Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has offered the president a way to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion without having to cut spending. The WaPo reports that “McConnell’s strategy makes no provision for spending cuts to be enacted.”

This appears to be an epic cave-in and completely at odds with McConnell’s own pronouncements in recent months that major budget reforms must be tied to any debt-limit increase.

House Republicans should obviously reject McConnell’s surrender, and they should do what they should have done months ago. They should put together a package of $2 trillion in real spending cuts taken straight from the Obama fiscal commission report and pass it through the House tied to a debt-limit increase of $2 trillion. Then they shouldn’t budge unless the White House and/or the Senate produce their own $2 trillion packages of real spending cuts, which could be the basis of negotiating a final spending-cut deal.

For those who say that House tea party members won’t vote for a debt increase, I’d say that $2 trillion in spending cuts looks a lot better than the alternative of having Democrats and liberal Republicans doing an end-run around them with McConnell’s no-cut plan.

For those who say that House members are scared of voting for specific spending cuts, I’d say that they’ve already done it by passing the Paul Ryan budget plan. I’d also say that you can’t claim to be the party of spending cuts without voting for spending cuts.

Obama’s Fiscal Commission handed Republicans ready-made spending cuts on a silver platter—Republicans will never get better political cover for insisting on spending cuts than now.

McConnell’s Cave-In and Boehner’s Opportunity is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Today POLITICO Arena asks:

Is Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s announcement today that he will not seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, and the reason he gave for his decision, the right call?

My response:

Gov. Barbour’s explanation for why he will not seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination — because a candidate today “is embracing a ten-year commitment to an all-consuming effort, to the virtual exclusion of all else,” and he cannot make such a commitment — is not only refreshingly candid but points to a much deeper problem.

We are moving inexorably not simply to news but to politics 24/7/365. And what better example than our current part-time president who, with no primary challenger in sight, is already on the campaign trail (did he ever leave it?), when the election is 19 months away. Some of us are old enough to remember when elected officials served — and ran for office or reelection only around election time.

Part of the reason for the change is the need today for vast amounts of campaign cash. But the deeper reason, I submit, is because politics has taken over so much of life. When government was more limited, and we didn’t look to it to provide our every need and want, those who “governed” didn’t feel such a need to cater to us — and we had better things to do anyway than obsess over politics. Calvin Coolidge took naps in the White House — in his pajamas! Imagine that today.

All-Consuming Politics is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Last year I noted that the White House Office of Management and Budget homepage featured a call from the president to “invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt.” Yet, the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of his then-current budget proposal showed that publicly held debt as a share of GDP would rise like the steep slope of a mountain under his policies.

The president’s latest budget proposal was released in February, and according to the CBO’s preliminary analysis, Obama would once again leave “our people” with a mountain of debt:

Given that the quote is clearly embarrassing, one would think that the White House would have taken it down by now. But it’s still there.

Return to Debt Mountain is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

As Congress and the White House continue to debate the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one of the oft heard concerns is that if we eliminate all the various mortgage subsidies in our system, then the cost of a mortgage will increase.  There certainly is a basic logic to that concern.  After all, why have subsidies if they don’t lower the price of the subsidized good.  Of course some, if not all, of said subsidy could be eaten up by the providers/producers of that good.

All this begs the question, with all the subsidies we have for mortgage finance, are mortgages actually cheaper in the U.S.?  While not perfect, one way of answering that question is to look at mortgage rates in other countries.   Although every developed country has some sort of government intervention in their mortgage market, almost all have considerably less support then that provided by the U.S.  (For a useful comparison of international differences see Michael Lea’s paper).

The European Mortgage Federation regularly collects information on mortgage pricing by EU countries.   The latest complete annual data from the EMF’s Hypostat database is for 2009, with at least a decade of historical data.

A quick glance reveals that mortgage rates in most European countries are not all that different than rates in the U.S.  For instance in 2009, the U.S. 30 year mortgage rate was, on average, 5.04; whereas mortgages in France averaged 4.6 and those in Germany averaged 4.29.  In the UK, the average was 4.34.

Part of this difference is driven by product type.  For instance, in France, most mortgages tend to be 15 year, which one would expect to be cheaper than a 30 year.  But the French 15 year rate of 4.6 isn’t all that different from the current U.S. 15 year rate of 4.1.  As lending rates are usually bench-marked off the rate on government debt, part of the slightly higher rate in some European countries is due to their higher government borrowing rate.  If we instead measure mortgage costs as a spread over government funding costs (as reported by the OECD), then many European countries look more affordable than the U.S.  For instance, German mortgages price about 100 basis points over long-term German govt debt; whereas U.S. mortgages price about 140 basis points over long-term U.S. government debt.

I don’t expect these numbers to settle the debate.  A variety of other costs, such as points paid or required downpayments, differ dramatically across countries.  Unfortunately that data does not seem to be readily available.  What the preceding comparison does suggest, however, is that even without Fannie and Freddie, U.S. mortgage rates aren’t necessarily going to be a lot higher.

Are Mortgages Cheaper in the U.S.? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Today POLITICO Arena asks:

At his press conference this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs distanced the Obama administration from former Egypt envoy Frank Wisner’s suggestion over the weekend that Hosni Mubarak should stay in power as Egypt transitions to a new government. Was Wisner, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, right about that and about the potential for a power vacuum?

My response:

Wisner was half right, but on the Mubarak half he was almost certainly wrong. Transitions are messy — at best. Ask the French about theirs two centuries and more ago. Occasionally they’re done pursuant to existing constitutions. Ours from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution wasn’t, despite which it wasn’t all that messy. We were lucky. We had a relatively healthy culture and strong leaders, even if the early years were often touch and go, as we sometimes forget.

It appears, from press accounts, that the current Egyptian constitution does not provide for the kind of transition that many would like to see. If so, then extra-constitutional measures will need to be taken, including perhaps the drafting and ratification of a new or at least an interim constitution, or more likely some less formal arrangement through which interim authority can be brought into being with a semblance of legitimacy about it – whether a new government or a new constitution and ratification process. A simple call for elections is too simple: by whom, under what procedures, to fill what offices, in what institutions?

All of this is where politics in its most elemental form comes to the fore, for better or worse, as the French saw to their horror. It’s the ultimate test of a culture. So Wisner was right about “the potential for a power vacuum” — although in Egypt the army is likely to fill that vacuum — and in recognizing that a vacuum should be avoided, if possible. But he was likely wrong to suggest that Mubarak should fill that vacuum or serve as a transitional figure since it appears that he no longer has the credibility to do so. Ideally, leaders with credibility need to emerge, and soon.

On Egypt’s Transition is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The new Egyptian cabinet was sworn in today amidst a seventh day of protests across the country.  For the White House, the continual tweaking of their response to the crisis, and declining to call for Mubarak to step-down, has left many in Egypt and the region wondering if the United States does in fact want to see the arrival of democracy to Cairo, or if it is simply content with allowing the status-quo to remain, with minor reforms.  Or perhaps they are just waiting for the chips to fall where they may.

