House Speaker Nancy Pelosi answers questions during a Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas on July 24. (AP Photo) “Did you have a nice summer recess?” smirked Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) just before the House Rules Committee convened Monday night. “Mine just flew by.” Ten days ago, the House of Representatives hung out its “Gone Fishin’” sign until September 14. The House figured it had completed all of its work for the summer. Meantime, the Senate, saddled with the requirement of offering the president advice and consent on cabinet and judicial appointments, lingered for a week in the sweltering Washington heat to approve the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan

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Sound familiar? Most everyone has heard it time and time again. It’s the way many TV sales pitches end after seeming to give the viewing audience something for nothing.  It’s a sucker’s pitch. It usually works like this: you are offered the gadget of the moment for the bargain price (typically) of $19.95, and you get an additional gadget for free.  Then comes the addendum (very quickly and often in a whisper) “just pay separate processing and handling.” The fee is never disclosed, but it’s always there (typically $9.95 for each gadget, or another $19.90 for both which brings the total to $39.85 exclusive of shipping charges) proving there are no free lunches.  This deceitful advertising used by television pitchman works so well that its equivalent has become the new Obama-Pelosi-Reid pitch to disguise the true cost of their programs. And while this may not be a precise analogy for the way things are done in Washington, it’s close enough.  “ Just pay processing and handling ” is our metaphor for the entire panoply of Washington speak that produces programs, the costs of which are often orders of magnitude more than originally represented.  We are, almost daily it seems, pitched free lunches or  “benefits” by our government.  And while the seemingly irreversible debt we are currently piling on our children and grandchildren is truly unprecedented in American history, this administration did not invent the government “free lunch” shell game; they’ve simply refined and extended it with complete abandon.  As Ronald Reagan so aptly warned, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Let’s count a few of the ways American consumers and taxpayers have been sold a bill of goods whereby the bill for the goods is, or will be, much higher than the assurance given in the Obama-Pelosi-Reid sales pitch. Everyone can recall the “deficit neutral” healthcare reform bill.  It wasn’t going to add a dime to the deficit “now or in the future.”  Then, no sooner than you could transfer a bill into an Act (a law) the essential quarter-of-a-trillion dollar “doc fix,” which had been yanked from the original healthcare reform bill to make it “deficit neutral,” was, a short time later, enacted separately blowing the deficit neutral promise to smithereens — just pay separate processing and handling . The Pelosi-Reid-led Congress established new high-risk pools in the new legislation and allocated $5 billion to take care of the chronically ill and uninsured until the government-controlled insurance exchanges, which are to be set up under the new law, are up and running in 2014.  But no sooner, it seems, was the legislation signed into law than the Chief Actuary for Medicare estimated that the tax-payer funded high-risk pools would run dry in 2011 or 2012, “resulting in substantial premium increases to sustain the program” — another new, hidden and unexpected cost compliments of Obamacare.  Just pay separate processing and handling. Then, while throwing around a few billion here and a few billion there, your Congress established another $5 billion fund to offset health-care expenses for early retirees.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi answers questions during a Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas on July 24. (AP Photo) House Democrats are rolling the dice this week by returning from a recess that had barely begun to pass a $26 billion teacher jobs bill — at a time when calls for fiscal restraint are dominating the campaign landscape.  Democrats and Obama administration officials say the package is paid for and will not add to the deficit. The bill, which is expected to pass, allows supporters to tout their role in saving tens of thousands of teachers and other government workers from being laid off before the start of the school year, and before the November election.  “This bill … will help keep 160,000 teachers around the country in the classroom as we start school the next couple weeks rather than on the unemployment line,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told Fox News on Monday.  But at the same time, the vote takes members of Congress off the campaign trail to vote for yet another multibillion-dollar aid bill. And Republicans are not missing the opportunity to cite the looming vote as the latest example of Washington’s addiction to spending — something they claim they’ll cure should they win back the majority in Congress.  “It amounts at this point in time to asking the citizens of responsible states like ours to subsidize those places who have been more reckless,” Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s probably not going to help the economy.”  He described the continuing stream of state aid as a form of “trickle-down government” that is not spurring private job growth.  The bill is paid for with a cut to food stamps benefits and a tax increase on some multinational companies based in the United States. House Minority Leader John Boehner cited the provisions in claiming the jobs bill would have an adverse effect. Boehner said the vote just shows how oblivious Democrats are to concerns about spending.  “The American people don’t want more Washington ’stimulus’ spending — especially in the form of a payoff to union bosses and liberal special interests,” he said in a statement last week. “This stunning display of tone-deafness comes at the expense of American workers, who will be hit by another job-killing tax hike because Washington Democrats can’t kick their addiction to more government ’stimulus’ spending. Democrats should be listening to their constituents.”  Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, whose state reportedly is set to receive $250 million in education money from the bill, said that some of the “stimulus funding” has helped, but eventually it has to stop.  “I think it has to end soon because the federal government is running out of money,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We cannot continue to have all of the states rely on the federal government.”  Michigan Gov.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi answers questions during a Netroots Nation convention in Las Vegas on July 24. (AP Photo) WASHINGTON — House members are giving up a couple of days reconnecting with folks in their districts this week to pass a jobs bill that Democrats say is crucial to the nation’s well-being. The unusual in-and-out session was called because the Senate waited until last Thursday, after the House had already recessed for its summer break, to pass a $26 billion bill to prevent tens of thousands of teachers and an equal number of other state and local government workers from being laid off before the November election. With the new school year just weeks away, election season fast approaching and the overall job picture still bleak, Democrats had no choice but to act quickly. Many of those whose jobs are being saved belong to teacher unions or the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, two key components of the Democrats’ political base whose get-out-the-vote efforts in November could determine whether they hold or lose control of Congress. “This legislation is about creating and saving American jobs, and preventing a double-dip recession,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in announcing the special session just hours after the Senate passed the bill that the administration says could save the jobs of nearly 300,000 teachers and other public workers. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., shrugged off suggestions that Democrats were taking a gamble by ordering members back to Washington and diverting colleagues facing tough re-elections from their campaign activities. “It’s not a gamble,” he said, but “it would be gambling our children’s’ education to have them go back to school and find no teacher in the classroom or a larger class size.” Republicans forced back to the Capitol to vote against a bill see it differently. Democrats should be staying home and listening to their constituents “instead of scampering back to Washington to push through more special interest bailouts and job-killing tax hikes,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio. Republicans portrayed the special session as the Democrats’ pre-election gift to their labor union allies and objected to provisions to raise taxes on some U.S.-based multinational companies as a way to partially cover the $26 billion cost of the bill. Defining teachers and police officers as special interests while opposing closing a tax loophole for big corporations “defines the difference between our two parties,” retorted Van Hollen. The House will convene in a pro forma session Monday, meaning there will be no votes and few people around. Debate on the bill and a vote Tuesday morning should go quickly because Democrats who control the rules are not likely to permit any amendments. The House also could take up another measure the Senate passed last week — a $600 million border security bill with money for more agents and unmanned surveillance drones

