need Michael Bloomberg in charge of the Labor Department. Conservatives in the Senate should get some answers from Puzder with regards to immigration before they vote to confirm him.

Immigration (along with Obamacare, of course) is the hill to die on in the Trump presidency. It’s no secret that a lot of free market conservatism will be sidelined during this administration and that conservatives will have to swallow a number of bitter pills. Many conservative Trump supporters have suggested all along that such concessions would be worth it as the price for finally getting immigration right. In that case, we better make sure of it, not simply hope for change. Otherwise, conservatives will be left with an empty bag of promises. (For more from the author of “Trump Taps Open Borders Zealot to Head Department of Labor” please click HERE)

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OOPS: Michigan Recount Appears to Expose Industrial-Scale Democrat Vote Fraud

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Over half of Detroit’s 662 voting precincts may be ineligible for the ongoing Michigan recount, since the number of ballots in precinct poll books do not match those from voting machine printout reports.

More than a third of precincts in Wayne County, Michigan’s largest county and home to Detroit, could be disqualified from the statewide recount because county officials, “couldn’t reconcile vote totals for 610 of 1,680 precincts during a countywide canvass of vote results late last month,” according to the Detroit News.

Wayne County has over 1.7 million residents and voted overwhelmingly for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at 95 percent. Krista Haroutunian, chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, told the Detroit Free Press that the discrepancies could make 610 precincts across the county (including the 392 in Detroit), ineligible for recount. A final decision has not yet been made.

The Michigan Republican Party, President-elect Donald Trump and the state’s Republican attorney general all filed notice that they plan to appeal a U.S. District Court decision to start the recount Monday, arguing the effort should not be decided by the federal courts system. (RELATED: Michigan GOP Files Appeal To Stop Recount)

“This is a Michigan issue, and should be handled by the Michigan court system,” Michigan Republican Party Chairman Ronna Romney McDaniel said in a press release. (Read more from “OOPS: Michigan Recount Appears to Expose Industrial-Scale Democrat Vote Fraud” HERE)

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That Japanese Investment Money Trump Announced Today? Turns out It’s from Saudi Arabia!

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On Tuesday afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump excitedly announced that telecommunications giant SoftBank Group has pledged to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 new jobs.

Of course, Trump made sure to give credit where credit was due.

The deal sounds great on the surface. After all, who could possibly argue with a $50 billion infusion and 50,000 jobs gained in the U.S. economy?

Now, what if you were told that the money was actually coming from the government of Saudi Arabia?

Here’s what Trump left out of his grand announcement:

According to the Wall Street Journal, the majority of the investment will come from a $100 billion investment fund that SoftBank set up in partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by the Saudi royal family, is the fund’s lead partner, the report added. This means that most of the money Mr. Son is going to invest in America is actually coming straight from Riyadh, and not through his Japan-based conglomerate.

The fund is overseen by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. Notably, the Saudi royal, who is the most powerful member of the family (outside the king himself), made sure to congratulate Trump on his election victory in November.

While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump rightfully demanded that Hillary Clinton return the investments the Clinton Foundation received from Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments.

“Hillary wrote that the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are ‘providing clandestine and financial and logistical support to ISIL.’ Yet, in that same year, Bill and Hillary accepted a check from Saudi Arabia,” Trump said. “I think she should give back the $25 to $35 million she’s taken from Saudi Arabia. And she should give it back fast.”

Trump again castigated Clinton in June for taking money from the oil-rich kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries!” Trump said on Facebook.

Saudi Arabia is a strict Islamic fundamentalist society. The country does not protect the unalienable human rights of its citizens. Women are forced to wear burkas, and are not allowed to travel freely without a male guardian. No religion other than Islam is recognized by the state, and apostates and atheists are often sentenced to death.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have almost zero shared values. The Washington, D.C. foreign policy establishment wants to preserve the monarchy there, but only to ensure that the unknown (e.g. a nefarious terrorist group) does not acquire control over the oil-rich territory.