This illustrates the conundrum facing the Obama administration.  Over at The Skeptics, I examine this a bit further:

The Obama administration is stuck with a policy not entirely of its own making – decades of U.S. taxpayer support for the Mubarak regime – but it also seems trapped by the dominant worldview in Washington that is preoccupied with finding a solution to every problem in the world. This global view flows from deeply flawed assumptions about the likelihood of a worst-case scenario transpiring in every case, and then exaggerating the impact of that worst-case on U.S. security. In many instances, the impact is presumed to be nearly catastrophic. In actuality, they almost never are.

Might Egypt be an exception? It is an important country in its own right, traditionally a center of the Arab world. Its population of 80 million people is larger than that of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon combined. Egypt is the second leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, behind only Israel, and it straddles one of the most important choke points in the world, the Suez Canal. Given its size, influence and location, there is the possibility that this spreads elsewhere. Protests have also broken out in Yemen, Algeria, and Sudan. The Saudis and Jordanians are nervous.

So how should the U.S. respond? In the short-term, the U.S. government needs to strike a balance, and not be seen as pushing too hard for Mubarak’s ouster; but Washington should not anoint a would-be successor, either. The message should be: this is for the Egyptian people to decide.

Click here to read the entire post.

Protests in Egypt Continue is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

It is unclear whether New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) will make it to the Senate floor this year or if there are 67 votes for it if it does. According to the White House and arms control boosters, that uncertainty endangers us all by leaving Russia’s nuclear arsenal unmonitored and undermining our non-proliferation agenda. According to pundits, New START’s failure to pass in the lame-duck would be a grievous political wound for Obama adminstration, which is struggling to buy enough Republican votes for ratification.

In an op-ed out today on the National Interest‘s website, Owen Cote and I say this talk is mostly hot air. New START just isn’t that big a deal. We write:

[New START] would provide minor increases in intelligence and Russian goodwill. But passing it means handing taxpayers a substantial new tab on top of what we already pay for our bloated nuclear weapons complex. And rather than reducing the arsenal’s size and cost, the treaty props it up…. The real impact of New START is distraction. By faking a drawdown, the treaty keeps Americans from noticing that deterring our enemies requires nothing like the force structure we plan to retain.

Overwrought On START is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

With the recent discovery of “robo-signers” and other paperwork problems in the mortgage foreclosure process, several prominent congressional Democrats have called for a national moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.  At least one large lender has already started to implement one.  A moratorium, however, would be irresponsible and harmful. And the White House is correct to oppose it.

Whatever mistakes might have been made by lenders do not change the basic fact: most foreclosures are happening because the borrower is not paying the mortgage.  I recently talked to one large lender who said of their delinquent mortgages that over a fourth have not made a payment in over two years.  How exactly is someone who has been getting two years of free rent a victim?

Of course, in the small number of cases where a real mistake has been made and a foreclosure is moving forward against a borrower who is current on their mortgage, the courts have the ability to stop that from proceeding.  In judicial foreclosure states the easiest solution to this problem is for the judge to ask the borrower, “When was the last payment you made?”  If it has been awhile, say over six months, then the foreclosure should proceed, and proceed quickly.

Its been four years since the housing market peaked.  Government policy has continued to delay the needed correction in our housing market.  A moratorium on foreclosures only puts off a turnaround in the housing market.  And if we ever expect or hope to see private capital come back into the mortgage market, then government needs to stop threatening to steal away that capital once it’s invested.  The current efforts by states to use technical mistakes by lenders to allow borrowers to remain in homes without paying could ultimately undermine the very concept of a mortgage: that it is a loan secured by property.  Instead, we risk seeing mortgages turned into another form of unsecured lending, which would raise interest rates for everyone.

White House Right to Oppose Moratorium is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Today POLITICO Arena asks:

Will President Obama’s campaign finance attacks on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others resonate with voters over the next three weeks?

My response:

With so many senior advisors leaving the White House so early in the term, you have to wonder who’s left to advise the president except, well — the president. And judging from his attacks on corporate campaign spending generally and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in particular, you’re inclined to believe that that’s the case. After all, the attacks are perfectly consistent with the president’s larger agenda.

As others here at the Arena have noted, not since the New Deal have we seen so sustained an anti-business political agenda as has come from this president. Under such an assault, is it any wonder that businesses have created so few jobs, or that they’re fighting back? Yet for that, the president is criticizing them — with campaign finance claims that not even the New York Times finds credible.

This campaign finance angle has an especially unseemly air about it, however – see the Wall Street Journal’s editorial this morning about Democrats unleashing the IRS and Justice on donors to their political opponents. The effort to restrict the speech that campaign finance represents — promoted by the political establishment, especially Democrats — has always been at bottom about incumbency protection, not “good government.” We didn’t hear complaints when Obama abandoned the public financing system in 2008, for example, as “unconscionable” amounts of private money poured into his campaign. Obama may be barking now that the shoe’s on the other foot, but his bark rings as hollow as his agenda, which is why it’s not resonating with the voters, and is not likely to in the three weeks ahead.

Obama’s Attack on the Chamber of Commerce: Perfectly Consistent is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday, President Obama hosted the White House Summit on Community Colleges, and in-your-face love was in the air. President Obama and Second Lady Jill Biden, a community college professor, couldn’t keep their hands off their signficant other, lavishing all sorts of praise on their favorite little schools.

Swooned Dr. Biden about the dreamy things community colleges do for their students:

They are students like the mother who shared her experience with us on the White House website of working towards a degree while raising three children and straddling financial challenges.  Now employed and the holder of a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree, she wrote, “Community colleges didn’t just change my life, they gave me my life.”

Community colleges do that every day. 

Ick!

The President, too, couldn’t hide his affection:

So I think it’s clear why I asked Jill to travel the country visiting community colleges -– because, as she knows personally, these colleges are the unsung heroes of America’s education system.  They may not get the credit they deserve.  They may not get the same resources as other schools.  But they provide a gateway to millions of Americans to good jobs and a better life.

Like the guy with the locker next to Mr. and Mrs. Lovebird, all I can say is “oh, come on!”

Community colleges might be a good option for some people, but they are hardly paragons of educational success. Quite the opposite: According to the U.S. Department of Education, they have the worst graduation rates of any two-year sector of higher education. Only around 22 percent of public, two-year college students graduate within three years, versus roughly 49 percent of private, not-for-profit attendees and about 59 percent of private, for-profit students.

Wait! What’s that? Private, for-profit institutions outperform super-cute community colleges…by a lot? But they’re the ugliest, meanest, least popular kids in school!  Nobody likes them!

Oh, I know what’s going on here! For-profit schools cost a lot more than community colleges, right? That’s why they’re so disliked.

That’s true if you look at tuition prices. But community colleges get big subsidies from government, especially state and local taxpayers. So they might actually cost a lot, it’s just that they sneak the money out of your back pocket and then congratulate themselves for charging students so little.  

When you look at government expenditures per-pupil, including aid to schools and students, it becomes clear that community colleges are, in fact, just as mean and greedy as for-profits. Indeed, former Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro has calculated that they are actually more costly to taxpayers than for-profit schools (see table 24). According to his calculations, two-year public schools cost taxpayers $6,919 per student, while private, for-profits cost just $3,628. 

