After an astonishing airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian Maj. General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s destabilizing force is on notice. While the strike sent shocks around the world, those who pay attention to volatile Middle East politics know it was a long time coming.
Small businesses brace for red tape
October 22, 2019
A well-intended, zealously pursued, quest often has negative consequences. Such is currently the case with the Corporate Transparency Act, which is being pushed by some of my colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee. In their quest to reduce corruption and weed out bad actors in the business world, their work is jeopardizing the privacy of millions of Americans and strangling a key engine of American economic growth—small businesses.
Trump is Right: Ending the Endless Wars Starts in Syria
October 17, 2019
President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of forces from Syria and elsewhere is appropriate and long overdue. It’s a necessary return to America’s traditional foreign policy. It’s a rejection of the neoconservative doctrine, which has contributed to the broken state of affairs in the Middle East.
Empowering Caseworkers to Help Those in Need
June 15, 2019
The federal government’s allocation of taxpayer dollars toward reducing poverty has never been higher. Yet many American families remain trapped in a welfare system that is unresponsive to their needs. How can this be?
Socialism claims to promote equality and prosperity, but the fruit of socialism is scarcity. I know because I witnessed the effects of socialist policy first-hand. Stationed in Germany, I saw the failures of this ideology and the faces of those who survived it.
Blockchain could spark renaissance economy
April 22, 2019
America is the world’s land of opportunity. We attract people and capital from all over the world for a variety of reasons. America’s GDP growth, low unemployment, and favorable markets are the envy of the world, but how did we get here and—perhaps most important for us today—how do we stay in this coveted position? Vibrant capital markets that foster innovation and disruption of entrenched incumbents in a free society are key.
A Secretary Whose Views are Aligned with America’s Constitution
January 8, 2019
In case you missed it, be sure to read Congressman Warren Davidson's Cincinnati Enquirer op-ed on Mattis's departure as Secretary of Defense. Congressman Davidson draws on his twelve-year-background in uniform and contrasts the differences between public service and duty to country.
It's Time to Reform Food-Stamp Policy
December 13, 2018
In an op-ed for the National Review, Congressman Warren Davidson writes that the farm bill Congress passed yesterday should have included more reforms to benefit farmers and welfare recipients. He explains that approximately 80 percent of the farm bill will be spent on food stamps, with only 20 percent directed to the farm economy.
Congressman Davidson introduced a bill last year to consolidate more than 90 welfare programs which cost taxpayers almost $1 trillion a year.
Every year Congressman Davidson hosts Farm Forum in Piqua, Ohio. The event, which was started by former Congressman John Boehner, gives those involved in farming the opportunity to hear industry experts share updates in agriculture from across the state as well as nationally.
Click here to read Congressman Davidson’s op-ed.
It’s Time to Reform Food-Stamp Policy
With no work requirements, the farm bill offers more of the same
A strong farming industry is vital to America’s economy and national security. With the ongoing tariff battle, there is no question that some federal assistance can help protect America’s farm economy. However, the farm bill passed yesterday by Congress undermines the interests of America’s taxpayers.
During the Great Depression, farm subsidies were created to keep family farms afloat and ensure a stable national food supply. Today, the farm bill has less to do with helping family farms than with maintaining the status quo and administering a plethora of food-assistance poverty programs as if the economy were still in crisis.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, total farm-bill spending from 2018 to 2028 is estimated to be $867 billion. Approximately 80 percent of that will be spent on food stamps, with only 20 percent directed to the farm economy. The farm bill should really be renamed the food-stamp bill. According to data from the Department of Agriculture, at a time when the economy is thriving and unemployment is at its lowest level in decades, more than 40 million people in the U.S. are using food stamps — more than the entire population of Canada.
America is a generous country. Americans want to help their neighbors in need. But welfare is a two-way street. Healthy adults without children at home should have to work to receive welfare benefits. The reason is simple: Work requirements work. Individuals who hold full-time employment are ten times less likely to be poor than people who are out of work during at least part of the year.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton implemented welfare reforms that were bipartisan. The success of these reforms has since been repeated in Maine, Kansas, Alabama, and Indiana, where the total number of able-bodied adults on welfare rolls decreased by as much as 60 to 80 percent. What’s more, those who left welfare have seen major increases in their income. In Maine, for example, those who left welfare for the workforce more than doubled their family income.
Despite evidence in support of welfare reform, work requirements that the House passed in June were eventually killed in conference committee with the Senate’s version of the farm bill. But consider this: Welfare reform is a winning issue across the country. According to a poll taken in April 2018 by the Foundation for Government Accountability, over 80 percent of Americans support work requirements for welfare recipients. Instead of lifting individuals out of poverty, Congress is maintaining the status quo and leaving millions of able-bodied adults on the sidelines of our strong economy.
