PUBLICATIONS BY Michael Franc
Research
Commentary
Media Appearances
2007 Research
January 25, 2007
State of the Union 2007: High Points and Low
By Michael Franc
(WebMemo #1326)
The President earns good marks on the war on terrorism and health care, but a new energy policy leaves much to be desired.
2006 Research
February 01, 2006
State of the Union 2006: Against the Isolationist Impulse
By Michael Franc
(WebMemo #980)
Truman, bipartisanship, and the last Long War. A historical revealing historical analog.
2005 Research
February 03, 2005
The State of the Union: A New Frontier of Freedom
By Michael Franc
(WebMemo #649)
The President opens a new frontier of freedom on the domestic front.
2004 Research
January 21, 2004
The State of the Union: A Call to Arms
By Michael Franc
(WebMemo #390)
The Heritage Foundation's Vice President for Government Relations responds to the President's State of the Union Address.
2003 Research
January 29, 2003
State of the Union Reaction
By Michael Franc
(WebMemo #198)
Many members of Congress cringed and realized that, with these words, Bush upped the stakes considerably for those who publicly oppose the likely confrontation with Saddam's Iraq.
2002 Research
January 30, 2002
Finding Strength in Adversity
By Michael Franc
(WebMemo #73)
While the President established a laudable goal for welfare reform ("reduce dependency on government and offer every American the dignity of a job"), he nevertheless neglected to mention the overriding importance of marriage promotion to the upcoming reform effort.
2008 Commentary
November 25, 2008
Conservative Nation: All is not Left.
By Michael Franc
One question surfaces repeatedly as the pundits obsess over the exit polls. Have Americans lurched to the Left in any meaningful way? If so, are they likely to sign long-term leases in Hotel Obama, or are they simply on loan until they experience the consequences of modern-day liberalism?
November 08, 2008
Job 1 for Obama
By Michael Franc
Every new president understandably wants to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. For President-elect Obama, that means one thing: Make sure you start off on the right foot with that co-equal branch of government at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue -- Congress.
September 24, 2008
Mr. Smith Didn't Do This: How free market is Wall Street?
By Michael G. Franc
To liberals, the financial meltdown results from recklessness by Wall Street’s “big banking boys” who, as socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) explains, were “empowered by the extreme economic views of [former] Senator Phil Gramm, President George Bush, Sen. John McCain,” and their ilk.
July 24, 2008
Doing It Right in the House
By Michael G. Franc
For the first time in a while, House Republicans are on the offense on an issue of national importance: removing obstacles to the production of more American energy.
For the first time in a while, House Republicans are on the offense on an issue of national importance: removing obstacles to the production of more American energy.
June 04, 2008
Carbon-Cap Conundrum Losing Legislation
By Michael Franc
Think the recent spate of Big Government initiatives on Capitol Hill is ambitious? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Move over, $307 billion farm bill. Forget about that $300 billion bailout for greedy mortgage bankers and their irresponsible borrowers.
May 08, 2008
Democratic Party of Elites
By Michael Franc
Pundits have feasted on Barack Obama's recent musing that Pennsylvania's rural citizens "cling" to their religion and guns out of embittered economic desperation. Thus far, they have focused on whether Obama is an elitist who views religion as a crutch and whose copy of the Constitution somehow lacks the Second Amendment.
March 14, 2008
Special-Interest Sympathy
By Michael Franc
Lobbyists, we hear this presidential season, embody all that’s wrong with Washington. “For seven long years,” Hillary Clinton tells us, “we’ve had a government of, by and for the corporate special interests. They have been heard first, they have been heard loudest, and they have drowned out everyone else.”
February 19, 2008
The Reid Doctrine
By Mike Franc
Back in December 2006 with his stint as Senate minority leader still fresh in mind, soon-to-be Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) offered an olive branch to his Republican colleagues. Call it the Reid Doctrine
February 09, 2008
Fiscal Action Now
By Mike Franc
“Every member in this chamber,” President Bush said during last month’s State of the Union address, “knows that spending on entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is growing faster than we can afford.”
February 06, 2008
The Other State of the Union
By Mike Franc
His State of the Union address began with a focus on our government’s foremost responsibility -- national security. This, the first of many bold policy proposals, would reverse the debilitating effects of the generation-long “procurement holiday” that has plagued our military since we prevailed over Soviet Communism in 1991.
January 19, 2008
Economic Growth the Right Way
By Mike Franc
Whenever Congress assembles an economic “stimulus” package during a campaign year, the election season quickly degenerates into silly season.
January 17, 2008
The Big Three
By Mike Franc
In deciding who would make the best president, conservatives should elevate a few issues above the others. Here’s my issues-based checklist:
January 15, 2008
"Good News" Headlines for 2008: 10 Positive Changes Washington Can Achieve This Year
By Mike Franc
For years, now, Congress has been collared with a "do-nothing" label. Gridlock born of bitter partisanship seems to be the nature of the beast.
