Penny Press 26 MARCH 2, 2017 · THE PENNY PRESS,MARCH 2, 2017 PAGE 4 guidance and to ensure that...

Penny PressNevada, USA Volume 14 Number 26 MARCH 2, 2017

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Credits:Publisher and Editor: Contributing Editors:Fred Weinberg Floyd Brown Al Thomas Doug French Robert Ringer John Getter Pat Choate Ron Knecht Byron Bergeron

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THE PENNY PRESS,MARCH 2, 2017 PAGE 2

By RICK MANNINGSpecial to the Penny Press

Did you know that the Internal Revenue Service has someone who is appointed by the Treasury Secretary to serve as the “Taxpayer

Advocate?”The position was designed

by Congress to have a high level of independence from the IRS to, “assist taxpayers in resolving problems with the IRS”, “identify areas in which taxpayers have problems in dealings with the IRS”, “to the extent possible, propose changes in the administrative practices of the IRS to mitigate

problems identified”, and “identify potential legislative changes which may be appropriate to mitigate such problems.”

Given the list of responsibilities, it would be reasonable to assume that this little-known position was created in the wake of the Obama Administration’s abuse of power in singling out conservative groups and contributors to be wrung through the bureaucratic wringer. But no, the Taxpayer Advocate position was first created by Congress in 1996, and the current inhabitant, Nina Olsen, was appointed in January, 2001.

So, where was the IRS Taxpayer Advocate when Lois Lerner and her cronies were busily abusing and harassing conservative groups?

Great question, and it is one that former Senator Bob Kerrey

(D-Neb.) asked in a 2013 interview with Politico saying, “That was the whole idea of the creation of the taxpayer advocate — that somebody could intervene on behalf of the taxpayer, and it looks like the intervention didn’t happen.”

Kerrey continued by speaking directly to tea party complaints about abuse being ignored saying, “These entities were reporting they were being singled out, and [the response] was sort of, ‘Don’t worry about it; it’s just a bunch of right-wing organizations that don’t like the president,” he said. “As it turns out, they were right. The government was abusing its power.”

Is it possible that the Taxpayer Advocate, after about a decade in office, became so cozy with those she was assigned to stand up

to, that she became a Stockholm Syndrome-like collaborator with the IRS?

The evidence seems compelling that Ms. Olsen has gone beyond collaborator to full-blown prison guard as in her 2013 report discussing the IRS targeting of conservative political groups, she argued for more regulation by the IRS of political activity stating the following: “The IRS and Treasury should develop a proposed regulation or revenue procedure that lists the factors IRS will apply and proposes a specific and detailed method for applying them. The guidance should explain how to apply the test to organizations before they have commenced operations. The IRS and Treasury should request public comment on this proposal to improve the

Penny PressNEVADA USA 16 PAGES VOLUME 14 NUMBER 26 MARCH 2, 2017

Penny WisdomBut they all underestimated the power of the people: You. And the people proved them... total-ly wrong. Never…and this is so true. … Never underestimate the people. Never. —Donald Trump

The Conservative Weekly Voice Of NevadaInside:GOP BETTER KillObamacare, Or Else!

See Editorial Page 6

RON KNECHT PAGE 5FRED WEINBERG PAGE 6ROBERT RINGER PAGE 7SANDIP SHAH PAGE 9JEFF STIER PAGE 10ROBERT ROMANO PAGE 11CHUCK MUTH PAGE 14

Time For IRS To Replace Taxpayer 'Advocate'

Commentary

Continued on page4


guidance and to ensure that its process is transparent.”In her June 2013 Special Report to Congress on Political Activity

and the rights of Applicants for Tax-Exempt Status, she suggested that, “the IRS should undertake a random audit of existing IRC 501(c)(4) organizations to identify compliance risks.

Shortly after Olsen’s recommendation appeared, the IRS did propose a regulation dealing with speech by 501(c)(4) organizations that would have stifled political speech. The IRS regulations were so egregious that they had to be pulled due to the inability of the agency to handle the more than 150,000 comments generated against them. Congress later defunded any such rule from being issued.

