Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Good News On ITAR

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I’ve long said (to paraphrase Mark Twain) that ITAR is like the weather — everybody talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it. Well, that may be about to change:

The legislation gives the president the authority to remove satellites and related components from the US Munitions List (USML), hence removing them from the jurisdiction of ITAR. (It would not, though, allow the export of such items to China.) Other provisions of the legislation would direct an ongoing review of the USML “to determine those technologies and goods that warrant different or additional controls”, which could benefit the space industry even if the White House didn’t exercise the provision to remove satellites and related components from the list wholesale.

The legislation passed the House last year, but for several months has been sitting in the Senate, raising fears they may never consider it. But speaking on an ITAR panel at the Satellite 2010 conference last week, David Fite, a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee but speaking only for himself, said things were going “somewhat on schedule” compared to authorization bills in previous Congresses. That schedule would have the Senate passing its version of the authorization bill by the summer and a conference report reconciling the differences between the two in September or October.

It’s unclear from the reporting whether or not this will fix the problem for launch providers, or just satellite manufacturers. For instance, will it make life easier for the suborbital folks? Of course, the biggest problem is this:

“We are in an election year,” cautioned Fite. In his 11 years on Capitol Hill, he said, “I have never seen an environment that has been this partisan.” Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, concurred. “The danger is that this will become a political issue in an election year, which means it’s not going to be addressed on its merits, it will be addressed by slogans.” That will make it harder for reform to make its way through Congress and could also hurt the administration’s other reform efforts.

I’ve also long said that, as it took Nixon to go to China, only the Republicans can fix ITAR (though Duncan Hunter made sure it would never happen all through the Bush administration) because the Dems can’t afford to look weaker on national defense than they already do. I do fear very much that this will become a casualty of the very ugly campaign we’re heading into.

Political Commentary

Repeal And Replace

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A commenter has an interesting idea for the Republicans next year:

Assuming we get a republican congress in November, the way to repeal ObamaCare is to attached a clause repealing ObamaCare in every single appropriations bill next year. As long as Obama continues to veto them, the federal agencies will not get any money at all. Of course, this requires that the congressional republicans have more balls than Gingrich did at the end of 1995 when he “chickened out” first in this game with Clinton. It is up to the tea party movement to support the election of fiscally conservative candidates who will have the balls to step up to the plate to make sure that ObamaCare gets repealed.

That would require Republican control of both houses, which is possible, but not likely (it will be tough to take over the Senate). But if it happens, the nice thing about it is that the “government shutdown” could be spun this time as being the Democrats’ fault. It won’t even have to be vetoed by the president, because they’d likely filibuster the appropriations bill in the Senate to protect an unpopular measure.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Message To Dems

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People still don’t like ObamaCare. We’re going to follow your sage advice from yesterday, Mr. President, and “bring it ongo for it.”

And it turns out Nancy Pelosi was right — we had to pass the bill to learn what was in it:

Now that the bill has been safely passed and signed into law, the mainstream press is gradually revealing the scores of delightful provisions tucked away in the 2,700 page abomination: job-killing taxes on businesses, innovation-killing taxes on medical products, suffocating regulations on individual freedoms, wealth-sapping taxes on the middle-class, unprecedented intrusions on personal privacy, unconstitutional mandates on individuals, racially discriminatory preferences for favored groups, a Ponzi-scheme-on-steroids financing mechanism, and spending on a galactic, incomprehensible scale.

Not to mention this:

The health care overhaul will cost U.S. companies billions and make them more likely to drop prescription drug coverage for retirees because of a change in how the government subsidizes those benefits.

In the first two days after the law was signed, three major companies — Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Valero Energy — said they expect to take a total hit of $265 million to account for smaller tax deductions in the future.

With more than 3,500 companies now getting the tax break as an incentive to keep providing coverage, others are almost certain to announce similar cost increases in the weeks ahead as they sort out the impact of the change.

Figuring out what it will mean for retirees will take longer, but analysts said as many as 2 million could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers, leaving them to enroll in Medicare’s program.

But “if you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it.” Right? And just think of all the job creation this will mean. For IRS agents.

“Bring it onGo for it,” indeed. For the Democrats, that bill may be the longest suicide note in history.

[Update mid morning]

(Dr.) Paul Hsieh, on the real ObamaCare fraud.