No wonder the summit turned my stomach! At the same time the administration and its allies in Congress are bashing for-profit schools, the President has a love fest with community colleges that are generally much worse. Unfortunately, it leaves you concluding that for-profits could walk on water and it wouldn’t matter: As long as they’re honest about trying to make a buck, they’ll be beaten up in the parking lot and never invited to any of the cool summits.

Enough Community College PDA is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The White House’s misbegotten “Summer of Recovery” continued today with the release of another administration “analysis” that purportedly demonstrates the stimulus’s success in “transforming” the economy.

Vice President Joe Biden unveiled the report alongside Energy secretary Steven Chu and numerous businesses officials willing to serve as political props in return for Uncle Sam’s free candy. Biden bemoaned the nefarious “special interests” that were coddled by the previous administration. What does the vice president think those subsidized business officials attending his speech are called?

The money the White House has lavished on these privileged businesses isn’t free. The money comes from taxpayers—including businesses that do not enjoy the favor of the White House—who consequently have $100 billion (plus interest) less to spend or invest. Therefore, the fundamental question is: Are Joe Biden — an individual who has spent his entire career in government— and the Washington political class better at directing economic activity than the private sector?

Biden repeatedly stated that the “government plants the seed and the private sector makes it grow.” Because the government possesses no “seeds” that it didn’t first confiscate from the private sector, what the vice president is advocating is the redistribution of capital according to the dictates of the Beltway. This mindset exemplifies the arrogance of the political class, which at its core believes that free individuals are incapable of making the “right” decision without the guiding hand of the state.

Unfortunately for Joe Biden, the state’s hand guided the private sector into the economic downturn that the administration and its apologists would have us believe was a consequence of imaginary laissez faire policies. From the housing market planners at HUD to the money planners at the Federal Reserve, government interventions led to the economic turmoil that the perpetrating political class now claims it can fix.

Enough already.

The following are Cato resources that challenge the vice president’s breezy rhetoric on the ability of the federal government to direct economic growth:

• Energy Subsidies: The government has spent billions of dollars over the decades on dead-end schemes and dubious projects that have often had large cost overruns.
• Energy Regulations: Most federal intrusions into energy markets have been serious mistakes. They have destabilized markets, reduced domestic output, and decreased consumer welfare.
• Energy Interventions: The current arguments for energy intervention and energy subsidies fall short.
• High-Speed Rail: Policymakers are dumping billions of dollars into high-speed rail, even though foreign systems are money losers and carry only a small share of intercity passengers.
• Special-Interest Spending: Many federal programs deliver subsidies to particular groups of individuals and businesses while harming taxpayers and damaging the overall economy.

Biden’s Fatal Conceit is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Politico Arena asks today for continued comment on Obama’s Ground Zero mosque “correction.”

My response

Well, well: What a difference a day makes. Yesterday [Saturday] most POLITICO Arena contributors – including law professors, shockingly – were falling over themselves to defend President Obama’s Friday night Ground Zero mosque remarks — on constitutional principle, no less — while a very few of us were cutting through that nonsense.

Meanwhile, the president and the White House were struggling to get the word out that constitutional principle wasn’t really the point at issue here. It was, rather, the “wisdom” of building a mosque so close to Ground Zero. Now that we’re clear about that, perhaps Arena contributors can focus on that issue, not the straw man they erected to skewer the constitutionally benighted they imagined afoot.

But there’s another issue here, too. On Friday night we saw, once again, the real Barack Obama, the Obama who disparages Americans who “cling to guns or religion,” the Obama who rushes to condemn Cambridge policemen who act “stupidly.” No White House spinmeister can take any of that back

Obama Backpedals on Ground Zero Mosque is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The White House Office of Management and Budget homepage currently features the following quote from the president:

President Obama says he wants to “invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt.”

That’s a curious statement because the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the president’s current budget proposal projects that publicly held debt as a share of the economy would reach levels last seen at the end of the Second World War.

When the CBO’s numbers are plugged into a bar chart, the projected Obama debt levels (red bars) look like…the upward slope of a mountain (!):

To be fair, Obama’s predecessors — particularly the previous Bush administration — share in the responsibility for the mountainous rise in federal debt. However, that’s all the more reason for the Obama administration to work toward a peak instead of a steeper incline.

‘Mountain of Debt’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

When I first began tracking the results of President Obama’s Sunlight Before Signing promise to post bills coming from Congress online for five days before signing them, I quickly noticed that the White House was holding many bills for five days in the natural course of business, but not posting them, denying itself easy successes.

Followers of this blog and that issue may recall seeing columns in my Sunlight Before Signing tables titled “Five Days?” That was to say, “Hey, White House! These are easy wins for you!”

Well, as I reported in my last update, the White House has now made a practice of posting all bills on a special section of the Whitehouse.gov web site. And they are posting all the bills they receive.

We no longer need to highlight those five-day bills, so we’ve simplified the chart!

As you’ll see below, we’ve got the date the bill was presented to the president, the date he signed it into law, and a “Yes” or “No” simply to indicate whether there was Sunlight Before Signing compliance or not.

And the results are? . . . getting better—but painfully slowly.

President Obama has signed 213 bills into law now. One was an emergency bill, not subject to the Sunlight Before Signing promise. Out of the 212 remaining bills, he’s carried out his Sunlight Before Signing promise on 54 occasions—just over a quarter of the time.

In 2009, the administration was 6 for 124 — a dismal .049 average. So far in 2010, he’s 48 for 88, giving bills the promised sunlight just over half the time.

That’s a pretty far cry from carrying out his clear promise to put all bills online five days before signing them. But we’re seeing improvement. I’ve long guessed that we’ll see full implementation after the next election when people’s attention turns to the credibility of the president on the 2012 campaign trail.

