Republican leaders have named Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch chairman of the High Tech Task Force, a 12-member GOP group that focuses on technology issues.
"I'm confident Sen. Hatch will lead the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force to support American innovators, expand technological advances to rural areas and create good jobs here at home," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Hatch, who has been on the task force for some time, will serve as chairman for the next two years. It was created in 1999 to boost discussions between Republican senators and tech-industry representatives.
Q. Do you believe that implementing a cap-and-trade program or a carbon tax would result in net job losses?
A. Yes
Q. Some climatologists believe that implementing a cap-and-trade or a program that would reduce carbon emissions by 83 percent in the year 2050 would reduce temperatures by only nine-hundredths of 1 degree Fahrenheit. Are we sacrificing million of jobs in order to reduce climate change by nine-hundredths of 1 degree?
A. The precise level of U.S. emissions will not affect climate risks in any quantifiable way if they are on a general track towards near-zero emissions. This is particularly true because global climate outcomes over the next century will be determined by controls on developing country emissions much more so than by a few percentage points of difference in U.S. emissions during the next couple of decades.
Many tax code problems exist solely because tax brackets, limits and deductions haven't kept pace with inflation. One of those areas is the limit for the deduction of capital losses.
Senator Hatch and Senator Blanche Lincoln introduced a bill Tuesday to fix this problem with the tax code, The Desert News reports:
Amid the recession's body-slam on stock-market prices, Sen. Orrin Hatch has introduced a bill to increase significantly the amount of capital losses that individual taxpayers may deduct in a year.
The bill, which Hatch is pushing with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., would allow deducting $10,000 in such losses against ordinary income, up from the current $3,000 limit. The new $10,000 limit would then also be increased each year automatically to match inflation.
To understand the bill, it helps to remember that investors may receive ordinary income on assets, such as dividends and interest. They also may have capital gains if they sell their stocks or bonds for more than they paid for them. A capitol loss occurs when people sell their investments for less than they paid originally.
Capital losses now can be offset against capital gains without limit. However, current law limits the amount of capital loss that can be deducted against ordinary income to $3,000 a year.
Unused capital losses can be carried over to future years indefinitely, where they can be used against future capital gains or to offset, again, up to $3,000 in ordinary income a year in the future.
"This is a question of fairness," Hatch said. "Allowing individual investors to deduct only $3,000 per year when their total losses may come to many times that much is simply not fair. The tax code taxes gains without limit, so it should not place such a restrictive limitation on losses."
With the 39.3% loss in the S&P 500 last year, many individuals have been limited in their ability to deduct their losses when they sold his or her investment (stocks, bonds for example) for less than what was paid for it.
Senator Hatch remembered the late Congressman Jack Kemp and offered his condolences to the entire Kemp family in a speech before the U.S. Senate yesterday:
Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American and friend, former Congressman Jack Kemp. I was deeply saddened to learn of his passing and offer my sincerest condolences to his sweet wife, Joanne, their four children, Jeffrey, Jennifer, Judith, and James, and 17 grandchildren. Jack has left a lasting impression and legacy that will be honored and long remembered by a grateful nation.
Jack came to Congress after 13 years as a professional football quarterback. His career in professional football demonstrates the value of persistence, self-confidence, and courage. Jack began his football career slowly and without much success. However, he was fiercely competitive and eventually led the Buffalo Bills to 33 victories and two league championships. He was selected All-League quarterback, AFL Player of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and appeared in five AFL championship games and seven AFL All-Star games. Jack was also recognized by Sporting News as one of the top 50 quarterbacks of all time. Sports taught him that the only real failure is not trying again, and that out of adversity comes strength, determination, and ultimate victory.
When asked if being a football star helped him get elected to Congress, Jack responded, "Yes, to the extent that I had name recognition and people knew who I was. That kind of identification cuts two ways. On the one hand, it was harmful because some people consider professional football to be anti-intellectual and an inadequate training ground for political leadership. To the contrary, I believe pro football is great training for leadership. In fact, I hope more athletes choose politics as a profession so that we don't leave the field to attorneys."
Senator Hatch recently wrote an essay for Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy about the role of the Constitution in judicial nominations and confirmations.
Below are a few excerpts:
Nonetheless, the timing of this Essay is auspicious in several respects. First, I write in the wake of two very relevant Federalist Society student symposia, last year's about the people and the courts and this year's about the separation of powers. Second, President Obama has been particularly clear from the time he was a candidate about his intention to appoint judges who will exercise a strikingly political version of judicial power. Third, he has already started acting on that intention by making his first judicial nominations. New Presidents typically make their first judicial nominations in July or even August, yet the Senate Judiciary Committee has already held a hearing on the President's first nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the President sent two more nominees to the Senate just a few days ago.