House Ways and Means Committee Member George Holding (R-N.C.) wrote in Breitbart.com about another abusive IRS practice called the National Research Program (NRP) which subjects individuals to in-depth random audits for statistical purposes. The NRP is the equivalent of a

full taxpayer proctology exam and is significantly more stressful than a standard audit which might focus on a few items on a return. Instead the NRP forces the taxpayer to justify everything on the entire return so the IRS can get better statistical data.

What is the Taxpayer Advocates’ response to the NRP? Holding writes, “More alarming (than even the random audit itself), however, is that Nina Olson, head of the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, charged with keeping an eye on things inside the IRS for taxpayers defended the program, even as she called the NRP ‘tormenting’ and referred to those who get pulled into this program as ‘guinea pigs’.”

There may be a perfectly rational reason why Ms. Olson always seemed to side with what was a rogue IRS during the Obama Administration, but after sixteen years in office, new Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin should take a fresh look at her tenure to determine if the American taxpayer needs a new watchdog and advocate in the belly of the beast.Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

Time for IRS Advocate to Actually AdvocateContinued from page 3

Nevada’s Public Employee Retirement System

This is the seventh column in a series presenting findings and conclusions of Nevada’s 2016 Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR), posted at controller.nv.gov. Here, we address the Nevada Public Employee Retirement System (PERS).

PERS runs a defined-benefit (DB) retirement funding program for state and local employees. In a retirement program, people put some of their current income into a fund that is invested for maximum risk-adjusted growth of

the principal so that after their working/contributing years, they may draw retirement income from it.

A weakness of DB plans is that participants and the agents who govern the plan can socialize the risks of their investment decisions to taxpayers and to today’s early-career participants who have no role in managing those risks and thus no opportunity to be fairly protected.

So, DB retirement programs inherently raise the following profound public-policy questions:

• What investment management policies and practices are followed?

• What expected rate of return on future investments – or discount rate (DR) for future liabilities – is used in setting contribution and draw levels? High DRs favor retirees and today’s late-career participants over taxpayers and

today’s early-career participants.• What lengths of working and

thus contributory participation time are assumed, in addition to the other estimates used? The DR and these other parameters determine the Actuarially Required Contributions for currently working plan participants.

PERS leads the nation and is doing the important things right in investment management. In investing, one cannot expect to beat the market by consistently scoring higher-than-market-average returns – and one can lose a lot by trying. Hence, one should seek essentially to reap market-average returns and keep investment-management costs as low as possible. This is known as index-based management. PERS has done the best job of implementing index-based management on reasonable asset allocations and has realized greater returns than much larger public pensions elsewhere.

Determining the DR is highly controversial. The proper fiduciary method to set the DR is to soberly assess expected net rates of return on the investments and use that rate to determine the probabilities that the fund will be able to cover various future payout levels. Then, contribution requirements and benefit levels can be determined to satisfy the level of certainty of coverage chosen by the board overseeing the plan.

Thus, the DR question is: What are the reasonably expected returns? For decades, public-sector plans have assumed returns around eight percent, although some plans have adjusted downward slightly in recent years. Our analysis in the PAFR shows economic growth rates and thus investment returns are highly likely to be much lower than historic levels for the foreseeable future. Our conclusion is that a DR of five percent, net of fees and costs, is the most reasonable.

Turning to the final matter,

expected life length has been climbing in the US for decades, and health status has been improving at every age, but these factors have not been reasonably reflected in the reference working lives and retirement terms assumed by pension funds, Social Security, etc. In short, today most working lives assumed in public pension plans, including PERS, mean that retirement benefits maximum levels are reached after 30 years of employment and often available at a mid-fifties retirement age.

Thus, many public employees get market-level pay for 30 years of service (with Nevada local government employees getting even higher pay), followed by retirement draws of 30 years that are noticeably better than the retirement draws generally available in private employment. Thus, they get a much better deal than the private-sector taxpayers who support them.

