The House Continues Its Work On Pro-Growth Legislation

Congressman Robert Hurt

Weekly Column 1/28/13

 

The House of Representatives has wasted no time in addressing the pressing issues that we as a nation confront. Over the past week, the House acted to put our nation back on a path to fiscal sustainability, and we have introduced two bills that will rein in the federal government’s over-reach to protect individual liberties and get our economy back on track.

 

“No Budget, No Pay”

 

This past week, the House passed the “No Budget, No Pay Act.” At a time when the Senate has proven that it will not take the steps necessary to reduce the national debt and deficits, this legislation keeps faith with the American people by fulfilling our responsibility of honoring our financial obligations while ensuring that the United States Senate to finally adopts a budget and joins us in confronting our nation’s spending problem. We have spent too much, but we must pay our bills – and in order for the federal government to fulfill those obligations, the Senate and the President must get serious about reducing the debt.  On behalf of 5th District Virginians and all Americans, we must come together to adopt measures that will preserve the American opportunity for our children and grandchildren. I supported the House-led “No Budget, No Pay Act” because I believe that this legislation is the first step toward that goal. At this time, this bill awaits action in the United States Senate.

 

Reining In Federal Over-Reach

 

This week, I cosponsored two pieces of legislation that will remove the federal government as a barrier to job creation and restore individual liberty. The first is the Tax Code Termination Act, sponsored by Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Roanoke. This legislation moves us toward much-needed tax reform, which is critical to our nation’s future prosperity. By removing the current, over-complicated tax code and replacing it with a simpler, fairer, and flatter code, we will create greater economic certainty that our families, farmers, and small business owners need while ensuring that all Americans are keeping more of their hard-earned tax dollars.

 

In addition to working toward reining in federal overreach in our tax code, I am also committed to ensuring that our seniors, families, and small businesses across the 5^th District are not negatively impacted by the President’s health care law. This week, I cosponsored the Protect Seniors’ Access to Care Act to ensure that our seniors continue to have access to affordable, quality care.  The President’s health care law impacts our individual liberty by providing for a massive overextension of the federal government into private health care decisions of individuals and families. One example of this is the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) – a board set up by the President’s health care law which appoints 15 unelected bureaucrats to make determinations limiting seniors’ access to care and interfere in decisions that should be kept between our seniors and their doctors. As the House continues to work on behalf of the American people, scaling back federal government over-reach and upholding our individual liberties, the repeal of IPAB is a positive step toward ensuring our seniors can access the quality, affordable care that they need.

 

House Committee On Financial Services

 

Finally, I am pleased to once again represent the people of Virginia’s 5^th District on the House Committee on Financial Services and am honored to accept the appointment to be Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises. Reducing over-regulation and providing for our Main Street banks to lend private capital is critical to restoring a vibrant economy and creating jobs. In this role, I will continue to work on behalf of the 5^th District to see that our family farms and small businesses have access to these critical resources and to foster an environment where they can expand and create the jobs that our 5^th District families need.

 

If you need any additional information, please visit my website at hurt.house.gov or call my Washington office: (202) 225-4711, Charlottesville office: (434) 973-9631, Danville office: (434) 791-2596, or Farmville office: (434) 395-0120.   

 

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Tweet of the Day

K Marie ‏@KPsosotrendy

“@YoungCons: #ImSoSickOf people trying to lie about conservatism. This is all you need to know. #tcot pic.twitter.com/6hTsQPsZ”amen!

Roe Will Fall

Gary L. Bauer

American Values

While Roe v. Wade has stood for 40 years, it stands on very flimsy ground, and I believe it will fall.

Its moral flaws are self-evident. The court's majority claimed in 1973 that it was in no position then to "speculate" as to when life begins. Basic biology has always been clear on that point, but ultrasound technology has given us a window to the womb, so we can now witness the life growing there.

But as a matter of law, even liberals freely admit that Roe is deeply flawed. In a column this week, Tim Carney wrote about abortion's "foundation of lies." Consider this excerpt:

"'One of the most curious things about Roe,' wrote liberal Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe 'is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.' Alan Dershowitz, another legendary liberal Harvard Law professor, called Roe 'judicial activism' lacking 'clear governing constitutional principles.'

"Even [Justice] Ruth Bader Ginsburg called Roe 'Heavy-handed judicial intervention' that 'was difficult to justify.'

"'As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible,' wrote Ed Lazarus, an Obama administration appointee and avowed pro-choicer who clerked for the decision's author, Justice Harry Blackmun."