Continuing, Senator Hatch explains the role of the Constitution in judicial nominations:
Consider a judicial nomination as a hiring process based on a job description. The job description of a judge is to interpret and apply law to decide cases. This job description does not mean whatever a President, political party, or Senate majority wants it to mean. Our written Constitution and its separation of powers set the judicial job description. Interpreting written law must be different than making written law. Because law written in statutes or the Constitution is not simply words, but really the meaning of the words, only those with authority to make law may determine what the words of our laws say and what those words mean. Judges do not have authority to make law, so they do not have authority to choose what the words of our laws say or what they mean. In other words, judges apply the law to decide cases, but they may not make the law they apply. Judges and the law they use to decide cases are two different things. Judging, therefore, is about a process that legitimates results, a process by which the law made by the people and those they elect determines winners and losers.
The Constitution and its separation of powers compel this judicial job description. This kind of judge is consistent with limited government and the ordered liberty it makes possible. Justice Markman's article describes what he calls a "traditional jurisprudence -- one that views the responsibility of the courts to say what the law 'is' rather than what it 'ought' to be." Such a philosophy of judicial restraint -- an understanding of the limited power and role of judges -- is a qualification for judicial service. This is the kind of judge a President should nominate.
On the show this Sunday: Chair of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the Committee's longest serving Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Ut. With the news that Justice David Souter plans to resign at the end of this term, we'll debate the future of the courts, how the Obama administration will handle this additional challenge, and who is likely to fill Souter's seat.
This Week is broadcast on KTVX, ABC 4 in Salt Lake City at 9:30 am. Additional local listings can be found here.
Senator Hatch introduced legislation today to put the brakes to the runaway growth in government spending -- 22% in just two years.
The Limitation on Government Spending Act of 2009 would limit government spending to 20% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product -- essentially the size of the U.S. economy).
Senator Hatch discusses the bill:
At a time when Utahns and Americans are tightening their wallets, this budget grows the size of government, excluding nondefense-related spending in just two years by 22 percent.
Many Americans, as demonstrated last week through TEA parties, are asking if this government spending will ever stop. After trillions for bailouts and other government spending, this budget makes no hard choices to reform runaway spending.
...
It is time that we restrict government spending. It will cause us to make some tough decisions about what is really important. One thing is certain, we cannot continue down the path we are headed. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to change course and get back on the path to fiscal sanity.
Senator Hatch voted against President Obama's Cabinet nominee for the department of Health and Human Services in a Finance committee vote on Tuesday. Senator Hatch voted against Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius nomination after learning that Sebelius omitted key facts regarding her connection to late-term abortion doctor George Tiller.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Monday that Sebelius initially "seemed to be a qualified candidate for the job."
"However, after learning about her inexplicable omission of donations from the late-term abortion doctor George Tiller, I have to reevaluate my support for her nomination," said Hatch.
Sen. Orrin Hatch cast his first vote against a nominee for President Barack Obama's Cabinet, saying that the pick for Health and Human Services omitted telling the Senate Finance Committee about campaign donations from an abortion doctor.
Republican Hatch previously backed other nominees despite critics from his own party who said unpaid taxes or related missteps should have disqualified them. Hatch said the president should get his choices for his administration unless they're unqualified or unethical.
Tuesday, Hatch said HHS nominee Kathleen Sebelius should have disclosed all donations by George Tiller, an abortion doctor under investigation by the medical board in her home state of Kansas. The complaint under review involves allegations he performed late-term abortions without getting the independent second opinions required by state law. A Wichita jury last month acquitted Tiller of 19 misdemeanors stemming from similar allegations.
Sebelius responded to Senate Finance Committee questions that Tiller had given her $12,450 but then revised that to add another $23,000 after an Associated Press report pointed out her political action committee had received funds as well.
Hatch, a pro-life Republican, said he was "disappointed" and voted with seven other GOP senators against her in committee.
Senator Hatch commented further:
Although Governor Sebelius initially seemed to be the right person for the job based on her long record of public service, unfortunately, I had to reevaluate my support for her nomination after learning about her inexplicable omission of donations from the late-term abortion doctor George Tiller.
My service in Congress has always been based on the conviction that life is sacred. When I served as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I shepherded legislation to ban partial birth abortion through the Senate. Getting that bill signed into law was one of my proudest legislative accomplishments. My strong beliefs in the sanctity of life simply made it impossible for me to support Governor Sebelius' nomination.
Reforming our nation's health care system to provide every American access to quality and affordable health care is one of my top priorities. Governor Sebelius will play a key role in reforming our health care system. Although we do not agree on some very important issues, I am confident that we will be able to work together to ensure quality health care for every American family.