January 05, 2008
Earmarks Still A Problem
By Mike Franc
To better understand the never-ending policy struggles between the president and Congress, consider the uniquely different perspectives that both bring to the legislative process.
2007 Commentary
December 22, 2007
The Bill Lawmakers Didn't Have Time to Read
By Mike Franc
Every taxpayer should have witnessed the testy exchange on the Senate floor last week between Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and the chairman of the conservative Senate Steering Committee, Jim DeMint (R-SC).
December 15, 2007
Budgetary Showdown: Conservatives Should Trust but Verify
By Mike Franc
The next president will be judged by the adequacy of his (or her) response to the two overriding challenges facing America today -- winning the war on terrorism and surmounting the fiscal consequences of the baby boomer retirements without suffocating tax increases.
December 01, 2007
Democrat Tax Alternatives Could Distance Them from Blue State Voters
By Mike Franc
The next president will be judged by the adequacy of his (or her) response to the two overriding challenges facing America today -- winning the war on terrorism and surmounting the fiscal consequences of the baby boomer retirements without suffocating tax increases.
November 10, 2007
SCHIP's Path for Illegal Immigrants
By Mike Franc
Amid all the chaos on Capitol Hill -- a possible vote to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney one day, shenanigans over the annual spending bills the next -- one constant has been the prolonged, backroom negotiation over the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
November 06, 2007
Democrats wake up to being the party of the rich
By Mike Franc
A legislative proposal that was once on the fast track is suddenly dead. The Senate will not consider a plan to extract billions in extra taxes from megamillionaire hedge fund managers.
November 03, 2007
U.S. Tax Code Hampers Competitiveness
By Mike Franc
In July, the Treasury Department released a study cataloguing the ways our deplorable tax code restricts U.S. competitiveness. "Our tax system," it said, "disrupts and distorts a vast array of business and investment decisions" that "lowers the productive capacity of the economy and reduces living standards." Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson explained, "our workers pay the price."
October 27, 2007
Will Congress Permanantly Close Scary Intelligence Gap?
By Mike Franc
"Showing apparent signs of concern over events in Iraq," ABC News reported last week, Osama bin Laden warned his terrorist comrades that: "Your enemies are trying to break up the jihadi groups." He implored them to "work in one united group."
October 19, 2007
How to Insure Kids (Once the Shouting Dies Down)
By Mike Franc
Move over, Iraq war. There's another issue in town that raises the temperature of the body politic: Children's health care.
October 13, 2007
Fairness Doctrine Future
By Mike Franc
Liberals lawmakers again would like to exhume the obsolete Fairness Doctrine. It dates to 1949 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated that broadcasters cover controversial issues in a “balanced and fair” manner -- i.e., give air time to all sides.
October 06, 2007
Fighting the Liberal Impulse to Increase Taxes
By Mike Franc
Consider the proposal by Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Penn.), House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) and others to hit taxpayers with a $150 billion surtax to fund the war in Iraq. Decrying the lack of “shared sacrifice,” they want to impose a 2% surtax on low- and moderate-income taxpayers and a massive 12% to 15% surcharge on -- who else? -- the rich.
October 03, 2007
A Better Way to Achieve Health Care for Needy Kids
By Mike Franc
Congress has two options, now that President Bush has vetoed its effort to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) well beyond the original purpose of providing health insurance to poor children:
September 22, 2007
Proof that SCHIP Could Destroy Healthcare
By Mike Franc
The future of America’s health-care system may be at stake in the battle over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
September 15, 2007
Bin Laden Sounds Like a Liberal
By Mike Franc
Who would have thought that one of the chief challenges confronting congressional Democrats would be a need to distinguish themselves from Osama bin Laden? His latest missive, delivered to coincide with the 6th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, contains rhetorical flourishes and far-left policy ideas strangely similar to what we hear on a daily basis from leading liberals in Congress.
September 08, 2007
Immigration Enforcement Meets More Blockades
By Michael Franc
Earlier this year, advocates of the Senate’s ill-fated immigration reform offered a quid pro quo: Grant amnesty and trillions in government benefits to some 12 million illegal aliens, and we’ll agree -- finally -- to beef up security at the border, close loopholes that encourage employers to hire known illegals, and require criminal aliens to leave the country.
August 25, 2007
Coming Spending Fights Could be 80s Replay
By Michael Franc
Remember the endless end-of-session confrontations between President Reagan and the Democratic-controlled Congresses of the 1980s? Former Speaker Tip O’Neill and his allies would bundle the year’s spending bills into one gargantuan package, quietly add tax increases, multi-billion dollar expansions to Medicare and Medicaid, tinker with housing, education, environmental and energy policies, and then send the unread legislative mess to the White House in the dark of night, daring the president to sign it.
