JohnEnsign: http://twitpic.com/17snpd - I'm honored stand up for these brave warriors on the mend Today
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JohnEnsign: So proud of young people like him who sacrifice so much for our freedom. Today
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JohnEnsign: Just visited a brave young Marine from NV who was injured in Afghanistan by IED. Even with major wounds his goal is to get back to his unit Today
Thank you for coming out today to make your voice heard. Throughout our history, it has been the fury of the citizens that has fueled great change and quieted poor policies.
Increased taxes, big government, and obscene spending are policies that should be dead on arrival. I support your efforts today and will continue to fight excessive taxing and spending in Washington, D.C. You are proof that the people of this great country are still in charge. Your message will be heard by elected officials in Washington, and I will make sure that it is not forgotten.
Senator Ensign was interviewed by Captain Ed Morrissey of Hot Air and The Ed Morrissey Show on the issues of the Employee "No" Choice Act, the Democrats' planned energy tax and more.
Here's a preview:
Some quick takeaways:
Ensign thinks that a business-Democrat alliance on health care may be overstated, and only temporary.
The unions may opt for incrementalism on Card Check in order to get around the lack of support at the moment in the Senate, but they're not going to give up on Card Check.
Cap-and-trade may not come up in Congress this year, but Ensign worries that Obama will get most of what he wants through EPA regulation.
Expect a big push from Republicans this summer on Drill Here Drill Now.
President Obama's cap-and-trade plan is really a national sales tax on energy with the stated purpose of driving up energy costs by thousands of dollars.
President Barack Obama has been shockingly upfront about his heavy-handed plans to govern energy production across the country from Washington, D.C. His plan is known as cap-and-trade, but it amounts to a new national energy tax that will be detrimental to consumers' pocketbooks at the worst possible time.
President Obama noted that "under my cap-and-trade plan, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket" and his Budget Director, Peter Orszag, testified before Congress that under this program "firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices ... price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."
So we know the president's plan would raise significant revenues -- otherwise known as taxes -- paid by consumers. The question is: What will this cost the consumer?
An MIT study looked at a cap-and-trade scheme that closely tracked the president's proposal and projected revenue of $366 billion in a single year. To calculate the impact on families, we divided the revenue by the number of U.S. households to get a new tax burden of about $3,000 per family. That is a straightforward way to evaluate the tax burden per family.
Recently an employee of MIT accused Republicans of overestimating the per- household figure. The number we calculated, however, was lower than the one published in MIT's own study. Using an alternative household number, MIT estimated that $366 billion in revenue would equate to an astonishing $4,560 per family of four.
The MIT study assumed all revenues raised would be rebated back to consumers (and even after a 100 percent rebate, according to a letter they sent to Congress, they apparently conclude that energy costs would still increase by $340 a year).
It is unlikely, however, that consumers will see significant rebates from Uncle Sam because history has shown us that Washington will find ways, too often wasteful, duplicative and inefficient ways, to spend your money.
Republican leaders continued their campaign against the Democrats' "Employee Free Choice Act" -- their Orwellian name for legislation that will deny free elections in union organizing -- yesterday. Their aim is to kill off the legislation for at least this year. But before we breathe a sigh of relief and add Big Labor to the long and growing list of supporters the president has thrown under the bus when they were no longer convenient, Republican leaders are warning us to be vigilant for a variety of compelling reasons.
In an exclusive interview with HUMAN EVENTS, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) issued a strict warning to watch what senators say when making public statements about opposing the card check legislation.
"We've seen the unions operate in the past, and they don't give up this easily," Ensign said. "Certainly the Employee Free Choice Act -- getting rid of the right to a secret ballot -- is not doing well right now with several Democrats coming out against it and Arlen Specter coming out against it. If you notice, they always say 'in its current form,' and that makes you nervous. What kind of compromise is going to be attempted, because there can be no compromise on this legislation. It is a terrible, un-American piece of legislation. Getting rid of the secret ballot and imposing mandatory arbitration on what the workplace rules are, how much wages are, healthcare benefits are and those kinds of things, it literally is un-American and that is why we cannot afford compromise on this. Compromise always makes you nervous on Capitol Hill, especially when they're trying to compromise and get bad legislation through."
Ensign told us he wasn't aware of any negotiations toward a "card check" compromise. But he warned that will only spur the unions to more intense efforts to grow the Democratic majority in the Senate. "Let's say that it doesn't have a chance this year, that doesn't mean it doesn't have a chance next year or even after the next election. The unions are going to put tremendous resources into the next election. If they can't get 60 votes now, you can bet they're going to go all out. They did in the last election. They're going to put every bit if not more resources into the next election because they know that they already have the White House. They can put 100% of their resources into electing Senate Democrats and getting to that magic 60 number. They know they already have the House, they have the White House, they can focus all of their resources on the Senate."
Senator Ensign has promised: "I will not stop until card check is dead."
Help Senator Ensign stop the Employee "No" Choice Act by joining the Protect The Secret Ballot Facebook group.
Today is Tax Freedom Day -- the day Americans must work until they they have earned enough money to pay this year's tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels.
Senator Ensign appeared on the Ed Morrissey to discuss the Employee "No" Choice Act and the binding arbitration rules included in the act. Captain Ed and Senator Ensign also discussed securing energy independence.
Also, help Senator Ensign stop the Employee "No" Choice Act by joining the Protect The Secret Ballot Facebook group.
Please listen and leave your thoughts in the comments.
The Weekly Standard takes a look at the spiraling spending in President Obama's budget, and it concludes -- Obama's Budget Makes A Bad Situation Worse:
Well, it's about time. The Beltway is waking up to the realities of President Obama's budget plan, which taxes, spends, and borrows as far as the eye can see. The president's vast new commitments in the areas of health care, energy, and education have already spooked small-government Republicans and the foreign investors who help finance America's public debt. Now even some Democrats are beginning to realize that the president's fiscal policies are unsustainable in the long -- and maybe medium -- run. What took them so long?
The realities of the modern global economy require government to play a substantial role in ensuring the national and economic security of the people. Americans aren't going to dismantle the welfare state. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are -- like the Pentagon -- here to stay. The task, then, is to ensure that those programs are sensibly structured and financed, and compatible with robust economic growth. And on this score, Obama's budget is a big, fat failure.
It's true, as he so often reminds us, that Obama inherited a public debt that had doubled to 40 percent of GDP from 20 percent, and an economy in the midst of a deep recession. But Obama proposes to take a bad situation and make it much worse.
Sen. John Ensign's chief of staff had just returned to town from Nevada this week when he noticed a slip of paper tucked into his luggage.
John Lopez showed it to his boss. It was a handwritten note signed by a half dozen employees of the Transportation Security Administration thanking Ensign for pushing gun rights in the District of Columbia.
"To Sen. Ensign: Please continue to defend our conservative values with all your vigor, particularly our Second Amendment! Thank you."
The TSA-ers evidently noted Lopez's business card attached to a piece of checked luggage. Ensign's office was only too happy to share the note, which was reported first this morning in Politico.
Help Senator Ensign defend our Second Amendment right by joining the Protect The Second Amendment Facebook group.
Senator Ensign appeared on CNBC last Wednesday to discuss the fiscal impact of President Obama's budget:
"We're mortgaging our children's future ... we should be a generation that says we want the next generation to have it better than we have it. And, you're not going to do that by piling this huge debt burden on them -- which means they're going to have pay a lot higher tax rates into the future."
