e-News 7/31/15

• Congress Acts (Again) to Help the VA Do Its Job
• An Avalanche of Federal Regulations is Burying Job Creators
• Victory for the Taxpayers Confirmed!
• Obama Paid a High Price to Get Turkey to Fight ISIS
• Salute: The Sussex County Farm and Horse Show

Congress Acts (Again) to Help the VA Do Its Job

More than a year after news broke confirming the horrific treatment, or non-treatment, of our veterans, there has been little improvement by the Veterans Administration (VA). Last year, Congress approved $16 billion in emergency funding to improve care, but the number of veterans waiting one month or more for care has actually jumped by 50 percent!

So Congress once again is acting!

On Wednesday, we passed the VA Accountability Act will make it easier to hold officials at any level responsible, and if necessary, fire them.  Despite pledges by the President to enforce accountability, only two lower level employees were successfully fired for the wait time manipulation at the heart of last year’s VA scandal.  Last year, Congress gave the VA Secretary new authority to fire senior officials, but the agency has only been able to fire TWO employees for actions at the heart of a scandal that affected some 110,000 veterans.  The VA Accountability Act should change that.  The bipartisan legislation would build on the provision of the Veterans' Access to Choice and Accountability Act (VACAA), passed last summer with my support, giving the VA secretary the power to remove Senior Executive Service (upper management) for poor performance or misconduct.

We also approved an amendment on the House floor that provided an additional $3 billion to fill a budget hole that the VA claims would force it to close hospitals and clinics nationwide. VA officials have been saying that they need greater “flexibility” in their budget but only notified Congress in recent weeks that they will have to close VA facilities unless they receive the “flexibility” to close a $2.5 billion shortfall caused by a sharp increase in demand by veterans for health care.

Our House measure also requires the VA to report to the House and Senate veterans committees every 14 days on how the new funds are being used.

But new reporting requirements, personnel management policies and more funding will not cure what ails the VA.  Clearly, much more needs to be done to create a 21^st Century VA healthcare system.

Read more about the VA Accountability Act here.

An Avalanche of Federal Regulations is Burying Job Creators

It is well known that America’s small business create the vast majority of jobs in this country.  Yet, 72% of small businesses report that regulations were hurting their “operating environment.”

Federal regulations imposed an estimated burden of $1.88 trillion in 2014. That burden is burying America’s job creators and households. It equals $14,976 per U.S. household!

During the first six years of the Obama Administration, federal regulators added an average of 81 new major regulations per year to those economic headwinds – nearly 500 in total. At least 184 of these rules contained new federal prescriptions, with annual costs of nearly $80 billion.

Of course, not all regulations are harmful.  But federal regulations too often are ill-considered, needlessly costly, or simply unnecessary. In FY2014, regulators failed to analyze both the costs and benefits of most new major rules.

The officials who impose these burdens on job creators are unelected agency officials—not accountable officials in Congress.

In an attempt to curb major regulations from unaccountable agencies and unelected bureaucrats, the House passed this week H.R. 427,Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2015 or the “REINS” Act.

The legislation:

• Requires agencies to submit major regulations to Congress for approval defined as regulations with an impact of $100 million or more per year on the economy.
• Guarantees no major regulation becomes effective until Congress approves it. 
• Guarantees fast up or down votes on major rules—Congress must act within 70 legislative days.
• Guarantees that accountability for imposing the heaviest burdens on America’s economy falls where it should— with the people’s elected representatives in Congress.

President Obama recognized in a January 18, 2011, Wall Street Journal opinion column that over-regulation “stifles innovation” and has “a chilling effect on growth and jobs.”

We wholeheartedly agree and hope he signs the REINS Act when it gets to his desk.

To learn more about H.R. 427 click here.

Victory for the Taxpayers Confirmed!

This spring, when Congress passed the first real entitlement reform in nearly two decades, it was hailed as a “a big win” for the American people.

Now a new report confirms just how big a win it is for taxpayers and future generations.  According to the trustees who oversee Medicare and Social Security, this bipartisan ‘doc fix’ measure will save taxpayers nearly $2.9 trillion over the long term.   Ryan Ellis, writing for Forbes, explains how:

“To sum up, the CMS actuarial score of H.R. 2 projected that $387 billion would be reduced from Medicare’s Part A (Hospital Insurance) unfunded liability, and $2.5 trillion would be reduced from Medicare’s Part B (doctor visits) unfunded liability. Put those together, and you have a reduction in the present value of Medicare’s unfunded liabilities of nearly $3 trillion.”

This report confirms three things:

1) Real savings. The way things were done before, taxpayers were only getting the illusion of savings.  Over the long term, the next 20, 30, and 40 years, these reforms will produce hundreds and hundreds of billions in durable savings for taxpayers.  This report confirms those savings and more. 

2) Better outlook.  With Medicare’s 50th anniversary coming up on Thursday, this report confirms that our reforms will put the program on a sounder financial footing.  This echoes similar findings by theCongressional Budget Office and the Medicare actuary. 

3) Good foundation.  This shows that we can achieve real – and significant – entitlement reform without raising taxes. 

Obama Paid a High Price to Get Turkey to Fight ISIS

Patrick Smith published an interesting column in the Tuesday Fiscal Times illustrating the complexity of the campaign against ISIL in Syria.  Read it here.

Salute: Congratulations to the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show, also known at the New Jersey State Fair, as it marks its 75^thanniversary! Festivities kicked off this morning with the “Tribute to Our Troops” at 10 a.m.  150,000 people are expected to visit the fair over the next ten days!