August 11, 2007
Small Government Efforts Aren't 'Fringe'
By Michael Franc
Principled conservative lawmakers have been called many things as they doggedly pursue their quest for smaller government. In the House, liberals have resorted to using the “f” word -- "fringe" -- to describe small-government conservatives who have tried in vain to cut spending, eliminate frivolous earmarks, and reform failed welfare programs.
August 06, 2007
Nanny State? No, thanks; Government Should Quit Mandating Health-care Perks; Edicts Hike Costs, Shrink Coverage
By Michael Franc
Shortly after taking office, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher delivered a memorable speech in which she popularized the term "nanny state." She warned: "We should not expect the state to appear in the guise of an extravagant good fairy at christening, a loquacious companion at every stage of life's journey and the unknown mourner at every funeral."
July 28, 2007
SCHIP: A Step Towards Socialism
By Michael Franc
During the heady days of 1993 when former First Lady Hillary Clinton assembled a group of health experts to reconfigure our health-care system, liberal strategists realized that the march toward socialized medicine might be a slow and halting one. Thus, they devised several alternate routes to the promised land of a universal, government-run system. Intriguingly, one of these fall-back scenarios bears an uncanny resemblance to the dramatic expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) now under consideration on Capitol Hill.
July 21, 2007
Left Continues to Mischaracterize the Iraq War and Ignore Our Enemies
By Michael Franc
Liberals who favor withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq believe the situation there is relatively straightforward: We are enmeshed in a civil war, a deeply-rooted sectarian conflict the outcome of which matters little to the U.S. Disengaging is the only way we can engage the real enemy -- al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations bent on our destruction -- in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
July 14, 2007
Long Term Fiscal Burdens Continue to Pile Up
By Michael Franc
"The most serious threat to the United States," U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has warned, "is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility." Walker, the federal government’s chief auditor, has been traveling across the country like a modern Paul Revere encouraging ordinary Americans to focus on the long-term fiscal threat we face.
June 30, 2007
The Fairness Doctrine Should Remain Shelved
By Michael Franc
When talk radio roars, Washington listens. Often, though the power brokers on Capitol Hill don't like what they hear.
June 23, 2007
Liberal's Energy Policies Are Flawed
By Michael Franc
It's not surprising that the marquee energy bill moving through the Democratic-controlled Congress is really a global-warming bill in disguise. After all, in a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, a plurality of Democrats said global warming will "pose a more serious threat to the world" in the decades ahead than global terrorism. Republicans and Independents, by contrast, see terrorism as the greater threat.
June 16, 2007
Republicans Not Buying Bush Amnesty
By Michael Franc
During a speech last month to Georgia law enforcement officials, President Bush opined that opponents of the stalled immigration reform bill "don't want to do what's right for America." If they only understood the bill's provisions, he implied, they would see the light. But, alas, they hadn't "read the bill" and could only "speculate" about its complex provisions. He warned them to stop trying "to frighten people."
June 09, 2007
American Support For Amnesty Fades
By Michael Franc
The role the Senate plays in our legislative process was best described by George Washington. "We pour legislation into the senatorial saucer," he told a skeptical Thomas Jefferson, "to cool it."
June 02, 2007
Amnesty's Heavy Fiscal Impact
By Michael Franc
The debate over the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill has forced lawmakers to grapple with another contentious issue, namely: What exactly are the fiscal consequences of granting citizenship to the 12 to 15 million illegal immigrants living within our borders and the millions more who yearn to settle here?
May 12, 2007
Democratic Voters Hit Hardest by Tax Hikes
By Michael Franc
A certain irony surrounds the scheduled explosion of tax liability under the Alternative Minimum Tax. Namely, this is a “Blue State tax,” with the heaviest concentrations of affected taxpayers living in states that voted for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, including New York, California, Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland.
May 10, 2007
The Coming Tax Rebellion
By Michael Franc
Since World War II, one of the most powerful "third rails" in American politics has been the taxpayer revolt that occurs whenever the federal tax burden nears 19-20% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
April 28, 2007
The Wrong Way to Fuel Competitiveness
By Michael Franc
When President Bush proposed to enhance U.S. "competitiveness" by doubling federal spending on research in the physical sciences over the next decade, adding 100,000 math and science teachers to the nation’s high schools, and making the research-and-development tax credit permanent, he set off a predictable bidding war on Capitol Hill.
April 21, 2007
Durbin Wrong Again in Pushing Big Government for Medicare Expenses
By Michael Franc
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert," Nobel economist Milton Friedman once quipped, "in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." Friedman's admonition is especially pertinent to the ongoing effort by Senate liberals to give federal bureaucrats a leading role in setting the price of drugs for seniors.
