NRA Concedes Background Checks Are Necessary

The National Rifle Association (NRA)’s “School Shield” task force released its recommendations for school safety improvements on Tuesday, which included “model legislation” for placing armed guards in schools. But the mechanism former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), the task force’s head, proposed for making sure these guards wouldn’t hurt students were background checks — something the organization opposes for gun owners more broadly. “Yes, yes, [background checks are] part of the recommendation,” Hutchison bragged, without the slightest sense of irony. “They would have to go through background checks, they would have to go through testing and screening and then 40 to 60 hours of training.”

Reporters quickly poked holes in the group’s effort, questioning why it didn’t recommend limits on magazine size (which would have reduced the carnage at Newtown, Connecticut) and ignore research showing that more guns lead to greater deaths. Hutchinson didn’t have much in the way of answers. The former Congressman shrugged off the inconvenient questions and insisted that had teachers or law enforcement officials had access to weapons in Newtown, they would have saved lives.

Q: You talk about response time. As we saw in Newtown, the shooter was able to get off dozens of rounds before anyone was able to get there. Did you think about recommending to the NRA and lawmakers that they look at limiting magazines?

HUTCHISON: In reference to Newtown, what was the first thing the school did after the incident? They got armed officers there to protect the children. It was very importance for the confidence of the parents. And there they did not have response capability. You had teachers giving up their lives. And so we want to teachers to have to do that. We want a better response …

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Though the NRA task force’s recommendations were premised on the idea that it’s easy for shooters to get into schools now, the NRA is actively opposing legislation requiring the same background checks on for all gun purchasers that its task force supports for armed guards.

While there is little real evidence that armed school guards can save lives, and some evidence that they tend to harass students of color, universal background checks are the single most obvious and effective way of reducing gun violence on the table today. A high-capacity magazine ban, which the NRA opposes, would also limit the ability of mass shooters to kill.

Hutchinson also could not explain how many guards a school would need to be safe, how expensive the plan would be to implement nationally, or how it could protect kids at recess or otherwise outside.

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LaHood: FAA furloughs will be necessary if sequester takes effect

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stressed Sunday that the Obama administration was not exaggerating the effects of looming sequestration.

LaHood, a former GOP congressman, had said at a White House briefing on Friday that the $85 billion in automatic cuts set to start going into effect on March 1 would require furloughs at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and throw air travel in the country into a tailspin.

On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, the show’s host, Candy Crowley, pressed LaHood over the need for furloughs, saying the FAA’s budget for operations and facilities would still be higher than 2008 levels. 

But LaHood said furloughs would still be necessary, even after the department ended contracts and found savings elsewhere. “This is not stuff we decided to make up,” he said.

"This sequester is very serious business,” LaHood added. “And it requires us to make the reductions that we’re making. It requires us, as painful as it is, to furlough the people that we’re going to have to furlough.”

LaHood also put most of the blame for the impasse over the sequester on his former Republican colleagues in Congress, though he did urge the two parties to work together on a deal. 

“I’m a Republican. My audience is trying to persuade my former colleagues that they need to come to the table with a proposal, which frankly they haven’t done,” LaHood said.

“I also at that news conference said: ‘Everybody around here ought to go take a look at the “Lincoln” movie, where they did very hard things by working together,” he added.

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Regulatory reform necessary for economic growth

By Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Dan Danner, president and CEO, National Federation of Independent Business - 02/11/13 02:30 PM ET

As we survey the horizon and consider the issues that lawmakers today are faced with, the natural conclusion is that the 113th Congress will be another challenging period for our political leaders.

Eleventh-hour deal-cutting, once a rare occurrence, is now standard operating procedure for a broken legislative process. This new regular order of brinksmanship provides little in the way of certainty to job creators; instead, it guarantees that just a few months down the road, Congress will once again return to dramatic 11th bickering, posturing and legislative clashes.

Unfortunately, even the most successful fiscal compromise is no match for the long-term recuperative impact of substantive economic growth on our nation’s budget and deficit issues.

