Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas fourth district

  • Voice for Liberty Radio: U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo on Benghazi, Ukraine, and Boko Haram and the continuing threat of Islamic terrorism

    Voice for Liberty Radio: U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo on Benghazi, Ukraine, and Boko Haram and the continuing threat of Islamic terrorism

    Voice for Liberty logo with microphone 150United States Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita has been appointed to the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi. I spoke with him today in his Wichita office on this topic and a few others.

    On the composition of the committee — seven Republicans and five Democrats — Pompeo explained that the majority party usually has a majority on committees of this type. A “Select” committee like this has a very narrow charter. The committee will have staff and counsel, and will deliver a report. After that, the committee will disband.

    Critics of this committee point to the several committees that have already held hearings on this matter and the thousands of documents produced. What can this committee accomplish? Pompeo said that despite all the previous activity, we do not know everything. The Ben Rhodes email that was supplied just last week is an example.

    Pompeo said the administration has not been very cooperative. The committee wants to learn what decisions were made on September 11, 2012, how were the decisions made, and by whom.

    While the committee operates in a political environment, Pompeo said that the six other Republicans on the committee (the Democratic members have not been named) are “workhorses,” who will work to come to a factual conclusion. It may be, he said, that conservatives will disappointed in the output of the committee, in that the facts show that there was no wrongdoing or malfeasance. If that is what the facts show, that’s what will be in the committee’s report, he said.

    It is not known whether Democrats will boycott the committee. Pompeo said it’s important that Democrats participate in the committee proceedings, as this will best serve the American public interest. The decision will be made by Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader.

    As for the committee being a “witch hunt” or simply a political operation, Pompeo reminded me that Speaker John Boehner was reluctant to call for the formation of this special committee. Pompeo said that the Republican members of the committee, except for chair Trey Gowdy, are members with low profiles, and not widely known by Americans.

    On the situation in Ukraine, Pompeo said the situation remains incredibly intense. The Russians have fomented strife in the region, with a propaganda campaign to create the predicate for a Russian invasion. Western Europe has begun to recognize the risk and has started to implement a few more sanctions. Putin’s goal is to reconstruct Greater Russia, he said.

    On the subject of Boko Haram, the radical Islamist group that has captured young girls in Nigeria, Pompeo said this is another example of how the war against Islamic terrorism is not over. He said that today there are 8,000 Al-Qaeda in Syria. In 2001, on September 10, there were 200 in Afghanistan. The threat today is far greater than it was 13 years ago, and the Obama administration has thrown in the towel, he said.

    Shownotes

    Mike Pompeo Congressional office.
    Twitter at @RepMikePompeo
    H.Res. 567: Providing for the Establishment of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi

  • End the wind production tax credit

    wind-power-turbine-closeupU.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, and U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander in 2012 contributed the following article on the harm of the wind power production tax credit (PTC). The NorthBridge Group report referenced in the article is available at Negative electricity prices and the production tax credit. While the PTC is a federal issue, the Kansas Legislature could do taxpayers in Kansas and across the country a favor by ending the mandate to produce more of this taxpayer-subsidized power.

    Puff, the Magic Drag on the Economy
    Time to let the pernicious production tax credit for wind power blow away

    By Lamar Alexander And Mike Pompeo

    As Congress works to reduce spending and avert a debt crisis, lawmakers will have to decide which government projects are truly national priorities, and which are wasteful. A prime example of the latter is the production tax credit for wind power. It is set to expire on Dec. 31 — but may be extended yet again, for the seventh time.

    This special provision in the tax code was first enacted in 1992 as a temporary subsidy to enable a struggling industry to become competitive. Today the provision provides a credit against taxes of $22 per megawatt hour of wind energy generated.

    From 2009 to 2013, federal revenues lost to wind-power developers are estimated to be $14 billion — $6 billion from the production tax credit, plus $8 billion courtesy of an alternative-energy subsidy in the stimulus package — according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Treasury Department. If Congress were to extend the production tax credit, it would mean an additional $12 billion cost to taxpayers over the next 10 years.