April 14, 2007
Socialist Sanders Fits in Well With Senate Democrats
By Michael Franc
I'm referring to an opinion piece in The Washington Post, penned by two feisty Vermonters who want the Green Mountain State to secede from the United States. Their case is an eclectic mix of progressive and libertarian concerns. “Over the past 50 years,” they argue, "the U.S. government has ... abandoned the democratic vision of its founders and eroded America's fundamental freedoms." They yearn for a return to a government where "every citizen is a legislator who helps fashion the rules that govern the locality."
March 31, 2007
Democrats Will Face Legislative Disagreements
By Michael Franc
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center has unleashed a torrent of obituaries for the principles conservatives hold dear.
March 24, 2007
Fighting a War With 535 Generals
By Michael Franc
Get ready for the invasion of the armchair generals. With 535 Capitol Hill generals struggling to define every aspect of when and how our troops in Iraq may be deployed, timetables for their withdrawal and specific requirements for how, when and against whom they may strike, the challenge of winning the war in Iraq is about to get a whole lot tougher.
March 17, 2007
Left vs. Right on Education
By Michael Franc
In every legislative struggle, ideological boundaries inevitably emerge. Factions of conservative and liberal lawmakers and their allies define the right and left walls of the debate. The forthcoming battle over the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB)—President Bush’s signature education reform—is no exception.
March 03, 2007
States' Addiction to Welfare Corrupts Federalist System
By Michael Franc
"Welfare," it has been said, "is mistrusted by those who pay for it and held in contempt by those who receive it." This may be true for those who deplore the loss of dignity and the self-destructive behavior that accompanies welfare dependency. But, sadly, it doesn’t ring true for another form of welfare dependency, one that has undermined the dignity of state governments and prompted them to behave in self-destructive ways.
February 24, 2007
Perfect Storm Forming for Congressional Global-Warming Fight
By Michael Franc
Weather used to be the ultimate safe topic for conversation. That was before climate change came along.
February 21, 2007
Recast Federal Entitlements, Fight Tax Hikes
By Michael Franc
When historians look back on our present time, there’s a good chance they will judge President Bush and the current generation of lawmakers by the adequacy of their response to the overriding domestic policy question of our era: Did they exhibit the political courage required to meet the fiscal challenge presented by the aging of the baby boom generation?
February 17, 2007
Labor Unions Team With Liberals for Ambitious Agenda
By Michael Franc
Membership in America's unions continues to plummet, but don't count Big Labor out. Union leaders have joined arms with liberals on Capitol Hill to advance an ambitious but last-gasp legislative agenda.
February 10, 2007
Democrats Offer Big-Government Response to Bush Budget
By Michael Franc
There was a hint of 1980s nostalgia in the way lawmakers reacted to President Bush's latest budget plan. Leading Democrats updated their hoary denunciations of President Reagan's budgets while most Republicans hit long-forgotten Reaganesque notes as they defended Bush's vision on tax burdens, spending levels and national security.
February 09, 2007
End Government Policies That Hamstring Energy Security
By Mike Franc
American demand for energy is expected to increase rapidly over the next two decades, exceeding domestic supplies. This is consistent with sharply rising global demand, which is expected to outpace discovery of new deposits.
February 03, 2007
Another Arms-Control Treaty Would Harm the U.S.
By Michael Franc
On Jan. 11, the strategic balance of power between the United States and the world's largest communist nation shifted. The People's Republic of China launched an anti-satellite weapon more than 500 miles into space and destroyed one of their own decrepit weather satellites. This development adds China to the small list of nations able to conduct military operations in space.
January 27, 2007
Knee-Jerk Left Bashes Bush's Health Insurance Plan
By Michael Franc
During a more tranquil time in Washington, 1999, a pair of odd political bedfellows -- former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R.-Tex.) and Rep. Pete Stark (D.-Calif.) -- co-authored an opinion piece in The Washington Post in which they proposed a way to make health insurance more affordable and available.
January 25, 2007
State of the Union: High Points and Low
By Mike Franc
The expectations for this State of the Union were low. With the media focused almost exclusively on the latest setback in Iraq, Republicans in Congress distancing themselves from his new approach to win the war there, and his public approval reaching new lows, President Bush needed to deliver the most persuasive State of the Union of his presidency.
January 24, 2007
Recasting Entitlements and the Healthcare Market
By Michael Franc
When historians look back on our present time, there's a good chance they will judge President Bush and the current generation of lawmakers by the adequacy of their response to the overriding domestic policy challenge of our era: did they exhibit the political courage required to meet the fiscal challenge presented by the aging of the baby boom generation?
January 24, 2007
Strengthening Energy Supplies and Security
By Michael Franc
American demand for energy is expected to increase rapidly over the next two decades, exceeding domestic supplies. This is consistent with sharply rising global demand, which is expected to outpace discovery of new deposits.
January 24, 2007
Providing Adequate Funding for Defense
By Michael Franc
The stakes in the “long war” against the forces of Islamic fascism are high -- nothing less than the survival of the free world. Congress and the President must ensure that our military receives the resources it needs to prevail. There’s simply no greater challenge.