The basic duty owed by all public officials – from governors, controllers and legislators to all public employees in policy-related positions – is a duty to voters, taxpayers and the broad public interest. However, they often view taxpayers and early-career retirement plan participants as mainly deep pockets to allow the politicians and bureaucrats to better serve the interests of retirees and late-career plan participants.

So, reforms should be evaluated mainly on whether they avoid socializing risks of DB pensions to taxpayers and early-career plan participants. Unduly high DRs significantly raise taxpayer and early-career employees’ required future contribution rates. So, first PERS should adopt a five percent DR and then reconsider employment and retirement life estimates.


The Penny Press Tips Its Cap To:President Donald Trump what has announced he will NOT attend the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. To hear the reaction of even the folks at Fox News you’d think he kicked them in the nuts. Why on earth would he want to honor the mainstream media who has been droning on and on about what a bad guy he is and how dare he tell them to go screw themselves? If the media wants to apologize to Trum, they know where he lives.

U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents who are now at the Clark County Detention Center to pick up inmates subject to deportation almost every day. The idiot lord high sheriff of Clark County doesn’t understand why. Perhaps he should watch more news on television.

The Penny Press Sends A Bronx Cheer And A Bouquet of Weeds To:U.S. Rep. Dina Titus who called on Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval to issue an executive order barring state police and corrections officers from making arrests based solely on an indi-vidual’s immigration status. We always knew this woman was unhinged. After all, she used to be a Political Science professor at UNLV, that high school with ash trays. But on top of that, she’s a moron. What part of illegal doesn’t she understand? www.pennypressnv.com

Tips Of Our Capand

Bronx Cheers

Commentary: Ron Knecht & Geoffrey Lawrence

RON KNECHT and GEOFFREY LAWRENCE

So I wake up last Friday to see that former GOP House Speaker John Boehner told America that Republicans in Congress won’t repeal and replace Obamacare.

“They’ll fix Obamacare, and I shouldn’t have called it repeal and replace because that’s not what’s going to happen. They’re basically going to fix the flaws and put a more conservative box around it,” he told a healthcare conference. That’s Boehner-speak for nothing is going to happen.

Well, let me tell you the story of what happens to Republicans when they screw the people who voted them into office.

Allow me tell you the story of the 2015 session of Nevada’s state legislature.

The 2014 election swept Republicans into control of everything in the state.

All of the constitutional offices, majorities in both houses of the legislature and a Governor who was preening (in his case hair and teeth) to become a Vice Presidential candidate. (Oprah had a better chance at VP.)

I should also mention that Nevada has a protection embedded in its constitution against new taxes and tax increases. They must be passed with a supermajority 2/3 of both houses or put to a vote of the people.

In this state, that is a big hill to climb with a large Republican majority. Or, so you might think.

So 2015 opened with great optimism.

Until, arguably the worst Republican Governor in the country gave his state of the state speech. When the subject of education came up, he sounded like Lyndon Johnson introducing the War on Poverty and the Great Society. He needed so many million for this and so many more million for that and everybody knew that more money buys more education so the end result was we needed more tax revenue.

And the net result of that was the largest tax increase in the history of the state.

In the words of my red nose Pit Bull, Buddy, “Rut Ro!”

But wait, you say. Didn’t they need a supermajority?

They did. And together with tax-happy Democrats, they got it.

So you know what happened? Come 2016 there was a red wave. Donald Trump was elected President. The Republicans held the House and the Senate. States which hadn’t gone Red in years

voted Republican.

Except Nevada.

So now it’s 2017. Our state’s founding fathers—and I’m not talking about Bugsy Siegel or Tony “The Ant” Spilotro or even Frank Sinatra—wisely only let the legislature meet every other year for 120 days unless they’re kissing up to the Oakland Raiders and want to build a stadium in a special session. The 2017 regular session is now clogging up the bars and restaurants in Carson City.

The Republicans who picked our pockets?