    There are many reasons to let this giveaway expire, including wind energy’s inherent unreliability and its inability to stand on its own two feet after 20 years. But one of the most compelling reasons is provided in a study released Sept. 14 by the NorthBridge Group, an energy consultancy. The study discusses a government-created economic distortion called “negative pricing.”

    This is how it works. Coal- and nuclear-fired plants provide a reliable supply of electricity when the demand is high, as on a hot summer day. They generate at lower levels when the demand is low, such as at night.

    But wind producers collect a tax credit for every kilowatt hour they generate, whether utilities need the electricity or not. If the wind is blowing, they keep cranking the windmills.

    Why? The NorthBridge Group’s report (“Negative Electricity Prices and the Production Tax Credit”) finds that government largess is so great that wind producers can actually pay the electrical grid to take their power when demand is low and still turn a profit by collecting the credit — and they are increasingly doing so. The wind pretax subsidy is actually higher than the average price for electricity in many of the wholesale markets tracked by the Energy Information Administration.

    This practice drives the price of electricity down in the short run. Wind-energy supporters say that’s a good thing. But it is hazardous to the economy’s health in the long run.

    Temporarily lower energy prices driven by wind-power’s negative pricing will cripple clean-coal and nuclear-power companies. But running coal and nuclear out of business is not good for the U.S. economy. There is no way a country like this one — which uses 20% to 25% of all the electricity in the world — can operate with generators that turn only when the wind blows.

    The Obama administration and other advocates of wind power argue that the subsidy provided by the tax credit allows the wind industry to sustain American jobs. But they are jobs that exist only because of the subsidy. Keeping a weak technology alive that can’t make it on its own won’t create nearly as many jobs as the private sector could create if it had the kind of low-cost, reliable, clean electricity that wind power simply can’t generate.

    While the cost of renewable energy has declined over the years, it is still far more expensive than conventional sources. And even the administration’s secretary of energy, Steven Chu, calls wind “a mature technology,” which should mean it is sufficiently advanced to compete in a free market without government subsidies. If wind power cannot compete on its own after 20 years without costly special privileges, it never will.

  • Voice for Liberty Radio: Mike Pompeo

    Voice for Liberty Radio: Mike Pompeo

    Voice for Liberty logo with microphone 150In this episode of WichitaLiberty Radio: U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas spoke at a meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club. Some of the topics and questions Pompeo answered included:

    The size of the defense budget, the threats to our nation, and the importance of the National Security Agency in keeping the country safe. He addressed privacy concerns.

    What about tension between the Speaker of the House and tea party and conservatives?

    What’s wrong the the just-passed farm bill, and how did it pass?

    Attitudes towards and respect for Congress and the President.

    The arrest of a suspect in an attack on the Wichita Airport.

    The presentation started with a video of Rep. Pompeo questioning Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

    This recording contains Pompeo’s prepared remarks in full and selected responses to questions at the Wichita Pachyderm Club on February 7, 2014.

    Shownotes

    Mike Pompeo Congressional office.
    Campaign website: pompeoforcongress.com
    Twitter at @RepMikePompeo
    Wichita Pachyderm Club

  • Pompeo votes against debt ceiling increase

    From the office of U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district.

    Pompeo Votes Against Unlimited Government Spending
    “We can’t keep raising the debt ceiling without addressing the drivers of our debt.”

    Washington — Congressman Mike Pompeo released the following statement following his vote on the debt ceiling:

    Washington has once more kicked the can down the road by raising the limit on the government credit card without dealing with the drivers our national debt. This means fewer jobs, higher taxes, and ordinary Kansans suffering under the ever-increasing, costly burden of Obamacare that will achieve few, if any, of its goals. We cannot afford this new entitlement and the President is now on track to double the national debt. Every American family has to live within its means, and Washington should do the same. Today’s legislation may well have averted the “crisis of the moment,” but it did nothing to avert the much greater crisis that is inevitable with our current rate of spending that we must fix immediately.

  • Pompeo addresses ObamaCare, debt ceiling, government accountability

    Today U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district addressed the Wichita Rotary Club.

