Interview With Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT)

I was able to interview Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) today for about ten minutes, thanks to Ericka Andersen of the House Republican Conference. Below is our exchange (paraphrased and based upon notes I took during the interview):

DS: Debt is out biggest issue. My father believes that we will never get out of the debt hole Presidents Bush and Obama are putting us in. How would you work to get this country out of this debt and deficit load?

RB: I don’t mean to over-simplify the solution, but federalism should be applied. We need to redefine what the role of the federal government is. We have good programs, but who runs them? The federal government. It’s too big to run so many programs well.

We should have the states run many programs, and give them the tax revenue that would otherwise be given to the federal government.

Creativity, efficiency and justice can only be done at the state and local levels- the federal government is just too big. We need to get the federal government out of peripheral areas. Foreign policy and national defense should be handled at the federal level, though.

DS: What would be your strategy to federalize these programs?

RB: Empower states to fight Congress. Back in 1988, Bruce Babbitt proposed empowering the states to oppose Congressional acts. The basic proposal was that if 2/3 of the states opposed a Congressional act, it sunsets in a year. National defense and foreign policy would be exempt.

DS: The Pentagon budget is as full of waste, fraud and abuse as any program, including Medicare. I know it’s hard for a Republican to commit to streamlining the Pentagon budget, but would you do so?

RB: No. I would not. That’s partially because the Pentagon has already started a lean program in Depot Force, and is asking people on the front line of building what our military needs how we can make things cheaper, with less of a footprint and with fewer people.

Stimulus Fail, Part 2 (Part 3? 4?)

The Washington Examiner’s Mark Hemingway takes it away with this one:

“A new analysis of the $157 billion distributed by the American Reinvestment and Recovery act, popularly known as the stimulus bill, shows that the funds were distributed without regard for what states were most in need of jobs.”

Later: “The Mercatus Center analysis also found that Democratic congressional districts received on average almost double the funding of Republican congressional districts. Republican congressional districts received on average $232 million in stimulus funds while Democratic districts received $439 million on average.”

Lastly: “Finally, the Mercatus analysis shows that a majority of the funds allocated went to public rather than private entities — nearly $88 billion to $69 billion.”

What a surprise- you mean to tell me the stimulus is failing again? I’m shocked. Really. (Okay, not really.)

This is really bad, for four reasons: first, since a majority of public employees are members of unions, the money is going to sources of voting power for Democrats as opposed to helping all Americans (assuming, of course, it did help, which is doubtful). Secondly, the money was not distributed for efficienty of employment- even though that was its selling point. Thirdly, the money was spread by two departments not Congress, which means either those departments are biased (unlikely) or they are following a formula, as the study Hemingway quotes concludes, and that means the formula is skewed. Fourth, this is almost exactly 20% of the $770 billion approved by Congress, and it’s been ten months or so since it was approved.

George Will called it- “Which suggests that Stimulus II is…primarily designed to save a few dozen jobs — those of Democratic members of the House and Senate.”