The Saudis have utilized the wealth of their massive oil revenues to pursue influence operations in foreign countries, such as the U.S. Studies have shown that Riyadh’s campaigns to infiltrate American institutions, such as the media, academia, and Big Business, has had success in shaping a more pro-Saudi policy. The coming $50 billion Saudi-Japanese infusion into America will undoubtedly come with plenty of strings attached.

For the entirety of Trump’s presidential campaign, he forwarded a nationalist vision of putting American interests first — impervious to foreign and outside influences. And his “America first” messages garnered him a fiercely loyal following. Now that Donald Trump is the president-elect, he appears ready to abandon America’s interests for some decent publicity, betraying his electoral platform and base along the way. (For more from the author of “That Japanese Investment Money Trump Announced Today? Turns out It’s from Saudi Arabia!” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Treasury Nominee Already Has a New Idea to Reduce the Debt

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President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet is taking shape. He has locked down his picks for attorney general, departments of Treasury, Education, Health and Human Services, Commerce, and Transportation.

So far, most of the names submitted are familiar in the political world, but one is not: Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary.

Mnuchin is better known among America’s financiers and investment bankers because he spent 17 years as a partner at Goldman Sachs. He is also known in Hollywood, where his firm, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, produced films like the “X-Men” and “Avatar.”

When it comes to public policy, Mnuchin has no real experience. In fact, The New York Times dubbed Mnuchin a true, “Outsider to Public Policy.” His policy suggestions so far appear to mirror talking points from the Trump campaign: He opposes the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, he regrets the lack of punishment for Wall Street titans post crisis, and he wants to help facilitate a large, new tax cut.

Yet, Mnuchin recently branched out with a policy proposal of his own to curb U.S. debt. The proposal recommends a review of Treasury maturities to determine whether ultra-long-term treasuries should be added to debt security options. A Treasury maturity is the timeline for a debt to remain outstanding, after which the security expires. For example, U.S. government securities are currently sold to the public with maturities of between 30 days (Treasury bills) and 30 years (Treasury bonds).

But Mnuchin would like to explore adding 50- or 100-year bonds. Why would he propose such an option to deal with the debt? Well, it really has everything to do with today’s low interest rates. Here’s why:

This year (fiscal year 2017), the government will run a deficit of $590 billion. To cover the deficit, the government will need to borrow money by selling its debt. However, the government will actually have to borrow far more — enough money to cover “rollover” maturing debt. That means the government has to take on new debt to cover the old debt that is effectively expiring.

So, instead of ‘just’ $590 billion in new debt, the U.S. government will also have to borrow about $3.3 trillion to pay off the old maturing debts. That means the government will need borrow almost $4 trillion this year alone!

Although the government offers Treasury securities with many different maturities, historically, the government borrows long-term debt i.e., securities with maturities of more than 10 years. However, this trend significantly shifted toward short-term U.S. debt under the Clinton administration.

This was done to save money since short-term treasuries offer a lower yield than say the 30-year bonds. Long-term U.S. debt usually pays a percentage or two more in interest payments than short-term debt. This is mostly to cover implicit risks. First, there is greater risk that a debtor will fail to make payments over 30 years, then say, five years. In addition, the higher interest rate on long-term debt helps cushion future inflation that would reduce the value of those interest payments to the lender. Therefore, short-term debt allows the government to borrow more money at a cheaper cost but not without serious risks.

First, since short-term debt needs to be “rolled over” more frequently, it subjects that new debt to the fluctuation of immediate interest rates. Short-term debt may be insanely cheap for the government, with less than a few percentage points of interest payments. But that’s today. There is no guarantee the government will have the same luxury a year or two from now. Yet on the other hand, 30-year bonds have a fixed interest rate over the course of three decades, which is particularly attractive right now since rates are historically low — even for longer-term debt.

John Cochrane, economist at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, points out the troubling scenarios for short-term securities if interest rates return to “normal” levels. He writes,

Here’s the nightmare scenario: Suppose that four years from now, interest rates rise 5 percent, i.e. back to normal, and the US has $20 trillion outstanding. Interest costs alone will rise $1 trillion (5% of $20 trillion) — doubling already unsustainable deficits! This is what happened to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Don’t think it can’t happen to us.