January 24, 2007
Strengthening Free Enterprise
By Michael Franc
The American tax code is a nightmare. It increasingly overwhelms citizens with its growing complexity, progressively stymies entrepreneurship and economic growth, and threatens to prevent future generations of Americans from enjoying the sort of upward mobility that their parents and grandparents took for granted.
January 20, 2007
Bush Must Challenge Congress to Ensure Prosperity and Security
By Michael Franc
President Bush should focus his State of the Union speech on the two policy challenges that will define his legacy and the legacies of those now serving in Congress: winning the War on Terror and meeting the fiscal challenge posed by the looming retirements of the Baby Boom generation.
January 13, 2007
Democratic Agenda Running on Empty
By Mike Franc
Several weeks ago, I addressed the shrinking Democratic policy agenda. Two developments last week reinforce the growing sense that the vaunted
"100 hour" legislative freight train is running on empty.
January 06, 2007
Time for an Alternative Education Plan
By Michael Franc
January 8 marks the fifth anniversary of President Bush’s signature education reform initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
2006 Commentary
December 23, 2006
Lessons From a 'Do Nothing' Congress
By Michael Franc
As the year ends and Congress transitions to Democratic rule, it’s time to review the most significant accomplishments of the old Congress and ponder what lessons we can learn from them, and how those lessons might apply in the new environment.
December 15, 2006
Democrats Adopt New Motto: Regulate, and Then Regulate Some More
By Michael Franc
Corporate America, "fat cat" investors, entrepreneurs—and maybe even anyone with a special yen for French fries - could be in for a bumpy ride for the next couple of years. Especially if they drive an SUV.
December 06, 2006
Democrats' Agenda Appears Stuck Even Before New Congress Begins
By Michael Franc
November 7 brought news not only of the Democrats’ takeover of Congress. The U.S.S. Intrepid, a retired aircraft carrier that has housed a military museum on Manhattan’s West Side waterfront for a quarter century, was supposed to be towed across the river to Bayonne, N.J., for an extensive overhaul. But it was stuck so firmly in the Hudson River bottom that six powerful tugs couldn’t dislodge it. The lead tugboat pilot blamed “a buildup of mud underneath the vessel.” Though the tugs tried mightily “to get it to wiggle,” he added, the Intrepid “came to a fix” and “just is solidly held.”
November 18, 2006
Charlie Rangel's Dilemma Over the AMT
By Michael Franc
Between 1994 and 2000, a profound realignment occurred in American politics. But not the one you might expect, i.e., Republicans living as privileged elites in gated communities, sequestered from the realities of daily life while Democrats eke out a marginal existence on minimum-wage jobs and try to survive in blighted neighborhoods.
November 11, 2006
Disgruntled Conservatives Have Reason to Hope
By Michael Franc
Republicans have been busy reading the tea leaves of last week’s election debacle. Disgruntled conservatives looking for evidence that they “get it” and will return to their conservative roots have reason to be encouraged.
November 10, 2006
A defeat for the GOP but not conservatism
By Michael Franc
Tuesday's election results, though undoubtedly humiliating to partisan Republicans, did nothing to repudiate the core principles of modern conservatism.
November 04, 2006
Kerry Echoes Liberals' Disdain for Military
By Michael Franc
Sen. John Kerry’s mangled anti-Bush joke has metastasized into a week of negative news for liberals hoping to regain control of the Congress. Even his reluctant apology has done little to quash the fires he lit. Significantly, these fires rage because liberals have yet to expunge the scarlet “D” that has adorned them since the Vietnam War -- “D” for disdain of our military.
October 28, 2006
Addiction to Pork Spending Hurts GOP
By Michael Franc
Official Washington was surprised in April when a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that a plurality of Americans (39%) said the most important issue facing Congress was the proliferation of “earmarks,” or allotting federal dollars to specified projects.
October 21, 2006
What If We Threw an Economic Boom and Nobody Noticed?
By Michael Franc
Let's imagine a conversation between two political experts that might have taken place three months ago. One is a strong conservative, the other an equally strong liberal. All of the statistics and other facts mentioned below are, in fact, real.
October 14, 2006
Democrats Jettison 'Multilateral' Process, Blast Bush Over North Korea
By Michael Franc
The radioactive glow had barely worn off Kim Jong Il’s face when liberals began to lay the blame for North Korea’s detonation of a small nuclear device (maybe) at George W. Bush’s feet. But their criticisms have left many of us downright confused.
October 07, 2006
Paris-Based Bureaucracy Threatens U.S. Pro-Growth Tax Reforms
By Michael Franc
Few Americans know much about the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a Paris-based bureaucracy best known for its dry studies, reams of economic statistics, and world-class wine cellar. But they should know more. After all, it receives about $400 million annually from 30 western democracies, including $85 million from American taxpayers, which covers much of its annual budget.