With that, the full Sunlight Before Signing chart…

Public Law	Date Presented	Date Signed	Posted [(Linked)]?	Posted Five Days?
P.L. 111-2, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009	1/28/2009	1/29/2009	1/29/2009*	No
P.L. 111-3, The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009	2/4/2009	2/4/2009	(2/1/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-4, The DTV Delay Act	2/9/2009	2/11/2009	2/5/2009*	Yes †
P.L. 111-5, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009	2/16/2009	2/17/2009	(2/13/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-6, Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2009, and for other purposes	3/6/2009	3/6/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-7, A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2105 East Cook Street in Springfield, Illinois, as the “Colonel John H. Wilson, Jr. Post Office Building”	2/26/09	3/9/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-8, The Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009	3/11/2009	3/11/2009	(3/5/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-9, To extend certain immigration programs	3/18/2009	3/20/2009	(3/19/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-10, To provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes	3/19/2009	3/20/2009	(3/19/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-11, The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009	3/30/2009	3/30/2009	(3/27/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-12, The Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2009	3/24/2009	3/30/2009	(3/24/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-13, The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act	4/20/2009	4/21/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-14, To designate the United States courthouse under construction at 327 South Church Street, Rockford, Illinois, as the “Stanley J. Roszkowski United States Courthouse”	4/14/2009	4/23/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-15, The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Act of 2009	4/14/2009	4/24/2009	(3/27/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-16, The Statutory Time-Periods Technical Amendments Act of 2009	4/30/2009	5/7/2009	(4/29/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-17, A joint resolution providing for the appointment of David M. Rubenstein as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution	4/28/2009	5/7/2009	(4/23/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-18, A bill to repeal section 10(f) of Public Law 93-531, commonly known as the “Bennett Freeze”	4/28/2009	5/8/2009	(4/23/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-19, The Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009	4/30/2009	5/12/2009	(4/29/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-20, The Protecting Incentives for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs Act of 2009	5/5/2009	5/15/2009	(5/5/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-21, The FERA	5/19/2009	5/20/2009	(5/15/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-22, The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009	5/20/2009	5/22/2009	(5/20/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-23, The Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009	5/21/2009	5/22/2009	5/14/2009*	No
P.L. 111-24, The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009	5/20/2009	5/22/2009	5/15/2009*	No
P.L. 111-25, The Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act	5/21/2009	6/2/2009	(5/28/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-26, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12877 Broad Street in Sparta, Georgia, as the “Yvonne Ingram-Ephraim Post Office Building”	6/9/2009	6/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-27, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 300 East 3rd Street in Jamestown, New York, as the “Stan Lundine Post Office Building”	6/9/2009	6/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-28, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 103 West Main Street in McLain, Mississippi, as the “Major Ed W. Freeman Post Office”	6/9/2009	6/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-29, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3245 Latta Road in Rochester, New York, as the “Brian K. Schramm Post Office Building”	6/9/2009	6/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-30, The Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act of 2004 Extension Act	6/19/2009	6/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-31, The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act	6/16/2009	6/22/2009	(6/12/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-32, The Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009	6/19/2009	6/24/2009	(5/20/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-33, The Native American Heritage Day Act of 2009	6/16/2009	6/26/2009	(6/16/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-34, To designate the Federal building and United States courthouse located at 306 East Main Street in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, as the “J. Herbert W. Small Federal Building and United States Courthouse”	6/19/2009	6/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-35, To designate the Federal building located at 799 United Nations Plaza in New York, New York, as the “Ronald H. Brown United States Mission to the United Nations Building”	6/19/2009	6/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-36, The Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009	6/19/2009	6/30/2009	(6/19/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-37, The Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2009	6/25/2009	6/30/2009	(6/25/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-38, A bill to provide additional personnel authorities for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction	6/24/2009	6/30/2009	(6/19/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-39, To make technical corrections to the Higher Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes	6/26/2009	7/1/2009	(6/26/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-40, A bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (”WASP”)	6/24/2009	7/1/2009	(6/29/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-41, The Korean War Veterans Recognition Act	7/27/2009	7/27/2009	(7/25/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-42, Approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003, and for other purposes	7/27/2009	7/28/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-43, A bill to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes	7/30/2009	7/31/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-44, The New Frontier Congressional Gold Medal Act	7/27/2009	8/7/2009	(7/27/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-45, To authorize the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to use funds made available under the Trademark Act of 1946 for patent operations in order to avoid furloughs and reductions-in-force, and for other purposes	7/27/2009	8/7/2009	(7/27/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-46, To restore sums to the Highway Trust Fund, and for other purposes	8/4/2009	8/7/2009	(8/5/09)	No
P.L. 111-47, Making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year 2009 for the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Program	8/6/2009	8/7/2009	(8/5/2009)	No
P.L. 111-48, The Miami Dade College Land Conveyance Act	7/31/2009	8/12/2009	(7/31/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-49, The Judicial Survivors Protection Act of 2009	8/3/2009	8/12/2009	(8/5/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-50, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 46-02 21st Street in Long Island City, New York, as the “Geraldine Ferraro Post Office Building”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-51, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 601 8th Street in Freedom, Pennsylvania, as the “John Scott Challis, Jr. Post Office”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-52, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2351 West Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach, Florida, as the “Elijah Pat Larkins Post Office Building”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-53, The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2009	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	(8/11/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-54, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 41 Purdy Avenue in Rye, New York, as the “Caroline O’Day Post Office Building”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-55, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 431 State Street in Ogdensburg, New York, as the “Frederic Remington Post Office Building”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-56, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 123 11th Avenue South in Nampa, Idaho, as the “Herbert A Littleton Postal Station”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-57, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1300 Matamoros Street in Laredo, Texas, as the “Laredo Veterans Post Office”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-58, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 702 East University Avenue in Georgetown, Texas, as the “Kyle G. West Post Office Building”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-59, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 19190 Cochran Boulevard FRNT in Port Charlotte, Florida, as the “Lieutenant Commander Roy H. Boehm Post Office Building”	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-60, To extend the deadline for commencement of construction of a hydroelectric project	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	(8/11/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-61, Recognizing the service, sacrifice, honor, and professionalism of the Noncommissioned Officers of the United States Army	8/11/2009	8/19/2009	(8/11/09)	No ‡
P.L. 111-62, A joint resolution granting the consent and approval of Congress to amendments made by the State of Maryland, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the District of Columbia to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact	8/7/2009	8/19/2009	(8/7/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-63, The WIPA and PABSS Reauthorization Act of 2009	9/10/2009	9/18/2009	(9/10/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-64, A joint resolution providing for the appointment of France A. Cordova as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution	9/11/2009	9/18/2009	(9/11/09)	No ‡
P.L. 111-65, To provide for the award of a gold medal on behalf of Congress to Arnold Palmer in recognition of his service to the Nation in promoting excellence and good sportsmanship in golf	9/21/2009	9/30/2009	(9/21/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-66, To provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes	9/30/2009	9/30/2009	(9/30/2009)	No
P.L. 111-67, The Defense Production Act Reauthorization of 2009	9/24/2009	9/30/2009	(9/24/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-68, The Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2010	9/30/2009	10/1/2009	(10/1/2009) and (10/23/09)	No
P.L. 111-69, The Fiscal Year 2010 Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act	9/30/2009	10/1/2009	(9/30/2009)	No