These short-term securities cause “rollover risk.” Since the U.S. government is in the business of issuing a lot of debt that is short-term, outstanding for only two, three, five, or seven years, then we have to hope that the world remains interested in continuing to purchase U.S. treasuries — and often. At present, the current maturity rate is 68 months, or less than six years. According to Cochrane, the government rolls over about half its debt every two years — or all of the $20 trillion in debt every half-decade.

This could lead to a partial default on our debt in the event we can’t find enough buyers in those short timeframes (unless, of course, the Federal Reserve steps in to purchase unwanted securities with printed dollars – a dangerous tactic in itself). And, because interest rates on short-term debt are so low, lenders (i.e., anyone who wishes to invest in government debt) become skittish in their willingness to continue to loan money to the U.S. government, as it continues to rack up records amount of debt.

If there aren’t enough investors to continue to buy our debt, America is deep trouble.

Countries like Belgium, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom have issued debt with maturities of 100 years. So why hasn’t the U.S.? Part of the reason has to do with market needs and liquidity demands in the economy. But, politically speaking, it has much to do with the government’s wishes to spend as recklessly and cheaply as possible.

For example, since long-term debt has higher interest rates than short-term debt, converting all the short-term debt currently outstanding into long-term would increase the near-term interest costs by about $277 billion, according to Cochrane. Yet, it could save billions — if not trillions — of dollars over the long-term if interest rates return to normal levels. In addition, locking in long-term debt helps insure against rollover risk.

There are some valid reasons for issuing short-term debt, yet, there is merit to the idea of locking in trillions of dollars of debt into low interest rates for the long-term. Mnuchin’s idea is intriguing and certainly deserves consideration. And, it’s noteworthy that it’s not a mainstream political idea. After all, near-term spending that is issued with debt-bearing higher interest rates (as would be the case by issuing 50- or 100-years bonds) will certainly make Washington’s spending spree a little more difficult to swallow.

Although the idea of issuing long-term debt is an interesting concept, Mnuchin also must advocate for less debt in general. Regardless of his wishes to implement new debt management techniques, unless our debt is reduced, the U.S. is headed toward a fiscal crisis. We must not forget that no matter what, the taxpayers of this country must repay all of this debt some day. At present, it will cost more than $160,000 per household.

Now, that’s a debt problem. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Treasury Nominee Already Has a New Idea to Reduce the Debt” HERE)

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7 Top RINO Moments of Betrayal This Week

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One of the excuses for Republicans failing to promote a conservative agenda is that “outside organizations” have unrealistic expectations of what they can accomplish when they are out of power.

That excuse comes to an end in January when Donald Trump is sworn into office with a Republican-controlled House and Senate. However, based on what we’re seeing from the lame-duck session, it is clear that the dearth of conservatism is not due to a lack of power but a lack of will. The alacrity of Republicans to promote mediocre or liberal priorities in a lame-duck session with Obama as president instead of passing a budget CR and getting out of town — so that we can do better things next year — demonstrates that they fundamentally don’t share our values.

To that end, I present a week in review in the form of the top seven RINO moments of betrayal. (Warning: John McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 32%) and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (F, 30%) are the stars of the show.)

1. Sold out to the transgender lobby

GOP leaders negotiated a conference report for the final version of the FY 2017 defense bill (NDAA). The transgender lobby pushed hard to remove a provision protecting defense contractors from Obama’s mandate forcing them to comply with his transgender policies and views on gay marriage or risk losing contracts. John McCain, as the lead Republican negotiator, agreed to take out this provision (the Russell Amendment).

Let’s get this straight: Republicans are passing an NDAA in a lame duck, which is already several months into the fiscal year, instead of waiting until early next year when we have a Republican president who could sign an NDAA with better provisions, protecting religious liberty. Remember, this is an authorization bill — not an appropriations bill — and can wait until February. Then again, the sexual identity movement tells Republicans to jump and they ask, “How high?”

Unfortunately, with leadership presenting members with a false choice of passing a defense bill with bad provisions instead of waiting, conservatives felt compelled to vote for it and so as not to appear they oppose the military. This is what leadership does to conservatives on a daily basis.