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WASHINGTON — Iraq’s military is ready and able to take over security operations as the United States ends it combat role and prepares for a major troop withdrawal, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said Sunday.  Gen. Ray Odierno said Iraq’s military has “stepped up” to the challenge even as Iraqi politicians continue to squabble over the formation of a new government and new incidents of extremist violence are reported.  “We do believe they are ready to assume full operations in Iraq,” Odierno said on ABC’s “This Week.” He praised the Iraqi security forces for their professionalism and neutrality during the months of political uncertainty that followed elections this year.  Odierno added, however, that it is critical for Iraq to form a government after five months of delay, warning that insurgents will try to take advantage of the political vacuum.  “The Iraqis have to understand the importance of forming the government,” he said.  Violence has dropped dramatically in Iraq since 2008, but insurgent attacks remain a daily occurrence, especially in the capital Baghdad, preventing the city from regaining a semblance of normalcy seven years after the insurgency broke out.  Still, violence has spiked over the past month as the U.S. moves ahead with a major drawdown of its troops to be completed by the end of August, when only 50,000 will remain in the country.  On Sunday, a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding 23, and a car bomb exploded in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, killing two people and injuring four. Those followed attacks in the southern city of Basra, where explosions hit a market and killed 43 people on Saturday.  Odierno acknowledged that there were “ups and downs” but spoke of a “broad change in the security environment” as Iraqi security forces with U.S. assistance move against insurgents.  “I think they can handle it,” he said.

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With the disappointingly soft jobs report for July, and a faltering recovery overall, is Team Obama getting ready for some sort of new, socialist-left, Keynesian, big-bang stimulus package? Will they be desperate to “do something”? Already there are rumors of an August surprise (to use the phrase of business columnist Jimmy Pethokoukis) where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac forgive underwater mortgages held by millions of Americans. And with state and local government jobs having fallen 169,000 year-to-date, perhaps the democratic Congress and the White House will seek an even bigger spending plan for teachers and Medicaid workers — on top of the $26 billion plan that just passed the Senate. Or maybe the socialists will come up with a new infrastructure-spending bill, perhaps for green technologies and whatnot. Or maybe they’ll extend unemployment benefits even more. My socialist friend Robert Reich is even talking up the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), where the government employed millions during the 1930s. With the announcement this week that Council of Economic Advisers chair Christy Romer will leave the White House to go back to teach at Berkeley, it looks like the center of economic gravity will shift leftward inside the West Wing. Meanwhile, over at the Fed, it seems ever more likely that the FOMC meeting next week will produce a much more dovish policy statement, one that will lengthen the “extended period” near-zero-interest-rate language and hint at new cash purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds to increase the central bank’s balance sheet and expand the basic money supply. Already, in recent weeks, the dollar has been plunging.