No partisan divide exists when it comes to the question of whether lawmakers should pursue policy that facilitates growth. And one of the surest paths to facilitating growth – and encouraging the stability that investors and job creators need to build that growth – is to reform our arcane and inefficient regulatory system.

Inefficient, redundant and excessive regulations have had a pronounced destabilizing effect on job growth and recovery. The system is grossly outdated, and it is laden with too many regulations that were put in place and long ago forgotten.
Despite this, a tidal wave of new rules are being advanced.  Since Election Day alone, Washington has issued over 800 new rules – that is over 8 new regulations daily.
Unfortunately, many of these proposed new regulations aren’t fully thought through and poorly structured. According to a recent George Washington University and Washington University analysis, in 2012 there were 283,615 full-time government employees dedicated to drafting and enforcing regulations, while fewer than 50 employees at the Office of Management and Budget were responsible for reviewing the new regulatory mandates to ensure they are justified and accurate prior to implementation.
It should not surprise anyone, then, that employers large and small are choosing not to invest, expand and hire because of the uncertainty surrounding the current regulatory system.

Additionally, NFIB’s January Small Business Economic Trends report shows red tape to be the second most important issue facing small business owners today; while a recent NAM NFIB Poll found that two-thirds of respondents say economic uncertainty in the market makes it hard for them to grow and hire more workers causing economic stagnation.

And while sweeping last-minute deals like the one passed as a solution to the fiscal cliff generate headlines, rapidly shifting, unpredictable promulgation of regulations represent a destabilizing factor that have hung over our economy for decades.

Fortunately, the goal of modernizing and improving this system is both politically attainable and broadly supported by the public.

In order to better meet the goals of both preserving and protecting safety and the environment and stabilizing the economic landscape, our regulatory system should be adapted for the 21st Century and seek to be efficient, accountable, and fair:
· Improved risk assessment, for instance, would ensure that the best available scientific data was at the heart of every regulatory push.
· Commonsense cost-benefit analysis can and should be incorporated into the rulemaking process so that regulations strike the right balance between the benefits they bring to society and he costs they impose.
· Regulatory reform should also include an honest and transparent peer review process that ensures objective experts have the ability to shape rules before they are enshrined into law.
· Every rule should be subjected to ongoing review – through the courts and Congressional oversight – in order to ensure that the system functions in a way that is responsive to both needed improvements.
· Federal agencies should prioritize compliance over enforcement and place greater emphasis on promoting compliance than they do on issuing harsh penalties, particularly on small businesses.

?Reforms that meet these goals are within reach.
Political theater, no matter how compelling, will not fix what ails our economy. Growth, driven by small businesses around the nation, will necessarily be the engine that carries our economy beyond the periodic fiscal catastrophes that have defined our recent experience. ??Washington can help spur economic growth today by putting in place a regulatory system that not only allows, but also encourages, a new economic expansion.
Lincoln, a former Democratic Senator from Arkansas, chairs the Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations Coalition. Danner is president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation's leading small business association.

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Portman: Obama 'compelling' on debt ceiling, but spending cuts necessary

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that while President Obama may have sounded "compelling" as he urged House Republicans to raise the debt ceiling, the president fundamentally misunderstood the need for dramatic budget change.

“It is a compelling message saying we need to pay the bills that we’ve racked up. But it misses the whole point," Portman told Fox News. 

The Ohio lawmaker went on to compare the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling to credit card debt, equating Obama's stated unwillingness to bargain over an extension to a free-spending teenager.

"Think about it in terms of a credit card," Portman said. "If you have a son or daughter who exceeds the limits, what do you do? The first thing you do is probably rip up the card. The second thing you do is say, ‘We need to change our spending habits.’ This is what the president won’t do.” At a press conference Monday, Obama said the threat of default was "irresponsible" and "absurd," demanding that the House GOP extend the debt ceiling separate of negotiations on a comprehensive debt deal.

“They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy,” Obama said. “The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip.”

But Portman said such a step could only be taken alongside spending cuts.

“Yes, we need to raise the debt limit at some point, but we have to do it in the context of getting the spending under control," Portman said.

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