2. Jammed through 1,000-page health care spending bill

Who doesn’t want to cure cancer? Under the guise of discovering the cure to cancer, GOP leadership passed an “unpaid-for” $6.3 billion health care spending bill that threw even more money at the HHS, which already spends about $1 trillion a year on health care programs. Once again, conservative members were placed in a tough position between the false choice of either appearing to be against a cure for cancer and some good reforms or creating a lot of wasteful big government programs.

3. Funded Syrian al Qaeda in defense bill

In addition to caving on the transgender provision in the NDAA, Republicans, at the behest of John McCain, extended funding for the training and equipping of Syrian rebels through 2018! Yes, they are extending Obama’s legacy of funding Syrian Islamist groups — who call for the beheading of the troops who are training them — into Trump’s presidency. Again, why not wait until Trump becomes president and disband this harmful program? Because McCain, as you will see in a moment, loves himself some Islamist rebels.

4. Proposed an amendment to protect al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia

Obama is not the only one who mixes up enemies and allies. Just how strong is the support of John McCain and Lindsey Graham for the Syrian Islamist rebels? They proposed an amendment this week to strip out a provision from the Justice Against Sponsors of Terror Act (JASTA), which allows families of terror victims to bring civil claims against governments that fund those terrorist groups responsible.

As Patrick Poole reports, the intent behind their amendment, which comes on the heels of an intense lobbying campaign from Saudi Arabia, is “to immunize countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have funded Sunni terrorist groups in Syria — the Syrian ‘rebel’ effort that both McCain and Graham have publicly supported since 2011.” Meanwhile, as they promote Saudi Arabia and Syrian al Qaeda, McCain and Graham are publicly criticizing domestic policies of Egyptian President al-Sisi in his efforts to clamp down on the Muslim Brotherhood. Who needs Democrats when we have two of the most senior Republicans on foreign policy promoting the same dyslexic Muslim Brotherhood agenda?

5. Thom Tillis threw a tantrum over criminal justice reform

Imagine being a Republican now as we look forward to the opportunity of controlling all branches of government. There is an endless list of conservative priorities to push on social, fiscal, and national security issues, right? Well, for Sen. Thom Tillis (R-K Street), his hill to die on his promoting jail break.

This week, he threatened to retire from the Senate in 2020 unless Republicans pass criminal justice “reform.” So as a member of the Judiciary Committee, with the opportunity to focus on immigration and election fraud, which are helping create a permanent Democrat majority, he instead focuses on Soros’ number one priority: help grow the Democrat voter base?! This is a man whose priorities are already dyslexic, as he sided with the transgender lobby over his own state party. His threat to retire should actually come as welcome news to conservatives. Unfortunately, his threat is likely as real as the threat from Hollywood actors to leave the country when Trump becomes president.

6. Lindsey Graham just can’t divorce himself from amnesty

Lindsey Graham has long peddled the open borders electoral myth: Republicans cannot win elections without embracing amnesty. This election completely repudiated that premise and proved conclusively that just the opposite is true. So what is Graham’s first priority for 2017? He plans to introduce another Dream Act amnesty designed to preserve Obama’s executive amnesty! At a time when more and more young, illegal immigrants are flooding our southern border, induced precisely by these very promises of amnesty, Lindsey wants to pour gasoline on the fire.

Meanwhile, there are new reports that illegal immigrants are more successful than ever at evading apprehension at the border and that unaccompanied minors are draining our federal health care funds. Thanks Lindsey! You are just what the doctor ordered.

7. Orrin Hatch might violate his pledge and run again

Facing a competitive primary in 2012, old-bull establishment hack Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (F, 33%) pledged that this would be his final — and most conservative — term in the Senate. Well, it has been his most liberal, and he is now indicating he will break his pledge and run for another term in 2018. If re-elected, he will be 90 years-old at the end of his term. Then again, the growing fumes of more power will always get in the way of doing the right thing, turning the House of Lords into a retirement home.