P.L. 111-70, To amend the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 to reauthorize the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy	9/30/2009	10/9/2009	(10/1/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-71, To amend the United States International Broadcasting Act of 1994 to extend by one year the operation of Radio Free Asia, and for other purposes	9/30/2009	10/9/2009	(10/1/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-72, To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to delay the date on which the accreditation requirement under the Medicare Program applies to suppliers of durable medical equipment that are pharmacies	10/7/2009	10/13/2009	(10/7/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-73, The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009	10/5/2009	10/15/2009	(10/2/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-74, To designate the Federal building and United States courthouse located at McKinley Avenue and Third Street, SW., Canton, Ohio, as the “Ralph Regula Federal Building and United States Courthouse”	10/7/2009	10/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-75, To designate the United States courthouse located at 525 Magoffin Avenue in El Paso, Texas, as the “Albert Armendariz, Sr., United States Courthouse”	10/7/2009	10/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-76, To provide for the transfer of certain Federal Property to the Galveston Historical Foundation	10/7/2009	10/19/2009	(10/7/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-77, To designate the Federal building located at 844 North Rush Street in Chicago, Illinois, as the “William O. Lipinski Federal Building”	10/7/2009	10/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-78, To designate the United States courthouse located at 301 Simonton Street in Key West, Florida, as the “Sidney M. Aronovitz United States Courthouse”	10/7/2009	10/19/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-79, The Foreign Evidence Request Efficiency Act of 2009	10/7/2009	10/19/2009	(10/7/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-80, The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010	10/16/2009	10/21/2009	(10/9/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-81, The Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009	10/16/2009	10/22/2009	(10/16/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-82, A bill to authorize major medical facility leases for the Department of Veterans Affairs for fiscal year 2010, and for other purposes	10/15/2009	10/26/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-83, The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010	10/22/2009	10/28/2009	(10/9/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-84, The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010	10/26/2009	10/28/2009	(10/21/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-85, The Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010	10/21/2009	10/28/2009	(10/21/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-86, The Girl Scouts USA Centennial Commemorative Coin Act	10/22/2009	10/29/2009	(10/21/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-87, The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009	10/26/2009	10/30/2009	(10/21/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-88, The Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010	10/30/2009	10/30/2009	(10/28/2009)*	No
P.L. 111-89, A bill to provide for additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes	10/30/2009	10/30/2009	(10/29/2009)	No
P.L. 111-90, The Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Amendments Act of 2009	10/22/2009	11/3/2009	(10/22/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-91, The Medal of Honor Commemorative Coin Act of 2009	10/29/2009	11/6/2009	(10/29/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-92, The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2009	11/5/2009	11/6/2009	(11/5/2009)	No
P.L. 111-93, The Credit CARD Technical Corrections Act of 2009	10/30/2009	11/6/2009	(10/30/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-94, Proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously	10/29/2009	11/6/2009	(10/29/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-95, A bill to amend title 36, United States Code, to grant a Federal charter to the Military Officers Association of America, and for other purposes	10/30/2009	11/6/2009	(10/30/2009)*	No ‡
P.L. 111-96, A bill to allow the funding for the interoperable emergency communications grant program established under the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 to remain available until expended through fiscal year 2012, and for other purposes	10/30/2009	11/6/2009	(10/30/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-97, The Military Spouses Residency Relief Act	11/4/2009	11/11/2009	(11/4/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-98, A bill to authorize a major medical facility project at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Walla, Walla, Washington, and for other purposes	11/4/2009	11/11/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-99, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 10355 Northeast Valley Road in Rollingbay, Washington, as the “John ‘Bud’ Hawk Post Office”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-100, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 37926 Church Street in Dade City, Florida, as the “Sergeant Marcus Mathes Post Office”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-101, To name the South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture in Lane, Oklahoma, and the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 310 North Perry Street in Bennington, Oklahoma, in honor of former Congressman Wesley “Wes” Watkins	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-102, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 4282 Beach Street in Akron, Michigan, as the “Akron Veterans Memorial Post Office”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-103, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 140 Merriman Road in Garden City, Michigan, as the “John J. Shivnen Post Office Building”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-104, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1615 North Wilcox Avenue in Los Angeles, California, as the “Johnny Grant Hollywood Post Office Building”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-105, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 115 West Edward Street in Erath, Louisiana, as the “Conrad DeRouen, Jr. Post Office”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-106, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 867 Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, as the “Lim Poon Lee Post Office”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-107, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1165 2nd Avenue in Des Moines, Iowa, as the “Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Memorial Post Office”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-108, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 936 South 250 East in Provo, Utah, as the “Rex E. Lee Post Office Building”	11/20/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-109, A bill to redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2777 Logan Avenue in San Diego, California, as the “Cesar E. Chavez Post Office”	1/28/2009	1/29/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-110, A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 60 School Street, Orchard Park, New York, as the “Jack F. Kemp Post Office Building”	11/19/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-111, A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 630 Northeast Killingsworth Avenue in Portland, Oregon, as the “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Post Office”	11/19/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-112, A bill to extend the authority for relocation expenses test programs for Federal employees, and for other purposes	11/19/2009	11/30/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-113, A bill to amend title 36, United States Code, to include in the Federal charter of the Reserve Officers Association leadership positions newly added in its constitution and bylaws	12/2/2009	12/14/2009	(12/2/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-114, A bill to permit each current member of the Board of Directors of the Office of Compliance to serve for 3 terms	12/2/2009	12/14/2009	(12/2/2009)	No ‡
P.L. 111-115, To amend titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act to prohibit retroactive payments to individuals during periods for which such individuals are prisoners, fugitive felons, or probation or parole violators	12/14/2009	12/15/2009	No	No
P.L. 111-116, To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, to amend title 49, United States Code, to extend authorizations for the airport improvement program, and for other purposes	12/14/2009	12/16/2009	(12/14/2009)	No
P.L. 111-117, The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010	12/15/2009	12/16/2009	(12/15/2009)	No
P.L. 111-118, Making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes	12/19/2009	12/19/2009	(12/19/2009)	No
P.L. 111-119, A bill to amend the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 to clarify the eligibility requirements with respect to airline flight crews	12/9/2009	12/21/2009	(12/11/2009)	Yes
P.L. 111-120, To extend through December 31, 2010, the authority of the Secretary of the Army to accept and expend funds contributed by non-Federal public entities to expedite the processing of permits	12/14/2009	12/22/2009	(12/14/2009)	Yes
P.L. 111-121, Appointing the day for the convening of the second session of the One Hundred Eleventh Congress	12/16/2009	12/22/2009	(12/16/2009)	Yes
P.L. 111-122, A bill to establish a section within the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice to enforce human rights laws, to make technical and conforming amendments to criminal and immigration laws pertaining to human rights violations, and for other purposes	12/17/2009	12/22/2009	(12/17/2009)	Yes
P.L. 111-123, To permit continued financing of Government operations	12/24/2009	12/28/2009	(12/25/2009)	No
P.L. 111-124, To extend the Generalized System of Preferences and the Andean Trade Preference Act, and for other purposes	12/23/2009	12/28/2009	(12/23/2009)	Yes
P.L. 111-125, To extend the commercial space transportation liability regime	12/24/2009	12/28/2009	(12/25/2009)	No
P.L. 111-126, To accelerate the income tax benefits for charitable cash contributions for the relief of victims of the earthquake in Haiti	01/22/2010	01/22/2010	(01/22/2010)	No
P.L. 111-127, The Emergency Aid to American Survivors of the Haiti Earthquake Act	01/27/2010	01/27/2010	n/a E!	n/a E!
P.L. 111-128, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 116 North West Street in Somerville, Tennessee, as the “John S. Wilder Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-129, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 76 Brookside Avenue in Chester, New York, as the “1st Lieutenant Louis Allen Post Office”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-130, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 9810 Halls Ferry Road in St. Louis, Missouri, as the “Coach Jodie Bailey Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-131, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 440 South Gulling Street in Portola, California, as the “Army Specialist Jeremiah Paul McCleery Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-132, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 427 Harrison Avenue in Harrison, New Jersey, as the “Patricia D. McGinty-Juhl Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-133, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 16555 Springs Street in White Springs, Florida, as the “Clyde L. Hillhouse Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-134, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 170 North Main Street in Smithfield, Utah, as the “W. Hazen Hillyard Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-135, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3900 Darrow Road in Stow, Ohio, as the “Corporal Joseph A. Tomci Post Office Building”	01/20/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-136, To provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes	01/29/2010	01/29/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-137, To amend title 38, United States Code, to expand veteran eligibility for reimbursement by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for emergency treatment furnished in a non-Department facility, and for other purposes	01/20/2010	02/01/2010	(01/20/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-138, A bill to provide that claims of the United States to certain documents relating to Franklin Delano Roosevelt shall be treated as waived and relinquished in certain circumstances	01/22/2010	02/01/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-139, Increasing the statutory limit on the public debt	02/04/2010	02/12/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-140, The Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act	02/04/2010	02/16/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-141, An Act to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 until February 28, 2011	02/26/2010	02/27/2010	(02/26/2010)	No