Only a few are left in the legislature. There were a whole lot of disillusioned Republicans who just sat on their hands last November.

As a result, the current legislature is busy passing the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment—40 years after it expired—and worrying about transgender bathroom issues and trying to figure out how to get around a cap on property taxes which was passed when real estate was booming. You know, because there’s NEVER enough money.

And who knows what Governor RINO will sign or veto.

Now, let me put this experience in the context of Obamacare and John Boehner.

We’ve given these clowns the House, the Senate and a President who will SIGN the damn bill.

They’ve had eight years to think about it. The truth is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to fix our health care system WITHOUT making their big donors mad. Since it was the insurers, the hospitals and the drug companies who wrote the Obamacare bill for Nancy Pelosi (“We have to pass it to see what’s in it.”) in the first place, that will be impossible. Imagine listening to them howl when Congress finally starts forcing competitive bidding for diagnostic tests and prescriptions in any federally backed program. Or defining healthcare as interstate commerce so insurers will have to sell their policies in all 50 states.

But, hey. You can’t fix an omelet without cracking a few eggs.

Congressional Republicans will just have to grow a pair and start representing their actual constituents.

What, exactly, do you think will happen if Congress does what Boehner says it will do?

Think Nevada in 2016.

FRED WEINBERG


OPINIONFrom The Publisher...

Memo to GOP: Repeal Obamacare Or Else


The Elephant Is Still in the RoomBy now I think everyone realizes that no matter what Donald Trump

does to help improve and protect the lives of Americans, he’s going to continue to get hammered day in and day out by the Dirty Dems and the fake media. And you know what? While he may not deserve such abuse, the Republican Party does.

Why? Because for eight years, even though the ugly truth stared them in the face day in and day out, they were scared to death to lay a glove on “the elephant in the room.” By the elephant in the room, I’m talking about the guy who was actually caught on a hot mic telling Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, “After my election I have more flexibility.” To which Medvedev responded, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

Really? Flexibility to do what? What did Obama want to do for (or with) the Russians that he didn’t want voters in the 2012 elections to know about?

Investigation? LOL. Nothing Obama did mattered, because the party line of establishment Republicans was that he was just an inexperienced, misguided, incompetent liberal ideologue. In fact, the Romney-McCain-McConnell-Boehner-Ryan-led establishment insisted that Obama loved America and was basically a good guy who just “didn’t have a clue.”

During his ill-fated presidential run, girly-man Romney even went out of his way to say that Obama was a “nice guy but in over his head” — at the same time that Obama was insulting and demeaning him. Psst … Mitt, Obama is not “nice guy.” He’s a mean-spirited Marxist whose goal it is (present tense intended) to totally destroy the United States of America and all of Western civilization. Never forget his bold battle cry: “Punish our enemies.”

Which is why it was so breathtaking when political hack Elijah Cummings called Donald Trump an “illegitimate president.” Of course, everyone’s definition of illegitimate is different. To me, the only illegitimate president in my lifetime was Barack Obama. What was illegitimate about him? Everything! To name some of the more obvious items:

Attending Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s hate-America, black separatist church for 20 years and referring to him as his mentor … his association with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers … his mentor-mentee relationship throughout his teenage years with American communist Frank Marshall Davis … his literary agent’s publicity brochure that stated he was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii” … his rush to seal his records at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard — including transcripts, theses, and test scores … forcing through Obamacare over the objections of the American people (and the blatant lies he fed them about it) … the fabricated Benghazi video story … the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups … ignoring the ongoing carnage on Chicago’s south side … effectively supporting Iran’s terrorist-sponsoring, fascist government … his outward disdain for Israel … creating a vacuum in Iraq that gave Isis the opportunity to rapidly expand … and much, much more.

The list goes on and on for virtually every day of his regime. Anyone who cares to take the time to do a bit of research on the Internet can easily make the list a hundred times longer.

