Weekly Columns

President Obama's decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline was met with near universal outrage from both ends of the political spectrum. With good reason. The construction and operation of the Keystone pipeline would create 20,000 direct jobs and as many as 118,000 related jobs. By expanding access to oil from our allies in Canada, the pipeline could greatly reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil -- a vital step toward enhancing national security and lowering fuel prices.

In a recent speech at the Pentagon, President Obama announced his plans to make significant changes to the size and strategies of U.S. military forces. Under the new strategy, Army and Marine Corps forces will be reduced and our military presence in Europe will be scaled back.

With the start of a new year, the White House is wasting no time setting the stage for more of the same regulatory overreach that has bedeviled employers and stifled job creation since President Obama took office.

On January 4, the president announced his decision to issue a so-called "recess appointment" to install Richard Cordray to lead the controversial new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). President Obama used the same procedure to appoint three new members to oversee the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

It's official: This Congress is the least popular in history. The 17 percent average yearly approval rating for the 112th Congress is the lowest recorded in the 30 years Gallup has been tracking congressional ratings.

The appropriations process of the first session of the 112th Congress ended on a surprisingly positive note with passage of a 2012 funding bill that cut government spending for the second year in a row. National Journal reporter Major Garrett described this year's spending cuts as "the deepest and most unsettling" that "official Washington" has ever seen, but most conservatives would just call the $95 billion in cuts a good start. Much more progress is needed to undo the damage of decades of reckless spending and put the nation on sound fiscal footing.

As with most things in Washington, this year's appropriations process was slow and frustrating, but the end result is a major victory for fiscal sanity.

On December 16, Congress finalized a fiscal 2012 government appropriations bill that cuts spending for the second consecutive year -- the first time since World War II that government spending has been reduced in back-to-back years. These are real spending cuts that reduce spending by $95 billion compared to fiscal year 2010 and brings non-defense discretionary spending down to 2008 levels.

Concerns about government overreach and overregulation are among the the most common complaints I've heard in town hall meetings this year. And no government regulation has inspired more justified outrage recently among Oklahomans than the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed new rules controlling farm dust.

Last month, the Federal Election Commission announced that it has doled out $17.7 million in taxpayer money to both the Republican and Democratic parties to fund their 2012 presidential nominating conventions. Days later, U.S. debt reached $15 trillion. The timing of these two events reinforces the fact that is is simply outrageous to devote millions in taxpayer money to pay for presidential campaigns when we're going broke.