P.L. 111-142, The Social Security Disability Applicants’ Access to Professional Representation Act of 2010	02/25/2010	02/27/2010	(02/25/2010)	No
P.L. 111-143, The Criminal History Background Checks Pilot Extension Act of 2009	02/17/2010	03/01/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-144, The Temporary Extension Act of 2010	03/02/2010	03/02/2010	(03/03/2010)	No
P.L. 111-145, The Capitol Police Administrative Technical Corrections Act of 2009	03/04/2010	03/04/2010	(02/26/2010)*	No
P.L. 111-146, The Trademark Technical and Conforming Amendment Act of 2010	03/17/2010	03/17/2010	(03/05/2010)	Yes †
P.L. 111-147, The Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act	03/17/2010	03/18/2010	(03/18/2010)*	No
P.L. 111-148, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act	03/22/2010	03/23/2010	(03/14/2010)*	No
P.L. 111-149, To amend the North American Wetlands Conservation Act to establish requirements regarding payment of the non-Federal share of the costs of wetlands conservation projects in Canada that are funded under that Act, and for other purposes	03/15/2010	03/25/2010	(03/15/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-150, P.L. 111-150, To permit the use of previously appropriated funds to extend the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program, and for other purposes	03/26/2010	03/26/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-151, The Satellite Television Extension Act of 2010	03/26/2010	03/26/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-152, The Reconciliation Act of 2010	03/30/2010	03/30/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-153, The Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010	03/26/2010	03/31/2010	(03/26/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-154, The PACT Act	03/19/2010	03/31/2010	(03/18/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-155, The Prevent Deceptive Census Look Alike Mailings Act	04/01/2010	04/07/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-156, Recognizing and honoring the Blinded Veterans Association on its 65th anniversary of representing blinded veterans and their families	04/01/2010	04/07/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-157, The Continuing Extension Act of 2010	04/15/2010	04/15/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-158, The Debt Relief for Earthquake Recovery in Haiti Act of 2010	04/15/2010	04/26/2010	(04/15/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-159, To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to ensure that health coverage provided by the Department of Defense is treated as minimal essential coverage	04/14/2010	04/26/2010	(04/14/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-160, A joint resolution granting the consent and approval of Congress to amendments made by the State of Maryland, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the District of Columbia to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact	04/16/2010	04/26/2010	(04/16/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-161, The Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010	04/29/2010	04/30/2010	(04/29/2010)*	No
P.L. 111-162, A bill to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes	04/29/2010	04/30/2010	(04/29/2010)*	No
P.L. 111-163, The Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009	04/27/2010	05/05/2010	(04/23/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-164, To designate the Department of Veterans Affairs blind rehabilitation center in Long Beach, California, as the “Major Charles R. Soltes, Jr., O.D. Department of Veterans Affairs Blind Rehabilitation Center”	04/26/2010	05/07/2010	(04/26/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-165, To provide that Members of Congress shall not receive a cost of living adjustment in pay during fiscal year 2011	05/03/2010	05/14/2010	(05/03/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-166, The Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act of 2009	05/06/2010	05/17/2010	(05/06/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-167, The Blue Ridge Parkway and Town of Blowing Rock Land Exchange Act of 2009	05/13/2010	05/24/2010	(05/13/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-168, To provide for the sale of the Federal Government’s reversionary interest in approximately 60 acres of land in Salt Lake City, Utah, originally conveyed to the Mount Olivet Cemetery Association under the Act of January 23, 1909	05/13/2010	05/24/2010	(05/13/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-169, To provide for an extension of the legislative authority of the Adams Memorial Foundation to establish a commemorative work in honor of former President John Adams and his legacy, and for other purposes	05/13/2010	05/24/2010	(05/13/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-170, To amend title 39, United States Code, to clarify the instances in which the term “census” may appear on mailable matter	05/13/2010	05/24/2010	(05/13/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-171, The Haiti Economic Lift Program Act of 2010	05/13/2010	05/24/2010	(05/13/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-172, The Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009	05/17/2010	05/24/2010	(05/18/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-173, To clarify the health care provided by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs that constitutes minimum essential coverage	05/21/2010	05/27/2010	(05/21/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-174, The Federal Judiciary Administrative Improvements Act of 2009	05/21/2010	05/27/2010	(05/21/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-175, The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010	05/17/2010	05/27/2010	(05/18/2010)*	Yes
P.L. 111-176, To designate the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, District of Columbia, as the “Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building”	05/28/2010	06/08/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-177, The Extending Immunities to the Office of the High Representative and the International Civilian Office in Kosovo Act of 2010	05/27/2010	06/08/2010	(05/27/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-178, The FBI Families of Fallen Heroes Act	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-179, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1210 West Main Street in Riverhead, New York, as the “Private First Class Garfield M. Langhorn Post Office Building”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-180, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 109 Main Street in Swifton, Arkansas, as the “George Kell Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-181, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 West Highway 64 Bypass in Roper, North Carolina, as the “E.V. Wilkins Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-182, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 43 Maple Avenue in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, as the “Ann Marie Blute Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-183, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 9727 Antioch Road in Overland Park, Kansas, as the “Congresswoman Jan Meyers Post Office Building”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-184, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 7464 Highway 503 in Hickory, Mississippi, as the “Sergeant Matthew L. Ingram Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-185, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 45300 Portola Avenue in Palm Desert, California, as the “Roy Wilson Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-186, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 930 39th Avenue in Greeley, Colorado, as the “W.D. Farr Post Office Building”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-187, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2-116th Street in North Troy, New York, as the “Martin G. ‘Marty’ Mahar Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-188, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 119 Station Road in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, as the “Captain Luther H. Smith, U.S. Army Air Forces Post Office”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-189, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 216 Westwood Avenue in Westwood, New Jersey, as the “Sergeant Christopher R. Hrbek Post Office Building”	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-190, To amend the Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act of 2004 to extend the operation of such Act for a 5-year period ending June 22, 2015, and for other purposes	06/01/2010	06/09/2010	(06/01/2010)	Yes
P.L. 111-191, A bill to amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to authorize advances from Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill	06/14/2010	06/15/2010	(06/10/2010)	No
P.L. 111-192, The Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act	06/24/2010	06/25/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-193, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2000 Louisiana Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana, as the “Roy Rondeno, Sr. Post Office Building”	06/17/2010	06/28/2010	[06/17/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-194, A joint resolution to provide for the reconsideration and revision of the proposed constitution of the United States Virgin Islands to correct provisions inconsistent with the Constitution and Federal law	06/30/2010	06/30/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-195, Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010	06/28/2010	07/01/2010	[06/24/2010]	No
P.L. 111-196, National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act of 2010	07/01/2010	07/02/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-197, Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010, Part II	07/01/2010	07/02/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-198, Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010	07/01/2010	07/02/2010	No	No
P.L. 111-199, Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act	06/25/2010	07/07/2010	[06/25/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-200, Congressional Award Program Reauthorization Act of 2009	06/25/2010	07/07/2010	[06/25/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-201, Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War and reaffirming the United States-Korea alliance	06/25/2010	07/07/2010	[06/25/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-202, To permanently authorize Radio Free Asia, and for other purposes	07/01/2010	07/13/2010	[07/01/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-203, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act	07/15/2010	07/21/2010	[06/30/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-204, Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010	07/20/2010	07/22/2010	[07/15/2010]	Yes †
P.L. 111-205, Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010	07/22/2010	07/22/2010	[07/15/2010]	No
P.L. 111-206, Shasta-Trinity National Forest Administrative Jurisdiction Transfer Act	07/19/2010	07/27/2010	[07/19/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-207, Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010	07/19/2010	07/27/2010	[07/16/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-208, To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1981 Cleveland Avenue in Columbus, Ohio, as the `Clarence D. Lumpkin Post Office’	07/19/2010	07/27/2010	[07/19/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-209, To amend the effective date of the gift card provisions of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009	07/15/2010	07/27/2010	[07/16/2010]	Yes
P.L. 111-210, Approving the renewal of import restrictions contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003	07/27/2010	07/27/2010	[07/27/2010]	No
P.L. 111-211, To protect Indian arts and crafts through the improvement of applicable criminal proceedings, and for other purposes	07/27/2010	07/29/2010	[07/23/2010]	Yes †
P.L. 111-212, Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010	07/29/2010	07/29/2010	(03/24/2010)	No
P.L. 111-213, Independent Living Centers Technical Adjustment Act	07/29/2010	07/29/2010	[07/29/2010]	No