But the overriding reason why Barack Obama was an illegitimate president is because he stated from the outset that he was going to fundamentally transform the United States of America. Not transform America, but fundamentally transform it.

Now, I’m no legal scholar, but that goal sounds an awful lot like

sedition to me. Of course, sedition itself is not treasonous, but giving aid and comfort to a country’s enemies is. I’ll leave it to you to be the judge as to whether or not Obama crossed that line.

Yep, for eight long, painful years, the elephant in the room that no one — including Republicans — wanted to acknowledge was none other than Barack Obama. But the truth is that Obama was, and is, a media-created fraud. Everything about him was a media-manufactured myth — things like the oft-repeated absurdity that “He’s the smartest guy in the room” and constant references to his “remarkable oratorical skills.”

Not quite. Without a teleprompter and words prepared for him by a professional speech writer, the man stumbles and fumbles around like a grade-school kid every time he opens his mouth. It takes him five minutes to answer a question that Donald Trump could answer in 20 seconds (though, in all fairness, a lot of his stumbling and fumbling is probably due to intentional filibustering to avoid having to answer too many questions).

I used to cringe when the media made comments like, “The question is, how high up does this go? Is it possible that (gasp) it could go all the way to the White House?” Not all the way to Barack Obama, mind you, but “all the way to the White House.” Everyone was afraid to so much as hint that Obama himself might have been directly involved in any way in the thousands of untoward, corrupt, and criminal deeds that occurred during his time in office.

The man was protected like a piece of fine China — not just by the media, but by Democrats and Republicans alike. No matter what atrocities were brought to light, it was as though Barack Obama didn’t exist. At worst, the finger was nebulously pointed at “the White House.”

So now, here we are all these years later, and the young man who seemingly appeared out of nowhere has slipped into the night as an unscathed middle-aged man, already well along in his efforts to set up a shadow government. With billions of dollars at his disposal and the fake media behind him, he will have the wherewithal to wield enormous power in his continued efforts to destroy America and Western civilization.

So, even though Barack Obama is most decidedly not the smartest guy in the room, it would be a big mistake to underestimate him. And on top of the big bucks and the MSM he will have behind him, he possesses an important trait that has allowed him to pull off his decades-long scam without flinching: unmatched arrogance. Imagine his believing that Democrats, who have lost nearly 1,000 seats in state legislatures during his two terms in office, would do just fine if they would only become more adept at explaining his radical-left agenda.

Unfortunately, it’s almost certain that millions of Americans, both in and out of government, who were intimidated into not speaking up about Barack Obama and his roadmap for a Marxist America will continue to look the other way as he doubles down on his efforts to bring down the Trump administration, the United States, and the Western world. So, as much as I hate to say it, I’m afraid that Barack Obama is still the elephant in the room whom millions of Americans still pretend not to see.

Open your eyes, America! Trust me: The elephant is alive and well, and still very much in the room. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. ROBERT RINGERRobert Ringer (© 2017)is a New York Times #1 bestselling author who has appeared on numerous national radio and television shows, including The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, ABC Nightline, The Charlie Rose Show, as well as Fox News and Fox Business. To sign up for a free subscription to his mind-expanding daily insights, visit www.robertringer.com.

Commentary: Robert Ringer


Commentary: Sandip ShahThe Other Culprit in the Epi-Pen Price Gouging Scandal? The FDA.

Ordinary Americans, reporters, and even a congressional panel heaped scorn on pharmaceutical company Mylan after it raised the price of its epinephrine injector set from $100 to more than $600.

Mylan deserves criticism for making it harder for patients to afford the injectors they need to prevent fatal allergic reactions. But Mylan isn’t the only culprit in this scandal. The FDA is sitting on a huge backlog of generic drug applications. Such bureaucratic lethargy enables companies to form monopolies and gouge consumers.

Policymakers could solve the problem by giving the FDA the mandate and resources to clear this backlog. Instead, they’re training their fire on innovative drug companies that have nothing to do with this price gouging. Their proposed crackdown on these firms wouldn’t stop abusive pricing practices, but it would stifle innovation and deprive patients of lifesaving new medicines.

