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Brandon Arnold Dan Barrett Demian Brady Jeff Dircksen Ross Kaminsky David Keating Douglas Kellogg Richard Lipman Kristina Rasmussen Lee Schalk Pete Sepp Nan Swift |
Government ReformThe Late Edition: January 10, 2013 Today’s Taxpayer News! NTUF’s Demian Brady and NTU’s Brandon Arnold address the necessity of spending reform in this Townhall op-ed. This Real Clear Politics article examines President Obama’s lackluster stance on cutting spending. 0 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
Harper on Spending Transparency in Committees Via the Washington Examiner, the Cato Institute's Director of Information Policy Studies, Jim Harper, asks why the Appropriations Committees in both federal chambers don't use technology to better convey their spending intentions when considering legislation: "For better or worse, the movement of money is a reflection of our values, but the appropriations process is the cloudiest mirror America ever gazed into. More than a trillion dollars move each year based on appropriators' instructions, but Congress's spending decisions are so cloistered in arcane language and inaccessible documentation, the appropriation committees might as well be a pair of mountain monasteries. "Why not publish proposed spending in appropriations bills using digital formats and uniform codes to indicate what agencies, bureaus, programs, and projects would get the money, as well as what they're supposed to do with it? So far, appropriators have deeply lagged their colleagues in Congress and the rest of the government. There's no sign they plan to change that." Props to Jim in his efforts to not only change the way government releases information for taxpayers to better understand government but to be active in allowing Americans to voice their opinions on proposed legislation through his WashingtonWatch.com website. Check it out & you’ll see some NTUF BillTally figures there! 0 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
The Late Edition: January 8, 2012 Today’s Taxpayer News! As the debt ceiling approaches, cutting unnecessary government spending needs to be front and center in Washington. This opinion piece from the Washington Post examines the history of farm subsidies and their burden on taxpayers. Because the debt deal to avert the Fiscal Cliff failed to specify the spending cuts that will need to take place in coming months, states are left unsure about how to manage their budgets. 0 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
Whistleblower Protections: A Living Example of Their Relevance This past November NTU celebrated the signing into law of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, after a decade-long campaign to strengthen the process by which federal employees who report waste, fraud, and abuse are shielded from on-the-job retaliation. From time to time, we’re reminded that the issues of transparency and insight into the inner workings of government surrounding whistleblower laws have human dimensions. They’re not just about dry language in some obscure federal statute. Karen Hudes, a former US Export Import Bank employee who served in the Legal Department from 1986 to 2007, is one such example. She contacted NTU after learning of a grassroots petition on World Bank shenanigans we conducted with the Government Accountability Project. According to Hudes’ website, after witnessing what she believed to be a flawed and fraudulent takeover of a Philippine bank in 1999 she voiced her concerns to the World Bank’s Internal Audit Department. Hudes alleges that instead of having her concerns addressed she was placed on probation while the matters she raised were swept aside: “The Bank’s Country Director in the Philippines reassigned Karen when she asked him to sign a letter warning the Philippines’ government that the Bank could not disburse its loan without a waiver from the Board of Executive Directors since the loan conditionality was not met. The World Bank’s Internal Audit Department refused to correct the satisfactory evaluation of the Bank’s supervision performance or the flawed report of the Institutional Integrity Department to the Audit Committee of the Board of Executive Directors.” Hudes’ attempt to report what she had experienced has gone on for several years now. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Senators Richard Lugar, Evan Bayh and Patrick Leahy made attempts to gain answers from the World Bank concerning Hudes’ findings, but those efforts did not, she contends, prove conclusive. After Hudes brought her complaint to the Internal Audit Department, the World Bank proceeded to fire her, as well as the Staff Association’s lawyer. In 2009, after years of legal battles, the Chairman of the World Bank's Committee on Governance and Administrative Matters and Dean of the Board of Executive Directors reversed her firing, but the Bank’s President at that time did not recognize the decision. Hudes still currently has cases in the U.S. District Court and in the U.S. Court of Appeals. Although we do not claim to have the expertise that could judge the merits of the highly technical financial details behind the World Bank’s practices, Hudes’ story illustrates one important point: how vital the recent victory of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act is in at least helping to provide government employees safe avenues to report information that can then be evaluated without fear of reprisal. 0 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
After Over a Decade, Stronger Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act Passes Senate This week, the Senate took a vital step towards improving government accountability and protecting those government workers who speak out against waste, fraud, and abuse by passing S. 743, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) by unanimous consent. This landmark legislation, which NTU has been avidly fighting in favor of for years, took over a decade to wind its way up to the sitting president’s desk and now finally appears poised to become law. Although similar legislative efforts have been made in the past, they have largely been undone through the courts, leaving would-be whistleblowers few avenues for reporting government abuses on the job without fear of retaliation. S.743 has been crafted with these past defects in mind, and seeks to remedy former oversights. Among the new safeguards are provisions to:
These new measures will go a long way towards helping streamline the whistleblower process, strengthening the protections for federal employees who speak out, and essentially making government more accountable to the people whom it serves. NTU is just one of the many organizations across the political spectrum who have advocated along with members of Congress for a stronger whistleblower protection law. In September, Republican Congressman Todd Platts of Pennsylvania thanked NTU and a number of others for our work on behalf of the legislation, saying: “Without all of their efforts, we would not be in a position to finally secure enactment of this important legislation that insures whistleblowers with the courage to report waste, fraud, and abuse are applauded---not punished.”
