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| June 16, 2018 | View Online |
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June 9
Rescissions Package: The House voted earlier this week on the president’s rescissions package. It passed, 210 to 206, and I voted for it. I wrote about the details of the proposal when it first appeared back in May, and my post is copied below. I’d ask that you take the time to read that post, given the merits and demerits of the rescissions package. In shortest form, the merit is that we’re actually cutting something in Washington; the demerit is that what we’re cutting is unbelievably small relative to the size of the increase that we just saw in the omnibus package. The degree to which this is the case is shown by this chart. There are only two things worthy of mention in updating my post from May: One, the low bar in a small cut became a lower bar. In May, it was going to be $15.2 billion, the bill today dropped to $14.7 billion. Which is to say that in the course of about a month, the government was able to claw back $500 million from your pocket. Two, the Senate might actually take the bill up. This looked unlikely in May, but there are several tea leaves out there suggesting that the Senate is finally feeling some degree of heat in their inactivity on things that would matter to people who want government limited. ----------------------- I frequently say to my team that absolute numbers mean absolutely nothing to most people. When you hear the number $5 billion, or $5 trillion…or $5 million…we know that it is a big number, but it is the context of that number relative to others that gives it meaning and weight. Five million as a part of five trillion is not that big a financial commitment. Five million of six million would be. In light of this notion of context, let me offer a few thoughts on the administration’s announced proposal to cut spending by $15.4 billion in what’s called a “rescissions” package. Within the next few weeks, Congress will vote on it, and I intend to vote for the package.... Click here to read more...
June 11
Susquehanna National Heritage Area Act: If something is done, do you need to redouble your efforts in doing it again? I say this because I’ve long been a proponent of land conservation and protecting special parts of the Lowcountry, our state, and nation...but the question that came before me last week as the House voted on H.R. 2991, or the Susquehanna National Heritage Area Act of 2018, was really about a protective land designation that already exists at the state level. The bill would have designated two entire counties situated on either side of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania as the Susquehanna National Heritage Area. For those of us who believe in land conservation, that would sound like a most reasonable request. But when you look at the details on this proposal, what you found was that the land was already designated as a state heritage area. It is currently managed by a non-profit entity called the Susquehanna Heritage Corporation and, even if the bill passed, would continue serving as the local coordinating entity. So, in plain English, the land was already protected, and the proposal was to in essence move the cost of doing so from the state and county level to the federal level. Given the already significant maintenance backlog that the National Park Service is struggling to manage, I thought this made little sense, and accordingly, I voted against the bill. Though we have the backlog that we do in the park system, we’ll run a near trillion dollar deficit this year, and have the accumulated debt that I rant on regularly, the bill passed 373-9. The cost of this designation for you and I as taxpayers would not be insignificant given the nearly 1,900 square miles of land on either side of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. This is important because to get under the hood on the backlog that I alluded to earlier, the National Park Service is currently facing an $11.6 billion dollar maintenance backlog on the public lands and parks already under its supervision. Diverting federal tax dollars away from those projects to promote economic development and tourism in two Pennsylvania counties represents a luxury when this land is already protected at the state level, and accordingly, I voted as I did.
June 14 Congressional Baseball Game for Charity:
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