    He told the audience that despite is not just about what we’ll do next week or even in 2014. The challenge, he said, is changing the nation’s long-term financial trajectory.

    On the rollout of ObamaCare, he said that he tried to enroll but failed. He said he was sympathetic with the challenges in rolling out the information technology that implements ObamaCare, but it’s a challenge that should never have been undertaken.

    [powerpress url=”http://wichitaliberty.org/audio/mike-pompeo-wichita-rotary2013-10-07.mp3″]Mike Pompeo, October 7, 2013.

    He said he recognizes the risks to the economy that the debt ceiling issue poses. He said we have to take on the obligations of the next 10 to 15 years and we have to do it now.

    Pompeo also spoke about government accountability. “It is so easy to spend your money,” he said. “You can be a hero, you can go to ribbon cuttings, … but I have to tell you that when politicians do that in today’s financial situation, they are doing nothing short of lying to you. I use that term intentionally, and with malice aforethought. Because to say they’re misleading you would imply there’s some chance they don’t know that. And they do. This is not politics. This is math.”

    On Syria, Pompeo said he’s heard Republicans say we should stay out of the Middle East. But Pompeo said there are from 10,000 to 30,000 soldiers there today. When politicians imply that if we don’t launch some missiles into Syria we’ll be “out” of the Middle East, that is untrue, he said, and “perpetrated with malice aforethought.”

  • Pompeo on Syria

    On today’s episode of KAKE TV This Week in Kansas, U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo discusses Syria. View below, or click here to view on YouTube.

  • Pompeo on Syria intervention

    This morning U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo appeared on Fox News Network to talk about Syria. Video follows.

    Also, KFDI reported this today:

    Kansas Fourth District Representative Mike Pompeo has just returned from a week in the Middle East in which he met with national security figures from the United States and its allies.

    Pompeo said there is a broad concensus that American foreign policy in the Middle East has been weak and feckless.

    The congressman called for a strong response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, who Pompeo called a war criminal.

    “We’ve got to make sure that those who control Syria and big pockets of the Middle East are not beholden to the Ayatollahs in Iran and to Hezbollah and to Russia,” he said.

    Pompeo said if the U.S. does nothing in response to Syrian actions, we will ultimately have risk to the American homeland.

    “We don’t need 20,000 soldiers on the ground,” Pompeo said. “But we need an enormous effort to make sure that, in a post-Assad world, we do not have Iran in control.”

    Pompeo said he hopes the president will do more than he has outlined so far, adding that a “shot across the bow” is not enough.

  • Ending the Economic Development Administration

    economic-development-administrationIf you think a proper function of the federal government is spending your tax dollars to build replicas of the Great Pyramids in Indiana or a gift shop in a winery, you’re not going to like legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, including the Wichita metropolitan area.

    Others, however, will appreciate H.R. 887: To terminate the Economic Development Administration, and for other purposes. In the following article from last year, Pompeo explains the harm of the Economic Development Administration, which he describes as a “politically motivated federal wealth redistribution agency.” Pompeo had introduced similar legislation last year, and this bill keeps the effort alive in the new Congress.

    In his article from last year Pompeo mentions the trip by Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez to Wichita. Since then, Fernandex has moved on to the private sector, working for a law firm in a role that seems something like lobbying.

    For more background on this agency, see Economic Development Administration at Downsizing the Federal Government.

    End the Economic Development Administration — Now

    By U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, January, 2012

    As part of my efforts to reduce the size of government, I have proposed to eliminate the Economic Development Administration (EDA), a politically motivated federal wealth redistribution agency. Unsurprisingly, the current leader of that agency, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez, has taken acute personal interest in my bill to shutter his agency.

    Last week, Secretary Fernandez invited himself to Wichita at taxpayer expense and met with the Wichita Eagle’s editorial board. Afterwards, the paper accurately noted I am advocating eliminating the EDA even though that agency occasionally awards grant money to projects in South Central Kansas. They just don’t get it. Thanks to decades of this flawed “You take yours, I’ll take mine” Washington logic, our nation now faces a crippling $16 trillion national debt.