(Parentheses indicate a separate Whitehouse.gov page with a link to Thomas legislative database)
* Page now gone, but it was either directly observed, evidence of it appears in Whitehouse.gov search, or White House says it existed.
[Brackets indicate a link from Whitehouse.gov to Thomas legislative database]

† Bill was posted for five days after final passage, though not formal presentment. Counted as “Yes.”

‡ Link to final version of bill on impossible-to-find page.

E! Emergency legislation not subject to five-day posting

Sunlight Before Signing—Simplified! is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Associated Press reports:

Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print…

The [Congressional Budget Office] concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they’d reach without the legislation…

“People are likely to not buy the same low-value policies they are buying now,” said health economist Len Nichols of George Mason University. “If they did buy the same value plans … the premium would be lower than it is now. This makes the White House statement true. But is it possibly misleading for some people? Sure.”

Nichols’ comments are also misleading — which makes the president’s statement not just misleading but untrue.

Under ObamaCare, people would not have the option to buy the same low-cost plans they do today.  That’s the whole problem: under an individual mandate, everybody must purchase the minimum level of coverage specified by the government.  That minimum benefits package would be more expensive than the coverage chosen by most people in the individual market.  Their premiums would rise because ObamaCare would take away their right to choose a more economical policy.

Note also that the CBO predicts premiums would rise by an average of 10-13 percent in the individual market.  Consumers who currently purchase the most economic policies would see larger premium increases.

Finally, the Obama plan would also force millions of uninsured Americans to purchase health insurance at premiums higher than current-law premium levels, which they have already rejected as being too high.  Their premium expenditures would rise from $0 to thousands of dollars.  Yet the CBO counts that implicit tax as reducing average premiums, because those consumers are generally healthier-than-average.  Only in Washington is a tax counted as a savings.

AP: Obama Misleads Voters about ObamaCare’s Effects on Premiums is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has just fired off a letter to Barack Obama urging him to finally appoint some members to the long-vacant Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, echoing a similar recent request from a coalition of civil liberties groups.

I don’t think anyone should make excuses for Obama’s appalling about-face on Patriot Act reform, but at least in that case there’s a real, difficult, and complex policy debate that needs to play out in a preoccupied Congress for anything to happen. But there is no reason whatever that seats on this board should sit vacant a year into this presidency. Congress agreed to create the independent board—after a predecessor within the White House was deemed to lack sufficient independence—back in 2007. There’s agreement that the board is needed; the president just needs to pick people to sit on it. Yet there are precious few signs he’s even conducting a serious search. After a long series of decisions that have appalled civil libertarians, staffing the watchdog group Congress created three years ago is, quite literally, the absolute least Obama could do to begin living up to his campaign rhetoric.

The Least Obama Could Do for Civil Liberties is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

President Obama is taking a break today from promoting a more federalized health-care system to sign a bill creating a federalized tourist promotion campaign.

In a closed ceremony at the White House, the president signed the Travel Promotion Act. After gaining final passage by the Senate last week, the bill will raise an estimated $200 million a year by imposing a $10 tax on visitors to the United States from countries where they are not required to obtain a visa. The revenue will be used to create and fund a new agency, the Corporation for Travel Promotion, that would work with the U.S. tourism industry to promote the United States as a global travel destination.

I’m all for promoting tourism to the United States. Tourism is an important “service export” that generates more than $100 billion a year in earnings from foreign travelers to the United States. But a new federal agency and a new tax on travel are not the right way to drum up more tourism business.

First, just on principle, promoting a particular industry should be the business of that industry, not the business of government. Americans also export billions of dollars worth of farm goods, semiconductors, machinery, aircraft, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals, along with financial, education, insurance, and other services. None of those industries deserves their own tax-financed promotion board either. If the payoff from promotion is so huge, the industry should be willing to bear its cost without the aid of the government.

More practically, it goes against basic economic logic to promote tourism to the United States by imposing new costs on tourists. Granted, $10 is not a large amount, but the demand curve for tourism is downward sloping – as it is in every other market. A higher price will lead to less demand, not more. As a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association told ABC News:

It’s absolutely counterintuitive. To us, we’re saying we’d love to see more people visit the United States, but we’re going to charge you more for the privilege of entering the country. We are in favor of increased tourism and visitation… but let’s look at our priorities. We don’t think that videos and billboards are necessarily a priority. Instead, we should be focusing on how to make customs and immigration easier for people.

As I argued in a previous post, the U.S. government should be doing more to keep dangerous people off  flights to the United States instead of making it even more difficult for perfectly harmless tourists and business travelers to get on those same flights.

Will Taxing Foreign Visitors Promote Tourism? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Like the sequel to a horror film, the politicians in Washington just passed another stimulus proposal. Only this time, they’re calling it a “jobs bill” in hopes that a different name will yield a better result.

But if past performance is any indicator of future results, this is bad news for taxpayers. By every possible measure, the first stimulus was a flop. But don’t take my word for it. Instead, look at what the White House said would happen.

The Administration early last year said that doing nothing would mean an unemployment rate of nine percent. Spending $787 billion, they said, was necessary to keep the unemployment rate at eight percent instead.

So what happened? As millions of Americans can painfully attest, the jobless rate actually climbed to 10 percent, a full percentage point higher than Obama claimed it would be if no bill was passed.