There are more examples, but you get the point, which brings me to my next point. The men and women we elect to public office appoint and confirm the justices who sit on the Supreme Court. On the issue of life, public opinion is moving our way. That is why it is so important for men and women of faith to remain engaged in the public policy arena.

"It does not exist"

Rob Bell
Delegate, 58th District

Liberal activist groups are pulling out all the stops to defeat my voter fraud legislation, and now claim that voter fraud simply doesn't exist. A spokesman for "Virginia New Majority" claimed, "Voter fraud, it does not exist...There isn't real evidence of that. And we shouldn't spend money on this."

That denial is astounding. Liberal groups are claiming voter fraud is just a figment of our imagination.

As a former prosecutor, I would first submit "Exhibit A:"

38 charges of voter fraud from the 2008 election. Most of these have resulted in convictions. In another 194 cases, the state police found likely evidence of fraud, but the local prosecutors declined to prosecute.

"Exhibit B" is a Democratic political operative explaining on camera how you can forge utility bills in order to vote others fraudulently:

If you believe voter fraud exists, please let your voice be heard and sign the petition in support of my "Photo ID - No Exceptions" bill right now.

P.S. - My "Photo ID - No Exceptions" bill is coming up in the Elections Subcommittee of the Virginia House of Delegates on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 7:30 a.m. I hope you can come. For directions, click here.

Video Pick of the Day

A Prayer for Resolve

Let us pray,

 

Almighty God, we worship and praise Your Holy Name. We give thanks to you for giving us this wonderful country with all the freedoms we enjoy.

 

We pray for our country – we even pray for our president – we pray that he would recognize the damage his vision and policies of larger more intrusive government, reckless spending, arrogance and abuse of power are doing to this country. Until any such change shall occur, we pray for us to have the strength, courage, and resolve to program our party’s vision of freedom, liberty, and smaller less intrusive government and to be a truly effective loyal opposition to any potential tyranny.

 

We ask you, our God, to bless this country and to guide us in our work ahead.

 

Amen.

 

Jim Gaines

MCRC Chaplain

Tweet of the Day

Gail Meyer ‏@MeyerGail

The Colorado theatre shooter was a democrat that worked for the Obama campaign- WTH ??? @ABC @NBC @CBSpic.twitter.com/JlDoeSL2

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G.I. Jane: Reporting for Combat

Tony Perkins
Family Research Council

In another triumph of political correctness over common sense, the Pentagon is lifting its ban on women in combat and direct combat units. Senior officials leaked the news yesterday during the House's Benghazi hearings, making the timing even more suspect. If Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was hoping to distract the country from Hillary Clinton's Libyan testimony, he succeeded. According to leaders, even Congress wasn't warned. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the many politicians taken by surprise, was stunned by the policy's lack of vetting. "Congress should be consulted about that," he said. "I think that's a historic policy of the Department of Defense. There are physical differences of the sexes... It's a major decision and I'd like to see how they came to it, what their recommendations are, and who makes it."

No one is suggesting that women are not capable or have not served their country with distinction. They are and have. But much like the plan to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the risks of this integration (physical stamina and injury, emotional stress, sexual assault, pregnancy, adultery, unit readiness, family breakdown) seem secondary to the administration's liberal agenda. How much national security is our President willing to forgo to promote this kind of progressive feminism? While liberals celebrate the decision--and the military's desk workers advise it--some active-duty women insist the change wasn't something they asked for. "Who is driving this agenda?" asked Marine Captain and combat-tested Katie Petronio. "I am not personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the doors of Congress claiming their inability to serve in the infantry violates their right to equality. Shockingly this isn't even a congressional agenda." In fact, she said, "it's very surprising to see that none of the [decision-makers] are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change."

In an incredibly compelling article for the Marine Corps Gazette, Capt. Petronio says that while she was extremely successful during both combat tours, she is a shell of her former self. (And based on the nightmarish conditions Ryan Smith shares in the Wall Street Journal, it's no wonder.) "Five years later, I am physically not the woman I once was," (including a diagnosis of deployment-induced polycystic ovarian syndrome), "and my views have greatly changed on the possibility of women having successful long careers while serving in the infantry. I can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just emotion... that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females." Like us, she appreciates what the Pentagon is trying to do but believes that diversity is not a military necessity. "Let's embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps' success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda," she pleads.

Senior officials said yesterday the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." But as America's defense, shouldn't the goal be to have the most lethal fighting force in the world? The military isn't--and should never be--the great societal equalizer. Under this administration, Pentagon bureaucrats have engaged in social experiments with our troops on a massive scale--and risked the lives of countless soldiers in the process. And what of the young girls who don't want to go to war? Will they have a choice? Joe Carter, a Marine veteran and former FRC employee, lamented this on First Things.