Meanwhile, the farm portion of the farm bill expands subsidies to corporations and “off-site” farmers. The conferenced farm bill contains language that will significantly increase access to farm subsidies, allowing extended-family members of farmers who are “actively engaged” in farming operations to qualify to collect farm subsidies.
Language in the farm bill will also expand an existing loophole that, according to the Government Accountability Office, would allow 10 percent of farmers, corporations, and agribusinesses to receive 70 percent of federal subsidy payments. Many of these recipients are millionaires living in places such as New York City. This is fiscally irresponsible and callously unfair to the small family farmers the subsidies were meant for.
Our nation is more than $21 trillion in debt. Failure to hold recipients of taxpayer dollars accountable only exacerbates America’s spending crisis.
Finally, the House-passed language helped Ohio farmers by providing a clear legal definition of the term “waters of the United States” (a.k.a. “WOTUS”), over which the EPA has jurisdiction. The Obama administration used rule-making based on this phrase to massively expand federal jurisdiction over all the nation’s waterways. This action was so expansive that it was blocked by the federal courts as unconstitutional. Unfortunately, this leaves the Trump administration to make a new rule. While the new rule accomplishes similar results as the House-passed language, it will prove temporary and be subject to future executive redefinition. Congress should have provided legislative clarity by passing the House’s binding legal definition of WOTUS. Instead, Senate Republicans surrendered to Democrats.
As representatives of the American people, we have a responsibility to enact policies that will help and benefit everyone, not just a select few. Elected officials must steward taxpayer dollars responsibly. As leaders, we must help those in need to rise out of difficult circumstances. At every level, this bill undermines the ideals of the American people who sent us here in the first place, and we have done them a disservice by passing it in its current, weakened form.
Congressman Warren Davidson represents Ohio’s eighth district in the House of Representatives and serves on the House Financial Services Committee. He is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
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A Better Way on Trade
August 2, 2018
By Warren Davidson
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Prior to becoming a congressman in a special election two years ago, I spent 15 years starting, acquiring and growing manufacturing companies. I have experienced bad trade policy firsthand. Consequently, when Donald Trump campaigned on promises to fix our broken trade deals, like most of my colleagues in manufacturing, I was energized.
Of course, trade affects far more than manufacturing. Ohio’s 8th Congressional District is also one of the top agriculture districts in America. Though smaller and less well known, the region is an innovation hub going back further than the Wright brothers. We know how vital trade is to America’s economic power, and how critical economic strength is to military power. Indeed, before America was powerful militarily, America was powerful economically.
Many of the principles of war apply to trade. Perhaps the most basic is that, from Sun Tzu through WWII and more modern wars, multiplying your enemies never results in victory. Instead, effective strategy should multiply allies. Peter Navarro, and perhaps others, have poorly served our president and America’s national interest by employing poorly conceived means that have alienated our allies, multiplied and united our adversaries, and made victory less certain in this noble mission. Fortunately, there is a better way on trade.
First, Congress must restore its integral, constitutional role on trade. Earlier this year, I sponsored the Global Trade Accountability Act in the House. This bill keeps the president’s essential role in negotiating trade; however, it requires congressional approval within 90 days of implementation for changes to tariffs to become effective.
Were this bill already law, the administration would likely collaborate closely with Congress to make law more enduring and effective than an executive action. Collaboration would lead to better execution and better outcomes. For example, if Congress did support uniform tariffs, there would certainly be a better framework in place to approve exemptions. Presently, there are more than 20,000 companies in the queue and only six employees reviewing requests — one company at a time.
Second, like warfare, we should seek to minimize collateral damage and prevent harm to the innocent. Mr. Navarro’s flawed approach treats every country as an enemy, maximizes collateral damage and provokes harmful retaliatory strikes on otherwise well-functioning sectors (the innocent). His method is akin to fire-bombing major population centers to target a few enemy combatants.
Tariff wars not only harm our adversaries, they harm our closest allies, and they harm America’s economy (American companies and America’s consumers). Consumers are already paying higher prices, and companies that have been driving the strong growth rate are changing their plans and cancelling capital investments. Without a change of course, Mr. Navarro’s flawed approach will create a recession. Maybe that fear can work to force negotiations, but at what cost? Thankfully, there is a better way on trade.
A better way on trade would minimize the use of tariffs and unite our allies to implement targeted sanctions against bad actors. We already use this framework to target our adversaries, and it works. Using a more targeted sanctions regime instead of uniform tariffs, we could be precise enough to target companies — perhaps Chinese state-owned steel makers — and key executives.