The President and his people also are arguing that the so-called stimulus is responsible for two million jobs. Yet according to the Department of Labor, total employment has dropped significantly — by more than three million — since the so-called stimulus was adopted. The White House wants us to believe this sow’s ear is really a silk purse by claiming that the economy actually would have lost more than five million jobs without all the new pork-barrel spending. This is the infamous “jobs saved or created” number. The advantage of this approach is that there are no objective benchmarks. Unemployment could climb to 15 percent, but Obama’s people can always say there would be two million fewer jobs without all the added government spending.

To be fair, this does not mean that Obama’s supposed stimulus caused unemployment to jump to 10 percent. In all likelihood, a big jump in unemployment was probably going to occur regardless of whether politicians squandered another $787 billion. The White House was foolish to make specific predictions that now can be used to discredit the stimulus, but it’s also true that Obama inherited a mess — and that mess seems to be worse than most people thought.

Moreover, it takes time for an Administration to implement changes and impact the economy’s performance. Reagan took office in early 1981 during an economic crisis, for instance, and it took about two years for his policies to rejuvenate the economy. It certainly seems fair to also give Obama time to get the economy moving again.

That being said, there is little reason to expect good results for Obama in the future. Reagan reversed the big-government policies of his predecessor. Obama, by contrast, is continuing Bush’s big-government approach. Heck, the only real difference in their economic policies is that Bush was a borrow-and-spender and Obama is a borrow-and-tax-and-spender.

This raises an interesting question: Since last year’s stimulus was a flop, isn’t the Administration making a big mistake by doing the same thing all over again?

The President’s people actually are being very clever. Recessions don’t last forever. Indeed, the average downturn lasts only about one year. And since the recession began back in late 2007, it’s quite likely that the economic recovery already has begun (the National Bureau of Economic Research is the organization that eventually will announce when the recession officially ended).

So let’s consider the political incentives for the Administration. Last year’s stimulus is seen as a flop. So as the economy recovers this year, it will be difficult for Obama to claim that this was because of a pork-filled spending bill adopted early last year. But with the passing of a supposed jobs bill, that puts them in a position to take credit for a recovery that was already happening anyway.

That may be smart politics, but it’s not good economics. The issue has never been whether the economy would climb out of recession. The real challenge is whether the economy will enjoy good growth once the recovery begins. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration policies of bigger government — combined with the Bush Administration policies of bigger government — will permanently lower the baseline growth of the United States.

If America becomes a big-government welfare state like France, then it’s quite likely that we will suffer from French-style stagnation and lower living standards.

Son of the Stimulus is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Hoping to revive his increasingly unpopular health care overhaul, President Obama has invited Republicans to a bipartisan summit this Thursday and plans to introduce a new reform blueprint in advance of the summit.  On Sunday, the White House announced that a key feature of that blueprint will be premium caps, a form of government price control that helped kill the Clinton health plan when even New Democrats rejected it.

The New York Times reports on President Obama’s blueprint:

The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers, potentially superseding state insurance regulators.

It bears repeating what Obama’s top economic advisor Larry Summers thinks about price controls:

Price and exchange controls inevitably create harmful economic distortions. Both the distortions and the economic damage get worse with time.

For example, as I have written elsewhere, artificially limiting premium growth allows the government to curtail spending while leaving the dirty work of withholding medical care to private insurers: “Premium caps, which Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is currently threatening to impose, force private insurers to manage care more tightly — i.e., to deny coverage for more services.”  No doubt the Obama administration would lay the blame for coverage denials on private insurers and claim that such denials demonstrate the need for a so-called “public option.”

As the Progressive Policy Institute’s David Kendall explained in a 1994 paper, the Clinton health plan contained similar price controls.  Kendall explains why they would be a disaster:

In spite of the late hour in the health care debate, Congress has not yet decided how to restrain runaway health care costs. The essential choices are a top- down strategy of government limits on health care spending enforced by price controls or a bottom-up strategy of consumer choice and market competition. History clarifies that choice: Previous government efforts to regulate prices in peacetime have invariably failed. Moreover, government attempts to control prices in the health care sector would undermine concurrent efforts to restructure the marketplace…

The idea of controlling costs by government fiat is seductively simple. But it rests on a conceit as persistent as it is damaging: that government bureaucracies can allocate resources more wisely and efficiently than millions of consumers and providers pursuing their interests in the marketplace. The alternative — one rooted in America’s progressive tradition of individual responsibility and free enterprise — is to improve the market’s ground rules in order to decentralize decision-making, spur innovation, reward efficiency, and respect personal choice.

As centrally planned economies crumble around the world, many in the United States seem bent on erecting a command and control economy in health care. This policy briefing examines the reasons why government price regulation would fail to constrain health care costs and create many adverse side effects…

Ultimately, government price regulation will always fail because it does not change the underlying economic forces driving up prices. If we are serious about slowing the growth of health care costs, we have to change the ways we consume and provide medical care. Price controls evade the hard but essential work of structural reform in health care markets: They are a quintessentially political response to an economic problem. The alternative is to allow well-functioning markets to set prices and allocate resources, while ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable health care coverage. The market-oriented approach leaves decisions to cost-conscious consumers and health care providers rather than bureaucrats.

Any of that sound familiar?  It’s worth reading the whole thing.

This is not hope.  This is not change.  (Much less a game-changer.)  It is, to pinch a phrase, a return to “the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis.”

Obama’s ‘Best’ Idea? Rationing Care via Clinton-esque Price Controls is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The White House recently released the Economic Report of the President. In a post at the White House blog, Christina Romer brags that the stimulus legislation was a big success.

This Act is the great unsung hero of the past year.  It has provided a tax cut to 95 percent of America’s working families and thousands of small businesses.  It has meant the difference between hanging on and destitution for millions of unemployed workers who had exhausted their conventional unemployment insurance benefits.  It has kept hundreds of thousands of teachers, police, and firefighters employed by helping to fill the yawning hole in state and local budgets.  And, it has made crucial long-run investments in our country’s infrastructure and jump-started the transition to the clean energy economy.  All told, the Recovery Act has saved or created some 1½ to 2 million jobs so far, and is on track to have raised employment relative to what it otherwise would have been by 3.5 million by the end of this year.

Let’s set aside some of the disingenuous components of her post, such as categorizing income redistribution as tax relief, and focus on her claim that the legislation created at least 1.5 million new jobs when total employment has dropped by 3 million. Romer is not bad at math. Instead, she is saying that the economy would have lost 4.5 million jobs if it were not for the $787 billion increase in government spending. This what-might-have-been analysis is completely legitimate, assuming that there is good theory and evidence to back the assertion. Unfortunately (at least for the White House’s credibility), Ms. Romer and another colleague last year prepared a supposedly rigorous what-might-have-been report, where they estimated that the so-called stimulus would keep the unemployment rate at 8 percent and that failure to increase the burden of government spending would drive the unemployment rate to 9 percent. Yet as this chart from their paper indicates, when we add in the data for what actually has happened, in turns out that bigger government is not only theoretically misguided, but it also doesn’t work in the real world.

If the So-Called Stimulus Was an Unsung Hero, I’d Hate to Meet a Singing Enemy is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog