Melva Gifford

I was able to listen to the Q&A section of Mike Lee’s Town Hall on Wednesday. Here are some of my notes. Apparently there were about 11,000 people involved in the call.

Hurricane caller: Efforts for Utah to get control of Utah Federal lands:

• 1896 admitted into the union. Washington made a promise that federal lands could return to states.
• Since 1890 and later no states have had the promise honored.
• Transfer of control will not be an easy transistor.
• Lee is in the progress of informing fellow congress of the need to return Federal control to state’s control.
• PILT law: payment in lieu of taxes = if we activated this and the government had to pay taxes to the state of Utah for use if our land.
• Talked to Rebecca Lockhart about this topic.
• Dan Sullivan (new member) in Alaska also wants to move federal lands to state management.

Mount Williamson caller: What is your single goal?

• Need to pass a budget is already on the list.
• Does feel we need to address aggressive regulatory reform.
• Most of our laws are written by unelected bureaucrats.
• Federal register pile in regulations currently in Lee’s office is volumes that are delegated to executive branch bureaucry. It is 80,000 pages. The problem with bureaucrats creating the laws is they don’t work for the people.
• Second pile all laws by congress. 800 pages.

Lee suggests that we pass the rains act:

• We should regulate in need of scrutiny. This means that each time congress delegates an outside branches agency to create a law, it must first be reviewed/approved by congress before it comes law.
• It costs 2 billion a year for federal regulations.

Salt Lake City Caller: how will congress combat vetoes that the president does.

• President has to explain to the American people why he vetoed a law.
• A president vetoed law has to be overrode by 2/3 vote by both houses.
• Congress has to present to the public why the laws suggested are important/useful.

Huntsville caller: how stop president: two ways.

• Impeachment = won’t happen
• Don’t provide funding for unconstutional actions.

Clinton caller: what tax increases should we expect?

• Don’t expect much of an increase this year. But our current over spending we are borrowing more money from our children.
• We borrow about a billion a year. This will result in higher taxes in later years.
• 23% of the economy or GOP has gone to Washington.
• Maddison wrote federalist paper: 57: to address the worry of a president acting like a king. Congress has power to stand up on the executive by withholding funds. Presidents on both political parties have shown corruption on bills that have passed.

Layton caller: Pass a budget?

• Do itemized spending bills.
• Congress passed 12 last year when we have a budget.
• Allows us to have more oversight.

Park city caller: why no efforts to protect our power grid?

Some movement is being made. It is an expensive process.

Salt lake caller: why does the president appear to be above the law = courts have responsibility to determine what is constitutional and congress what is constitutional by what is financed

Mike has a recent article in at TheFederalist.com of what congress should do.

• Get rid of crony capitalism such as subsidies.
• Pass a budget = move us to balance within the next decade without raising, tax burden or budgetary gimmicks
• Fix broken government = some current programs are holding poor into a poor state. Fix programs to lift people. Don’t keep them in poverty.
• Empower the committee to have power to do the things to do better ways to do things. It’s time to expect better government. Don’t settle for 1 billion added each year to the deficit. Demand a balanced budget; expect government that will do so.

Other notes:

• Amnesty defunded: = spending limitations. Congress can state how money we give to government will be spent. Ours is not a government of one. Congress has the law making power.
• The 10th amendment means, if its not written, government can’t don’t do it, how does congress do things that are not stated in the constitution.
• Omanis bill: 1600 pages. It was never reviewed by a single committee in public. It was never debated. Concerns with it, want to pass government on a shorter term basis. There is the problem with executive orders
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