October 07, 2006
Conservatives Are Solution to Problems in Congress
By Michael Franc
To many conservatives, this Congress is not worth saving. Some even say, as Richard Viguerie wrote in The Washington Monthly, a Republican loss this year could lead to "a rebirth of the conservative movement."
September 30, 2006
Anti-Terror Debate Leaves Democrats Open to Criticism
By Michael Franc
Those following this week’s high-stakes congressional debate on anti-terrorism legislation witnessed the clash of two profoundly different value systems. Unlike most such encounters, the outcome of this debate could determine whether we live or die.
September 23, 2006
Geneva Conventions Should Not Be Suicide Pact
By Michael Franc
“The choice,” Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson once famously wrote, “is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either.
September 12, 2006
Gallup Poll Offers Hope for House GOP
By Michael Franc
The September consensus: nearly unanimous. “Voter anxiety over the economy, health care and financial security,” the Washington Post’s Dan Balz observed, “threatens to put Republican candidates across the country on the defensive this fall.”
August 26, 2006
Security will dominate Congress's short fall session
By Michael Franc
When Congress returns from its August recess, the fireworks will come from three interrelated issues—counterterrorism, border and port security, and national security.
August 19, 2006
War on terror holds key for Republicans
By Michael Franc
Never mind the weather outside. The political barometer in Washington says Republicans are heading into a terrible storm.
Congressional Quarterly recently conducted an exhaustive review of the political winds blowing this summer and concluded that the GOP is in trouble: "All current indicators suggest that the Big One -- hurricane, tidal wave, tsunami or tornado ? -- is gathering in the middle distance."
August 12, 2006
Government study distorts 'Successes' of public schools
By Michael Franc
Do some public-school students perform as well or better than private-school students? A recent study by the federal Department of Education seems to suggest they do.
Test scores from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicated that public-school students enjoyed a 4.5% advantage over private school students in 4th-grade math and were competitive with them in 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade math. They were, though, at a decided 7.3% disadvantage in 8th-grade reading.
July 29, 2006
Minimum-Wage Hike Would Hurt Low-Wage Workers
By Michael Franc
Thanks to a determined coalition of liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans, it is all but guaranteed that, shortly after its August recess, Congress will vote on Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D.-Mass.) proposal to boost the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour, an increase of 40%.
July 24, 2006
Rep. Owens Hails Iran as Paragon of Voting Rights
By Michael Franc
Every so often a member of Congress says something that literally leaves me speechless. Such was my reaction when a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Major Owens (D.-N.Y.), took to the House floor to make the case for extending the Voting Rights Act.
July 15, 2006
Bush's 2003 Tax Cuts: Wildly Successful
By Michael Franc
Supply-side economists should be smiling these days.
July 01, 2006
Korean threat launches Senate into next phase of missile defense
By Michael Franc
"Nothing focuses the mind," Mark Twain might have said, "like the prospect of a North Korean ballistic missile launch." Indeed, the dramatic revelation that the North Koreans may be preparing to launch one of their Taepo Dong missiles over the Pacific, threatening such U.S. allies as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, may have finally focused the minds of the Senate's most determined opponents of missile defense.
June 24, 2006
Joint Committee Blocks Death Tax Repeal
By Michael Franc
What's the greatest obstacle to fundamental tax reform? No, it's not powerful defenders of the tax code, such as the realtors, state and local governments and large employers. Nor is it eloquent liberal lawmakers who specialize in the art of class warfare demagoguery.
June 17, 2006
Shameless Spenders Would Squander War Funds in Congress
By Michael Franc
A glow radiates from the faces of Washington's fiscal conservatives these days. The cause: a string of successes, big and small, in their long-running effort to throttle Washington's band of big spenders.
June 07, 2006
Bipartisan Coalition thwarts GOP majority
By Michael Franc
Earlier this year, moderate Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut speculated openly about how his role in Congress would change should the Democrats regain control of the House in November.
May 20, 2006
Lack of debate fuels rush to amnesty
By Michael Franc
Senators like to think of themselves as members of "the world's greatest deliberative body" -- where lawmakers subject every aspect of major legislation to withering scrutiny before allowing it to come for a final vote.
May 13, 2006
Congress must weigh cost of amnesty
By Michael Franc
Americans, the most recent CBS/New York Times poll found, hold a nuanced set of views on immigration reform. The percentage saying that the level of legal immigration should remain the same or increase now stands at 59%, the highest level ever recorded.
May 05, 2006
Fiscal Conservatives Have Upper Hand in Fight Over 'Emergency' Spending Bill
By Michael Franc
Historians may one day look back on late April 2006 as the time when a besieged second-term Republican president and his desperate allies on Capitol Hill reversed their political fortunes.
