Grover Norquist and Rep. Joe Barton argue for controlling spending to reign in and balance the budget in Roll Call.  “Memo to the 112th Congress: Want to fix what’s wrong? It’s really simple and really difficult: Spend less, balance the budget, grow more… The true cost of government to the American people is the total amount of spending. And the only way to reduce total government spending is to do less of it, starting soon… Want to put things right in America again? Get control of government spending, balance the federal budget and restart the economic growth.”

Billy Gribbin, a federal affairs associate at Americans for Tax Reform is in The Daily Caller, “GIPSA chief is finger lickin’ bad…A trial lawyer, Mr. [J. Dudley] Butler is now serving as the Administrator of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), an agency of the USDA tasked with regulating the trade of poultry, livestock, and other agricultural products… Butler took the lead in… whittling down the evidence required to establish that “undue preference” has been shown by meat companies in buying from one small producer or another. This translates into an easier and more profitable job for the plaintiff’s attorneys … The cost of fighting and protecting against such suits will inevitably be passed down to the consumer. J. Dudley Butler operates under what is fast becoming the watchword of the Obama administration: if you can’t beat ’em, regulate ’em.”

ATR friend and ally Chris Freind appears in The Philly Post announcing that “Marcellus Shale Is Not An NBA Player… It's the key to Pennsylvania's future.” Freind continues, “If lame duck Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and his protégé, failed gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato, had their way, the Marcellus Shale industry would have died before ever getting off the ground. Those politicians wanted to impose a severance (extraction) tax on natural gas, as high as ten percent… Thankfully, Governor-elect Tom Corbett, with a No-New-Tax promise being the cornerstone of his campaign, trounced Onorato. In doing so, he slammed the door shut on the catastrophic failure that will forever be known as the Rendell Legacy, and opened a portal to opportunity not seen in Pennsylvania for generations.”

More government intrusion? ATR’s Patrick Gleason explains in The Daily Caller, “Fed up Americans recently united in telling the government not to touch their collective junk and the message appears to be getting through, at least somewhat, as the Transportation Security Administration is reportedly reevaluating the new enhanced pat-down procedure in response to public outcry. But the TSA’s taxpayer-funded grope-a-thon is not the only unpopular policy that received public rebuke last month… One of the most exemplary and least discussed manifestations of this sentiment on election night was voter backlash against soda taxes and the lawmakers who voted for them… A clear trend has emerged and soda taxes have become a prominent example of the public’s disdain for unnecessary government intrusion in their lives and livelihoods. After last month it should be clear to all incumbent and incoming lawmakers that soda taxes are bad policy, bad politics, and should be quickly dismissed.”

Posted by Will Upton on Monday, December 6, 2010 4:56 PM EST

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