    I first learned about the EDA when Secretary Fernandez testified in front of my subcommittee that the benefits of EDA projects exceed the costs and cited the absurd example of a $1.4 million award for “infrastructure” that allegedly helped a Minnesota town secure a new $1.6 billion steel mill. As a former CEO, I knew there is no way that a taxpayer subsidy equal to less than one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of the total capital needed made a difference in launching the project. That mill was getting built whether EDA’s grant came through or not. So, I decided to dig further.

    I discovered that the EDA is a federal agency we can do without. Similar to earmarks that gave us the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” or the Department of Energy loan guarantee scandal that produced Solyndra, the EDA advances local projects that narrowly benefit a particular company or community. To be sure, the EDA occasionally supports a local project here in Kansas. But it takes our tax money every year for projects in 400-plus other congressional districts, many if not most of which are boondoggles. For example: EDA gave $2 million to help construct UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park; $2 million for a “culinary amphitheater,” tasting room, and gift shop at a Washington state winery; and $500,000 to construct (never-completed) replicas of the Great Pyramids in rural Indiana.

    Several times in recent decades, the Government Accountability Office has questioned the value and efficacy of the EDA. Good-government groups like Citizens Against Government Waste have called for dismantling the agency. In addition, eliminating the EDA was listed among the recommendations of President Obama’s own bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission.

    So why hasn’t it been shut down already? Politics. The EDA spreads taxpayer-funded project money far and wide and attacks congressmen who fail to support EDA grants. Soon after that initial hearing, Secretary Fernandez flew in his regional director — again at taxpayer expense — to show me “all the great things we are doing in your home district” and handed me a list of recent and pending local grants. Hint, hint. You can’t say I wasn’t warned to back off. Indeed, Eagle editors missed the real story here: Secretary Fernandez flew to Wichita because he is a bureaucrat trying to save his high-paying gig. The bureaucracy strikes back when conservatives take on bloated, out-of-control, public spending, so I guess I’m making progress.

    Please don’t misunderstand. I am not faulting cities, universities, or companies for having sought “free” federal money from the EDA. The fault lies squarely with a Washington culture that insists every program is sacred and there is no spending left to cut.

    A federal agency run at the Assistant Secretary level has not been eliminated in decades. Now is the time. My bill to eliminate the EDA (HR 3090) would take one small step toward restoring fiscal sanity and constitutional government.

  • Nation can no longer afford wind tax credit

    From The Hill:

    Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Wednesday said the nation’s fiscal situation has become so dire that the government can no longer afford to maintain a wind power production credit that has been in place since in 1992.

    “I think there is certainly the largest realization that we’ve ever had that it’s time for it to end,” Alexander said at a Wednesday event hosted by The Hill and sponsored by the American Energy Alliance.

    In a longer story, The Hill reports on the efforts of U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican representing the Kansas fourth district (Wichita metropolitan area and surrounding counties) to end the wind production tax credit:

    Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) said he hopes that conversation leads to the elimination of all energy subsidies.

    Pompeo has led the House charge against the credit. He got 46 other House GOP members to sign a September letter urging Boehner to nix the provision.

    Pompeo said the wind credit’s history is instructive when debating the benefits of tax carve-outs for specific industries.

    He pointed to a steep decline in wind turbine installations when the credit last lapsed in 2004 as proof that subsidies distort markets and investment. And planned projects and investments already are down for next year as a result of the credit’s cloudy future.

    “I think that’s further evidence that it’s non-economic,” Pompeo said.

    Pompeo has been at the forefront of efforts to end subsidies that distort energy markets. He and Alexander recently contributed an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal, which may be read at Puff, the Magic Drag on the Economy: Time to let the pernicious production tax credit for wind power blow away. Pompeo also develops the argument in Governor Romney is right: End the wind production tax credit and Mike Pompeo: We need capitalism, not cronyism. The special interests that benefit from cronyism have struck back, but unsuccessfully: Kerr’s attacks on Pompeo’s energy policies fall short.