Price gouging is only possible when companies face no competition. The FDA has created just such a scenario. In October, a full 2,996 generic drug applications were pending approval or review. At least two of those would have offered allergy sufferers an alternative to Epi-Pens.

But the FDA has stalled both applications. The agency complains that one product uses a slightly different design than Epi-Pen, and that the manufacturer of the other product left some testing data out of the application.

This nitpicking is ridiculous. Researchers developed epinephrine in 1901. It’s now off-patent — as are the older, perfectly effective, designs for injectors. The only thing stopping companies from creating an inexpensive, generic epinephrine injector is FDA lollygagging.

Other firms have taken advantage of the agency’s delays. Turing Pharmaceuticals infamously hiked the price of Daraprim, a medicine used

to treat AIDS patients, from $13.50 to $750 overnight. The drug hit the market 62 years ago, so its patent expired long ago. Likewise, Valeant Pharmaceuticals increased the prices of the off-patent heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, by 525 percent and 212 percent.

These companies got away with upping their prices so dramatically because they knew the FDA would take years to approve competing products.

When manufacturers introduce generic drugs to the market, prices plummet. The introduction of a second generic drug cuts brand-name drug prices in half, on average.

If policymakers want to prevent price gouging, they simply need to enable the FDA to approve applications far quicker than the current average of 47 months.

Instead of enacting these targeted solutions, many of our leaders are on the warpath against the research firms that spend billions of dollars to create innovative new medicines. They’re calling for all manner of direct and indirect price controls.

Inventing and bringing a new drug to market is a risky and expensive endeavor. It costs about $2.6 billion and takes 10 years.

When a company does strike gold — developing a unique product and gaining FDA approval — restricting competition for a limited time makes sense. Patents give the company a chance to recoup its massive investment in research and development, and ultimately reinvest its profits in developing other new treatments.

Price controls would take away the financial rewards of drug development. It’s worth paying for truly innovative drugs. But once medicines go off patent, there’s no reason for consumers to continue shelling out top dollar. Speeding the generic drug approval process would introduce competition, slash prices, and prevent rapacious behavior. SANDIP SHAHSandip Shah is the founder and president of Market Access Solutions. He spent nearly three decades working at large pharmaceutical firms, where he developed pricing and reimbursement strategies.


The Environmentalist War on Science

EPA officials just discarded the central conclusion of a report they’d been working on for five years to appease green extremists. Although early drafts found no evidence that fracking has had a “widespread, systemic” impact on drinking water, the final report claims there isn’t “enough information to make a broad conclusion.”

How absurd. An honest look at the science should have environmentalists waving the white flag in their fight against fracking. It’s time for the EPA and green crusaders to quit this political charade and recognize that fracking technology has boosted the economy, helped wean America off imported oil and gas, and dramatically reduced CO2 emissions.

In 2015, a draft of the EPA’s report found fracking operations have not “led to widespread, systemic impact on drinking water.” The science in the report hasn’t changed. But the EPA, under pressure, adjusted its conclusion to suit critics to the left of the administration, who would have been left without a leg to stand on in their efforts to sow doubt about fracking safety.

The findings weren’t surprising. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson conceded she’s “not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said he has “not seen any evidence of fracking per se contaminating groundwater.”

Green activists and their Washington allies were quick to contest the draft report, ignoring that EPA researchers relied on more than 950 sources for their report. Do environmentalists really expect us to believe the agency, no friend of the oil and gas industry, is in the pocket of Big Fracking? The academic community is in agreement on fracking; only activists are fracking deniers.

For example, a Duke University study in Arkansas found that shale gas development and hydraulic fracturing had no impact on groundwater.

Scientists analyzing the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsylvania found fracking activity harmless, concluding there was “no evidence for direct communication with shallow drinking water wells due to upward migration from shale horizons.”