These actions have downstream effects, but only for those directly aiding and abetting bad actors. For example, shipping companies refuse to transport the products of bad actors and banks refuse to hold and transfer their assets. Sanctions have a withering effect on targets. They are also much easier to escalate and deescalate as fast-moving negotiations warrant.
Just like modern warfare, a better way on trade is not only more just, it is also more effective. It creates allies, minimizes enemies, makes use of proven tools, and conserves resources. Applying effective strategy is how we accomplish missions. The mission of improving America’s broken trade deals should begin by uniting our allies against bad practices and against those who carry them out.
President Trump should change course now. Mr. President please part ways with Mr. Navarro, reject his flawed approach, engage with Congress and win this just cause with just and effective means — a better way on trade.
• Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, a Republican, is a former Army Ranger.
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Will FISA write the epitaph of the Fourth Amendment?
February 14, 2018
Washington, D.C. – In case you missed it, Congressman Warren Davidson’s op-ed in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer focuses on the FISA program and talk concerning the recently released “memo”. Rep. Davidson has been involved in the FISA issue and will continue to play a role as Congress plans to readdress safeguards surrounding the program in the future. His piece further explains the program and its impact on Ohioans.
The full op-ed is below and can be accessed here.
Will FISA write the epitaph of the Fourth Amendment?
Cincinnati Enquirer
Congressman Warren Davidson (OH-08)
Although Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was just reauthorized for six years, I joined a broad coalition of Republicans and Democrats who share Constitutional concerns about the current program and the re-authorization bill. While each Member opposed may have individual differences about the ideal solution, we coalesced around one alternative, the USA Rights Amendment sponsored by Justin Amash, which would have restored the warrant requirement for searches related to American citizens. Unfortunately, our efforts failed 183 to 233. Despite substantial bipartisan support for the USA Rights Amendment, House leadership refused to consider other amendments, excluding all five of the amendments I offered. Each was more stringent than the reauthorization bill that passed, but less stringent than the USA Rights Amendment that failed.
Make no mistake, the overall program serves a vital national security objective. I understand the essential role intelligence gathering plays in defending the U.S. from foreign threats, but there needs to be strong safeguards in place to protect citizens’ privacy rights. Our point was not to end the program, but rather to ensure that in the effort to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance that we continue to respect the Constitutional rights of all Americans. The Constitution of the United States does not apply to non-citizens, but citizenship matters and Americans are supposed to be protected by the Constitution of the United States.
In 1978, Congress passed FISA to establish procedures that protect the privacy rights of U.S. persons when they are being monitored for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence. Under these procedures, law enforcement officials must get a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to search an American’s communications, and they must comply with certain procedures that protect the anonymity of U.S. persons.
Following 9/11, the federal government wanted to gather intelligence on terrorist networks by searching through and capturing enormous amounts of electronic communications such as emails, text messages, phone calls, and more. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act created procedures for targeting non-citizens located outside of the United States. In order to collect the information, these FISA amendments created a different set of laws that gave law enforcement officers permission to collect data on Americans without having to go through the warrant system. This means that family members innocently conversing by email about a news story could have their data collected, stored, searched, and used against them – all without a warrant.
Government agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI can search through this data using search terms relating to American citizens. The FBI can use FISA derived evidence to start criminal investigations and use as evidence in court, even if the crime is unrelated to national security. Backdoor searches have allowed law enforcement officers to circumvent privacy protection guarantees to American citizens by the Fourth Amendment.
Rather than hand another blank check for the FISA program, Congress should have at least implemented reporting requirements to make sure agencies are following and enforcing statutory requirements and administrative guidelines set by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Moments before the vote reauthorizing Section 702, President Trump shared his concerns over twitter about the Steele dossier placing responsibility on FISA. The NSA has a history of gathering huge amounts of private communications, including from citizens like Ohioans Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Jim Traficant (D-OH). Moreover, according to Department of Justice’s own FISA reports, obtaining a warrant has an almost nonexistent denial rate. Of the nearly forty thousand warrants issued only 51 have been denied – a .12 percent denial rate. Now, it seems possible that FISA’s warrant process was abused to target another political figure, then candidate and President-elect, now President Donald Trump.
Americans should be concerned that the federal government has the ability to abuse its capacity to gather foreign intelligence by needlessly spying on its own citizens. Unless we the people support and defend our Constitution, what’s next? Without serious reforms to FISA, the Fourth Amendment will exist as nothing more than a very distant memory. As Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” In light of all that has transpired since the reauthorization of FISA, I feel that Congress has a duty to revisit this issue to both sustain an essential intelligence program and to guarantee Constitutional protections for every American.
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