April 29, 2006
U.S. energy policy threatens our security
By Michael Franc
It's easy to identify the roots of our dysfunctional national energy policy. Knee-jerk environmentalism, "not in my backyard" parochialism, or the ferocious zeal of entrenched special interests repeatedly combine to block good ideas or promote bad ones.
April 22, 2006
Immigration Plan Overlooks Budget
By Michael Franc
"It could be pretty big," fretted Sen. Jon Kyl (R.-Ariz.), "and one of the problems is nobody knows how big." Moreover, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) added, "this is something ... that we never discussed at all...as we moved forward with legislation which ultimately cleared committee and came to the floor."
April 08, 2006
Illegal immigrants follow the money
By Michael Franc
It's no secret that immigration reform lately has consumed and divided congressional Republicans -- and many Democrats. Missing, though, from the emotional arguments concerning amnesty for illegal aliens, guest-worker programs, and a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border is an understanding of why so many risk life and limb to come to the U.S. and what, if anything, we can do about it.
April 01, 2006
GOP Moderates, Conservatives Clash
By Michael Franc
My last two columns have examined the most significant political development on Capitol Hill in many years -- namely, the decision by many Republican moderates to untether themselves from their party's predominantly conservative mainstream and set off in their own more decidedly liberal direction.
March 25, 2006
Big Spending Has GOP Tilting Leftward
By Michael Franc
Republicans on Capitol Hill have incurred scathing and well-deserved criticism from all ideological quarters for their recent embrace of Big Government.
March 21, 2006
Conservatives' Budget Offers Hope
By Michael Franc
On that memorable day in the spring of 1995, the entire House Republican establishment exuberantly embraced the most stringent budget Washington had seen in decades.
March 07, 2006
Conyers' Ethics Troubles Explode
By Michael Franc
The latest ethics flap in Washington exploded last week on the pages of the Capitol Hill publication The Hill. It involves veteran Michigan Democrat and would-be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers.
February 28, 2006
Saved By the Bill
By Michael Franc
When Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) predicted in 2003 that the Medicare prescription drug benefit would become the "largest intergenerational tax increase in the history of this country" and that it would "cause our children's children to have a lower quality of life than we have had," he wasn't just delivering another soon-to-be-forgotten Senate floor speech.
February 13, 2006
History will judge Bush on terror war, Social Security
By Michael Franc
When historians look back on our present time, there's a good chance they will judge President Bush and the current generation of lawmakers by the adequacy of their response to the two overriding challenges facing America today.
February 11, 2006
Republicans Are Emulating Democrats
By Michael Franc
"Which political party," a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll asked Americans, "do you think has better ideas?" By a margin of 51% to 35%, Americans chose the Democrats.
February 07, 2006
Boehner Offers Bolder Direction for GOP
By Michael Franc
The contours of the 2006 legislative year are now clear.
Congressional Democrats unveiled yet another forgettable policy agenda and the President delivered a State of the Union Address devoid of the usual aggressive domestic policy initiatives. But House Republicans indicated they were ready to strike out in a new, perhaps bolder, direction when they selected Ohio Rep. John Boehner to succeed Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader.
January 31, 2006
Moderate House Democrats Hold Key to GOP Agenda in 2006
By Michael Franc
With leadership elections roiling the waters in the House, senators further degrading the judicial confirmation process, and Democrats raising the flag of corruption at every turn, it's been a long time since a session of Congress began with tempers so short and knives so long.
January 24, 2006
Legislative Lowdown -- Alito Scores Knockout Over Democrats
By Michael Franc
Perhaps the most revealing and underreported exchange during Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings began when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) tried to pin Alito down on whether Roe v. Wade is so powerful as to be a permanent fixture in our constitutional jurisprudence.
January 19, 2006
Post-Abramoff D.C. Needs a Shrink - Real reform
By Michael Franc
Washington's response to the Abramoff indictment has evolved in an important way over the last two weeks. Initially, the reaction focused narrowly on the role of Washington influence-peddling.
January 18, 2006
Alito Understands Courts' Limits
By Michael Franc
Liberals on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been wringing their hands over Judge Samuel Alito’s belief in the theory of the “unitary executive,” which holds that the Constitution vests the presidency with sweeping power, especially in wartime. But their questioning of Alito reveals their own casual embrace of their own unitary theory—that of the “unitary judiciary.”
January 17, 2006
Legislative Lowdown -- Alito Understands Courts' Limits
By Michael Franc
Liberals on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been wringing their hands over Judge Samuel Alito's belief in the theory of the "unitary executive," which holds that the Constitution vests the presidency with sweeping power, especially in wartime.
January 09, 2006
Legislative Lowdown -- Congress Had Two Key Lessons in 2005
By Michael Franc
For conservative lawmakers taking stock of the 2005 legislative year, two important lessons stand out. Whether they learn from them could determine the extent of their successes in 2006.