This year, a three-year study by the University of Cincinnati found that fracking did not affect water supplies — despite researchers’ best efforts to find a link. Lead scientist Amy Townsend-Small said her team was planning to keep the results under wraps because their funders were hoping the “data could point to a reason to ban” fracking.

Attempts to undermine fracking threaten America’s ability to tap into energy benefits. In 2012, oil and natural gas production saved the average U.S. household at least $1,200. All told, the industry supports almost 10 million jobs and represents 8 percent of the U.S. economy — and those figures are predicted to grow, especially if OPEC keeps its promise to reduce production.

Moreover, fracking has strengthened America’s energy independence. As the world’s leader in oil and natural gas production, the United States can scale back its energy purchases from less-friendly nations.

Despite the green movement’s outrage, fracking is helping the environment. The boom in gas and oil production has enabled us to substitute natural gas for coal. As a result, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions hit their lowest level in nearly three decades.

Environmentalists should stop denying science. Fracking boosts our economy, strengthens energy independence, and protects our environment. It’s a shame that, like the most extreme green activists, the EPA is only willing to embrace science when it serves an anti-fossil-fuel agenda. JEFF STIERJeff Stier is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and heads its Risk Analysis Division.

Commentary: Jeff Stier

Obama Midnight Reg rescissions Are Time-Sensitive

Matt Drudge, founder of the media giant Drudge Report that publishes headlines from throughout the mainstream media, has made headlines of its own lately, chastising the Republican Congress for not yet acting to pass tax cuts and repeal Obamacare — two key issues Republicans including President Donald Trump campaigned on in 2016.

Congress for its part has initiated the budget reconciliation process, which continues at the committee level, but to date still has not revealed the text of the health care law repeal.

In the meantime, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a Feb. 23 interview with CNBC stated he expects a tax reform plan to be on the president’s desk by August. No text of legislation is yet available to be viewed publicly.

Critics have charged that Republicans have been out of power for years, and surely have had the time they need to draft legislation on health care and taxes. Indeed, it would be unbelievable if the GOP were simply starting from scratch.

In the least, Congress should be able to repeal all the parts of Obamacare that were repealed last year in H.R. 3762 — which passed both houses of Congress but was vetoed by President Barack Obama. That bill got rid of Medicaid expansion, premium subsidies, cost-sharing subsidies, the individual and employer mandates, reinsurance, risk corridors and risk-adjustment, and the many taxes and spending from the health care law.

If it was good enough for Obama to veto, it should be good enough for Trump to sign.

That said, there is still time, there is an important reason why tax cuts and the health care repeal have not yet come to the floor. And that is the Congressional Review Act (CRA), law that gives Congress the power to repeal recent regulations on a semi-expedited basis without any 60-vote supermajorities in the Senate required.

These CRA regulatory rescissions have time windows of 60 legislative days. Meaning, Congress has a limited time to do away with as many harmful midnight regulations as possible and ensure they or nothing substantially similar can ever again be issued without Congressional approval.

After that, the regulations are set in stone and can only be overturned through the normal lawmaking process — with 60 vote majorities needed in the Senate — or under the Administrative Procedures Act, a process that can take a couple of years.

To be certain, some of the bills that have already gotten to Trump’s desk are in fact CRA rescissions.

H.J. Res. 38 repeals a regulation adversely impacting on surface coal mining operations.

H.J. Res. 41 gets rid of a rule requiring “resource extraction issuers to disclose payments made to governments for the commercial development

of oil, natural gas, or minerals.”These have already been signed. Another, H.J. Res. 40, which does

away with an Obama regulation that barred those deemed mentally incapable, without any due process, of purchasing a firearm, has not yet been signed.

That’s already more repeals of regulations under the CRA than has ever been accomplished in U.S. history. Prior to that, just one had been overturned in 2001: a Labor Department regulation on ergonomics.

Overall, the House has already passed 13 such CRA regulatory rescissions since the year began. Not too shabby.