With friends like these … (For more from the author of “7 Top RINO Moments of Betrayal This Week” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Last Christmas Present to America? A Boatload of New Regulations

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Barack Obama’s presidency may be waning, but that isn’t stopping the administration from issuing a volley of new regulations designed to implement the departing president’s agenda.

From commodities speculation to air pollution, Medicare drug payments to protecting funding for Planned Parenthood, agencies are hard at work issuing mandates, grasping at their last opportunity to lock in rules on Obama’s legacy issues.

These actions are nothing new. In fact, “midnight regulations” are almost a permanent feature of lame-duck presidents. Midnight regulations spiked under President Bill Clinton and were also used extensively by President George W. Bush.

However, President Obama has been far more direct about using the regulatory state to impose his agenda nearly by executive fiat — or without the approval of Congress. Under Obama, regulations have exploded. According to the Heritage Foundation, the Obama Administration issued 184 major rules during its first six years in office — at a cost of almost $80 billion a year.

Though only two months remain in Obama’s term, there are thousands of rules yet to finalize. Over 1500 proposed rules and regulations are in the pipeline, including over 700 dubbed “economically significant” — meaning those that cost the economy over $100 million per year. It’s these regulations that are likely candidates to be imposed in a last-minute flurry.

Is Congress powerless to stop this power grab by the executive branch?

Yes. And no.

By law, Congress has the authority to issue a “congressional review” of regulations it finds objectionable. Congress has 60 days to hold and up or down vote on regulations it chooses to review. This is tougher than it sounds — in fact, since its enactment, the Congressional Review Act (CRA) has only been successfully used once.

So, really, Congress provided itself with a tool to challenge executive regulations that is nearly impossible to utilize. I’m not too shocked.

However, this shouldn’t stop Republicans in the new Congress from seeking every opportunity to use the CRA. President Obama has issued more regulations — and at greater cost — than any sitting president to date. It is the constitutional role of Congress to check an overly-enthusiastic executive, and to do so requires Congress to muster the will to assert itself against this regulatory excess.

There is another way in which Congress can assert a permanent check on the power of the executive, and that is by passing the Regulations in Need of Scrutiny Act, or the REINS Act. This proposed bill would require every major regulation — those costing the economy $100 million or more per year — to receive an approval vote from Congress before it can go into effect.

Such a law, if enacted, would put accountability back where it belongs — in the hands of Congress, and the members that have been elected by the people. No longer would agency bureaucrats be able to write billion dollar regulations and impose them on the voters, who lack the recourse to stop them.

Consider the regulatory burden imposed by President Obama, without the approval of Congress:

Obama’s air pollution rule would be “the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the American public,” according to the National Association of Manufacturers, who calculated the rule would cost $3.4 trillion in economic output, and 2.9 million jobs by 2040.

The Obama administration’s rules on the financial industry reach over 19,000 pages so far.

EPA’s rule on emissions for automobiles costs $2.4 billion annually, according to one estimate.

The Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, a rule co-authored by every cabinet agency, could impose more than 12.1 million paperwork hours onto the medical research industry (in addition to costing $13.3 billion).

The regulatory state now comprises a literal “fourth branch” of government — one that is unchecked, and unaccountable. It is vital that Congress reasserts its Constitutional authority as a check on the executive branch. The new Congress must act aggressively to counter Obama’s surge of midnight regulations with the Congressional Review Act, and they must pass the REINS Act to subject major regulations to Congressional scrutiny.

More than that, however, this new Congress must be cautious about giving so much authority away to federal agencies. In many cases, harmful regulations are the result of Congress giving agencies vague directions and overly broad mandates. Too often legislation is passed that is half-written; allowing unelected bureaucrats to fill in the holes. If government is going to work as the Founders intended, then Congress must stop shirking the hard work of legislating, and write bills that contain clear direction — and limits — for agency power.

Unfortunately, midnight regulations are only part of a much larger regulatory problem. Unless Congress acts quickly, America will continue to be governed by unelected bureaucrats, accountable to no one but themselves. If this new Congress is serious about “draining the swamp,” their first step will be to rein in regulatory state. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Last Christmas Present to America? A Boatload of New Regulations” please click HERE)

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