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WASHINGTON — President Obama has nominated a veteran investigator to be the next CIA inspector general, a crucial position that has remained vacant for more than a year. David B. Buckley, a senior manager for Deloitte Consulting, will have to be confirmed by the Senate before he can fill the watchdog post charged with unearthing abuses inside the spy agency. The nomination comes after months of congressional frustration with the White House about not putting forth for a candidate for the job. Several candidates had previously been mentioned but none made the cut. Because the CIA’s activities are mostly conducted in secrecy, the position is one of the most important at the agency. The government’s inspectors general are charged with rooting out corruption, fraud and other abuses. “It’s great to see that the administration has finally nominated someone to serve as permanent IG at CIA, but it shouldn’t have taken this long,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. “Given the recent history of abuse and misconduct, the CIA is clearly in need of independent and aggressive oversight. We hope Buckley is up to the task.” John Helgerson, the agency’s previous inspector, stepped down in March 2009. His former deputy, Patricia A. Lewis, has run the office since then. In April, the Senate’s intelligence leadership — Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California and Republican Kit Bond of Missouri — pressed President Barack Obama to find a replacement for Helgerson. “The president’s long overdue nomination of the next CIA watchdog is an important step in meeting this administration’s pledge of transparency and oversight,” Bond said Friday. Buckley has a long history conducting investigations in the government

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WASHINGTON  – A beaming Elena Kagan and President Obama on Friday celebrated her imminent ascension to the U.S. Supreme Court with jokes and references to the irreverent sense of humor she put on display during her Senate confirmation hearing. An audience at the White House, filled with Kagan’s friends and extended family, along with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy, shouted with joy and applauded as Obama introduced “Justice Elena Kagan.” Kagan, 50, holds the title of U.S. solicitor general or the government’s top lawyer for one more day. “While she may be feeling a twinge of sadness about giving up the title of general — a cool title — I think we can agree that Justice Elena Kagan has a pretty nice ring to it,” Obama said of his second successful appointment to the court. The Senate on Thursday confirmed Kagan as the high court’s 112th justice

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FILE: An American flag flies in front of the General Motors Global Headquarters in Detroit, Mich. (AP) Several companies that escaped financial failure two years ago through massive taxpayer-funded bailouts are spending millions of dollars to make donations to political causes and even some candidates’ campaigns. General Motors, Chrysler and Citigroup are just three of the biggest bailout recipients who have continued to remain politically active, through their political action committees, federal lobbying or direct donations to the pet projects of lawmakers. The potential public relations disaster for firms spending big dollars on political causes and federal lobbying after being extended a taxpayer lifeline has led some, such as AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to suspend their political activities until they pay the government back in full. Other companies, however, defend their political engagement by saying their political action committees are voluntary groups that employees use to support political causes, that their federal lobbying is necessary to keep Congress informed of their mission, and that donations to pet projects are going to a good cause. But critics say they doubt the logic

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Julie Murphy is only seven years old, but she embodies the classic American zeal for entrepreneurship. She learned about lemonade stands after seeing one in a cartoon.  She got excited and wanted to open one of her own.  And so Julie’s mother worked with her to get everything together and set up shop at a fair in Northeast Portland, Oregon. 20 minutes after opening, a government official approached and asked for their $120 occupational license.  Of course, they had no license. And so 7-year-old Julie, the budding entrepreneur, was told to shut down her lemonade stand or face $500 in fines. Julie and her mother were encouraged by others to keep the stand open and ask for donations instead.  Business picked up, and the regulators returned.  This time they made Julie cry.  They also got their wish:  Julie’s mom shut down the lemonade stand. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of licensing gone wild.  Rather it is a classic example of a national problem that affects countless people in America every day.  Institute for Justice President Chip Mellor wrote this week in the Washington Times : Mired in a nationwide jobless recovery, state and local governments have the power to create jobs and transform communities if they do one simple thing: Get out of the way of aspiring entrepreneurs. Unfortunately for small businesses, however, laws restricting economic liberty are becoming more commonplace in America. Consider that since the 1950s, the percentage of occupations in the United States that require people to obtain permission from the government in the form of a license before they can pursue their chosen occupation has grown from a mere 5 percent to more than 30 percent.

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