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The Late Edition: September 27, 2012 Today’s Taxpayer News! Stephen Slivinski, of the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, explains how eliminating state income taxes has been shown to significantly spur economic growth and encourage job creation in states like Texas, and proposes that Arizona follow suit. NTU’s Pete Sepp weighs in on congressional perks in this article from the Washington Guardian. 0 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
(VIDEO) NTU's Pete Sepp on Protecting Whistleblowers and Fostering Transparency in Government Pete Sepp from the National Taxpayers Union talks with Michael Ostrolenk about the need to protect whistleblowers and for regulatory transparency reform for the new congress and administration in 2013. He talks about organizing and educating conservatives on the whistleblower issue. Pete and Michael recently did an Op-Ed in support of the whistleblower bill in the Senate / House available here
The Late Edition: September 10, 2012
Today’s Taxpayers News! With Congress returning to Washington this week, it is an important time for fiscally conservative advocates to continue pushing lawmakers to pass the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) without stripping it of key provisions. NTU’s Pete Sepp, Liberty Coalition’s Michael Ostrolenk, and Government Accountability Project’s Tom Devine, have all been vocal proponents of getting Congress to pass an effective version of the WPEA.
If one Virginia lawmaker had his way, corporate income tax in the Old Dominion would be scrapped all together, making Virginia the sixth state to move towards more business friendly and pro-growth policies. The fight against Gov. John Kasich’s plan to increase taxes on oil and gas production in Ohio is getting more heated. 0 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
Another Obama Success: Getting Rid Of Beneficial Programs! With a swipe of his pen, President Obama single handedly wiped out years of extremely successful welfare reform. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 replaced the former welfare system, Aide to Families With Dependent Children, with TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). The crux of this replacement was that it required anyone receiving welfare to be working. The Heritage Foundation offers a good analysis: The welfare reform law was very successful. In the four decades prior to welfare reform, the welfare caseload never experienced a significant decline. But, in the four years after welfare reform, the caseload dropped by nearly half. Employment surged and child poverty among affected groups plummeted. The driving force behind these improvements was the rigorous new federal work requirements contained in the TANF law. Working for money. To most, this is common sense, but to the president it is unacceptable to make anyone work for OTHER people’s tax dollars; they should be simply have the money handed to them. If money is handed to you, where is the incentive to work? There is no incentive, which is why those on welfare never got off of it until they actually had to start working. It may seem so simple to the average American, but apparently there are some in Washington who need an Econ 101 class refresher. Not only was the program extremely successful, but also written into the bill was a specific line that said these work requirements could not be waived. We cannot allow our President to dictate what he does and does not like about our democratic system with nothing more than a slash of his pen. He must be held accountable. So, to review, President Obama illegally got rid of a successful and extremely popular program that was nothing but beneficial to the economy. Someone get this man a prize. 2 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
Book Review: Taxpayers Don't Stand A Chance Matt Mayer, a friend of NTU and former President of Ohio’s terrific Buckeye Institute, has written an enlightening book describing the political failures of an important battleground state and the resulting national implications. The book, Taxpayers Don’t Stand A Chance, is a detailed look at why Ohio, once a leader in the national economy, has been in decline in recent years. Mayer provides countless examples to demonstrate how politicians are putting their own interests first and the fallout in the Buckeye State and the rest of the country. Taxpayers Don’t Stand a Chance takes an in-depth look at how bias in the media provides voters with a lack of coverage for conservative ideas. The difficulty of publicizing free-market ideas helps create an environment where politicians remain loyal to unions and special interests at the expense of taxpayers. Mayer also highlights the importance of Ohio as a notorious “swing state” in Presidential elections and other national policy matters. The book is a brilliant description of the serious problems facing Ohio, how they impact the rest of the country, and what taxpayers in the state and across the country can do about it. It is a must-read for anyone interested in politics as well as those who are concerned about the direction America is heading in. In a characteristically selfless move, Mayer will donate all of the proceeds from the book to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library. Ohio, like many Midwestern states, faces tremendous fiscal and economic challenges in its future. Matt Mayer’s Taxpayers Don’t Stand a Chance is a great explanation of how the state got to where it is today, and how it might navigate toward smoother sailing in the future. For more information on Taxpayers Don’t Stand A Chance go to: www.facebook.com/taxpayersdontstandachance and to purchase a copy: http://www.amazon.com/Taxpayers-Dont-Stand-Chance-Battleground/dp/1469985098/ref=pd_rhf_ee_p_t_2 1 Comments | Post a Comment | Sign up for NTU Action Alerts
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