2005 Commentary
December 28, 2005
Congressional Democrats Are Left Frustrated in Advance of 2006
By Michael Franc
As this session of Congress winds down, it’s worth examining one largely unreported drama -- the outcome of which could determine how House Democrats fare in next year’s elections.
December 19, 2005
'Elder Lawyers' Scam Medicaid
By Michael Franc
Rep. John Dingell was going full tilt. "If this bill passes," the Michigan Democrat recently thundered on the House floor, "destitute elderly will be denied needed nursing home care right when they need it the most." Many seniors would be forced out of homes "that they may have lived in for decades" and would be penalized for helping their families pay medical bills.
December 03, 2005
New Drug Benefit Has Socialist Downside
By Michael Franc
You think seniors are confused about picking a prescription-drug plan under the new Medicare benefit scheduled to take effect January 1? Try listening to the debate on Capitol Hill over it.
November 22, 2005
Pilgrims Beat 'Communism' With Free Market
By Michael Franc
Recalling the story of the Pilgrims is a Thanksgiving tradition, but do you know the real story behind their triumph over hunger and poverty at Plymouth Colony nearly four centuries ago?
November 16, 2005
Opposing ANWR, Democrats Hit Own Voters
By Michael Franc
Last week, House Republican leaders abandoned their effort to open up a barren sliver of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to much-needed oil and gas development. Most media reporting focused on the internal spat that divides moderate from conservative House Republicans.
November 08, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Alaska's Senators Seek Special Treatment
By Michael Franc
Sen. Tom Coburn's (R.-Okla.) unsuccessful attempt to shift almost half a billion taxpayer dollars from two trivial Alaska bridges to the reconstruction of the Lake Pontchartrain Bridge damaged in Hurricane Katrina caused Alaska's senators to rage against the perceived inequity of Coburn's proposal.
October 31, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Senators Make Bid to Delay Prescription Drug Plan
By Michael Franc
This week saw a dramatic development in the maturing effort to implement the "Katrina Doctrine" (the President's call for Congress to pay for the recovery costs associated with the recent hurricanes through offsetting spending cuts).
October 25, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of October 24th
By Michael Franc
Amid all the angst in conservative circles, there is some good news—in the form of two far-reaching education reform proposals introduced by veteran Rep. John Boehner (R.-Ohio).
October 18, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of October 17th
By Michael Franc
With Republican voters unenthusiastic about the President's nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and increasingly disillusioned by the incessant growth of government, it's appropriate to ask whether the Republicans' reign in Congress is in jeopardy.
October 11, 2005
Legislative Lowdown: Week of October 10
By Michael Franc
President Bush and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill say they’re restoring the GOP to its historical role as the party of limited government. But will the results match the rhetoric?
October 04, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of October 3rd
By Michael Franc
Lawmakers from Louisiana and Mississippi have proposed a breathtaking legislative package of disaster assistance for the Gulf Coast region.
September 27, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of September 26th
By Michael Franc
Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) delivered a stem-winder of a speech last week at Brown University. He alleged the President's plan to rebuild the Gulf region would transform it "into a vast laboratory for right-wing ideological experiments."
September 20, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of September 19th
By Michael Franc
Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.) is looking to the New Deal for inspiration as he designs the liberal policy response to Hurricane Katrina.
September 20, 2005
Hurricane of Entitlements
By Michael Franc
Hurricane of Entitlements
September 08, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of September 5
By Michael Franc
High on the Senate's post-recess agenda will be confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. A potentially tense Senate Judiciary Committee markup, followed by up to a week of floor debate and a dramatic up-or-down vote by the full Senate will dominate the Senate's September agenda.
August 30, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of August 29th
By Michael Franc
Ordinary Americans can be excused if they seem befuddled at how often Washington institutions lose touch with reality.
August 15, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of August 15th
By Michael Franc
"We would like to take a moment," the editors of the Wall Street Journal wrote recently, "to pause and marvel at the U.S. economy."
August 02, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of August 1
By Michael Franc
Last month the House of Representatives sent an unambiguous signal to the incompetent bureaucrats at the United Nations when it passed the strongest UN reform bill in decades.
August 02, 2005
Extinct, in Under Five Years?
By Michael Franc
August marks the fifth anniversary of the Hyde Park Declaration. Adopted at FDR's palatial, Hudson River estate by 85 elected moderate Democrats — including five current U.S. senators — the manifesto set forth the New Democrats' "statement of principles and ... policy agenda for the 21st century."
July 26, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of July 25th
By Michael Franc
If Judge John Roberts were a senator, he'd be a shoo-in for the U.S. Supreme Court—at least, according to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.).
July 18, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of July 18th
By Michael Franc
Flashback: During early October 1990, the Senate debated a controversial proposal offered by New York Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan to end the
July 05, 2005
Legislative Lowdown -- Week of July 4th
By Michael Franc
Five justices on the U.S. Supreme Court triggered a judicial earthquake on June 23.
June 27, 2005