"Of course when the government begins to draft our daughters for combat roles--and that day will certainly come--the children and grandchildren of the egalitarian elite will be the ones to get deferrals. Most of the men and women championing a woman's right to choose combat have never served in the military and would certainly not want their own daughters to join the infantry. They are concerned only with choice and equality in the pristine abstract, rather than in the bloody, concrete world of warfare... Men were created to be self-sacrificial protectors of the family, and by extension, of the nation. Forcing women into that role will not lead to more freedom but rather to less equality, more violence toward women, and a general degradation of humanity. As C.S. Lewis said, battles are ugly when women fight. But societies that send their women off to war are even uglier.

In the last thirty years, we have watched as the world has desperately tried to redefine the genders, gender roles, and even marriage. But in the end, nothing humanity does--through medicine or policy--can alter that fundamental truth: "male and female He created them."

Quote of the Day

"Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced yesterday that he was lifting the ban on women serving in frontline combat positions. I guess we all misunderstood what Obama meant when he talked about the "war on women." Apparently he really meant that he wanted more women to go to war."

GARY BAUER

Action Alert: Support Key Bills in House Education

Victoria Cobb, President
The Family Foundation of Virginia

Two of The Family Foundation’s highest priorities this year will be voted on in the House Education committee Monday morning.  The first, HB 1442, is legislation that would assist home school students in participating in public school sports, often called the “Tebow Bill,” and second, HB 1617, is a bill that protects the rights of college student groups to organize according to their beliefs.

 

Please contact your Delegate today and urge them to vote in favor of HB 1617 (student groups) and HB 1442 (Tebow Bill)!

 

The home school sports bill, once again this year patroned by Delegate Rob Bell (R-58, Charlottesville), would break down barriers that prevent home school students from playing public high school sports by prohibiting localities from joining the Virginia High School League (VHSL), a pseudo-state/private entity that regulates public school sports.  Under the provisions of the measure, localities would not be able to contract with VHSL if they don’t allow home school students to participate.  Half the states in the nation have some type of measure that provides opportunities to home school students to participate in public school sports. 

 

The children of families who pay taxes that support the local public schools and are part of our communities, continue to be denied the ability to try out for an activity that they are funding for the simple reason that they are home schooled.  This discriminatory practice must end.  New polling indicates that nearly two-thirds of Virginians support fairness for home schoolers.

 

HB 1617 is a new proposal.  Participating in groups and organizations with missions that match their religious or political beliefs is a longstanding tradition for college students.  Unfortunately, some universities around the country have begun enacting so-called “all-comers” policies, which essentially eliminates these groups from being able to set criteria for members and leaders.  Consequently, a student group that is recognized by the university and receives funding or use of facilities couldn’t have any kind of requirement that members or leaders actually share the beliefs or believe in the mission of the group! 

 

Free association is a foundational Constitutional principle, but as we know, those kinds of freedoms are slowly being reduced.  Incredibly, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld “all-comers” policies as constitutional, though it didn’t require universities to have them.

 

HB 1617, patroned by Delegate Todd Gilbert (R-15, Woodstock), will ensure that the current policy of the majority of Virginia’s universities will continue.

 

The only opposition to the legislation that we are aware of is the ACLU, who argued against the bill earlier this week in subcommittee, in essence, that they view free association as inherently discriminatory.  Despite that, the bill passed subcommittee unanimously.  We have worked with representatives of various Virginia universities to ensure that they are not opposed to the bill.

ACTION: Please contact your Delegate today and urge them to vote in favor of HB 1617 (student groups) and HB 1442 (Tebow Bill)!

Video Pick of the Day

Free Bus and Luncheon Event: Lobby Day Rally at the Richmond Capitol Wed Jan 30th

FREE Event: "Day the Capitol Rally and Lobby Day in Richmond!" Join Delegates Brenda Pogge, Ben Cline,] Senator Jill Holtzman-Vogel and others for this great event! 9 AM - 3:45 PM

When:] Wednesday January 30th *(please register on link below for bus with times and pickups)

Free R/T Bus: Warrenton/Culpeper Bus Stop: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5185207094

Rally: 9AM at the Bell Tower, followed by "lobby time" where you can meet with your state delegate and/or senator, and there will be enough time to watch the General Assembly in action!

Free Luncheon: at the Hilton 2 blocks away with optional free training or free Capitol tours

Questions: email InfoVA@afphq.org or call 703-402-4445 or 703-402-4445 for more information.

Note: Families with children, homeschoolers welcome, free backpacks will be given to all.