Newsroom

To understand the federal budget mess and the so-called fiscal cliff, it's important to remember three numbers: 39, 37 and 64.

The world has become an infinitely more dangerous place in the four years since you first invited me to this annual luncheon.

The world has become an infinitely more dangerous place in the four years since you first invited me to this annual luncheon.

The good news about our economy is that it hasn't been struck down by some mysterious act of God. Acts of Government plague our nation -- and acts of Government are entirely within our power to change.

Up until a generation ago, federal resources policy could be summed up in a single word: abundance. In 1905, we instituted the National Forest Service under the guidance of Gifford Pinchot, who summed up the agency's mission with this simple maxim: "The greatest good for the greatest number in the long run." We recognized that America's vast natural resources gave us the tools for unparalleled prosperity, and that we should responsibly manage these resources on a sustainable basis for the continuing prosperity of the American people.

It seems that in the last few years, America's thoughts are returning to that remarkable man and searching him for answers to the questions that now perplex us in our own times.

This bill ends the Title 17 loan guarantees that produced Solyndra and so many other alternate energy scams that cost working Americans hundreds of millions of dollars, while the politically connected perpetrators of these scams walked away as wealthy men and women. But this measure would still put taxpayers on the hook to loan out billions of dollars more to at least 50 additional shady alternative energy schemes that were submitted before January 1st.