The Senate for its part has only passed the three aforementioned resolutions repealing harmful Obama midnight regulations. But to be fair, the Senate’s floor time has been tied up with nominations. It will need to kick into higher gear to catch up to the House, cognizant that each rescission can take up to 10 hours of floor time debate. However, under 5 U.S.C. Section 802(d)(2), debate can be limited further to expedite the process in a nondebatable motion.

So, if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wished it, he could limit debate on the pending CRA rescissions to less than an hour apiece, and conduct the votes in a sprint instead of a protracted marathon.

There is no reason Congress should not try to repeal as many regulations under CRA as possible.

And that would be a very good reason for tax cuts and the Obamacare repeal to have been postponed until later this year. They could be eating the legislative calendar, but that will necessarily mean less CRA rescissions. But that reason will only be valid if the Senate gets its act together and at a minimum takes up the same regulatory rescissions that the House has.

Drudge for his part has criticized Congress for not yet voting on tax cuts or repealing Obamacare, and those will remain valid concerns until they are done and done right. But let’s get past the 60-legislative day CRA window before we start to worry. ROBERT ROMANORobert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.


www.pennypressnv.com

Commentary: Robert Romano


Watching Outfor Our Country, County and CityLIKE A HAWK!

KELY 1230AM

Ely’s Radio Station293-1875 Georgetown Ranch

Extending The Vegas Trash Monopoly

In a recent tweet at the start of the 2017 Nevada legislative session, Senate Majority Leader Aaron Ford (D-Las Vegas) wrote…

“As we are curating jobs we must protect those jobs. We want to give Nevada companies the first crack at state contracts.”

I think he meant “creating,” not “curating” (darned auto-correct!), but the sentiment is understood.

A quick Google search for waste hauling companies in Nevada turned up at least three dozen such small businesses in Las Vegas, and I suspect there are at least a couple hundred statewide.

Yet the City of Las Vegas is planning to extend a new 15-year no-bid monopoly franchise agreement for residential and commercial waste hauling to a huge out-of-state company, Republic Services, without giving Nevada companies ANY crack, let alone “first crack,” at the contract – or even a part of it.

In testimony on a bill to require competitive bidding for government contracts during the 2015 Nevada legislative session, Assemblywoman Ellen Spiegel (D-Las Vegas) voiced support in order “to help open opportunities for additional businesses that do not currently have an opportunity.”

Mayor Carolyn Goodman has said she’s “always in favor of competition” and hopes the city can “find a way to give others who are struggling to get a foothold here a way to participate.”

One sure way is to issue an RFP (request for proposal) on this contract and open it to competition. Another way would be to simply allow competitors to operate and let consumers – homeowners and businesses alike – decide which company they want to use rather than restrict the market by issuing a monopoly franchise to just one company.

Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Beers has said that “unless they (potential competitors) can offer specific ways they would offer a better or more cost-effective service (than Republic Services)…it would be a tough sell.”

Councilman Beers makes a valid point. But the only way to know if potential competitors can offer better or more cost-effective service is to open the contract to competitive bidding and then evaluate the proposals – acknowledging that Republic will still enjoy “home field advantage.”

As Herbert Hoover so wisely once said, “Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.”

Consumers are demanding, and receiving, far greater choices in whom they do business with in everything from taxis to lodging…and even electricity. Who picks up my garbage should be no different. Las Vegas should get with the times and open up its waste hauling contract to competition by issuing an RFP. CHUCK MUTHMr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of Nevada News & Views


Commentary: Chuck Muth Every week in Nevada, someone is trying to screw us.

Most of the time, we elected that someone.

That's why we conserva-tives NEED a WEEKLY voice.

That's why the Penny Press has made sticking up for us little guys a whole new Nevada tradition.

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Penny Press 26 MARCH 2, 2017 · THE PENNY PRESS,MARCH 2, 2017 PAGE 4 guidance and to ensure that...

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Transcript of Penny Press 26 MARCH 2, 2017 · THE PENNY PRESS,MARCH 2, 2017 PAGE 4 guidance and to ensure that...