The public hearing for my priority bill has been set at the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln for Thursday, February 3, 2022 beginning at 1:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend the hearing and to testify in person. LR 264 CA is my priority bill. LR 264 CA is a resolution for a constitutional amendment for the consumption tax. Before the consumption tax can ever become law in Nebraska, the voters must vote to amend the Nebraska State Constitution.

LR 264 CA contains the ballot language that would be put on the ballot for the election to be held on November 8 later this year. That ballot language would read as follows: “Beginning January 1, 2024 no taxes other than retail consumption taxes and excise taxes shall be imposed on the people of Nebraska.”

The consumption tax is needed in Nebraska because our current tax system is broken. Nebraska’s tax system is beyond the point of repair. Nebraskans no longer have time for slow, incremental repairs to their tax system. The ship is sinking fast, and no number of buckets can curtail the amount of water flowing aboard. Instead, the time has come to abandon ship and build a new and better one.

That is what the consumption tax will do for Nebraska. Last week Daniel J. Pilla, who is a tax litigation expert and founder of the Tax Freedom Institute delivered a series of lectures on tax reform across the State of Nebraska. Pilla wrote the book on tax policy. According to Pilla the only kind of tax system which can survive his rigid test of ten tax principles is a broad-based sales tax, otherwise known as the consumption tax.

In short order form Daniel J. Pilla’s ten tax principles can be summarized as 1) Simplicity: The tax code should be simple to understand, 2) Noninvasiveness: The Tax code should encourage voluntary compliance, 3) Efficiency: The fewer taxes, the better, 4) Stability: The tax code should provide reliable revenues for the State, 5) Visibility: Government spending should be transparent, 6) Neutrality: Taxes should not favor one industry or class of people over another, 7) Economic Growth: The tax code should encourage investing and consumer spending, 8) Broad-Based: Everyone should make a contribution, 9) Equality: Everyone should be treated equally and fairly, and 10) Constitutionality: Tax revenues should only be used for clearly defined constitutional functions.

The consumption tax not only complies with each of these ten tax principles, but it also has the potential to make Nebraska the most tax friendly state in the Union. Instead of losing populations, resources, and revenues to other states, people will want to move themselves and their businesses to Nebraska. The time has come to blow up our current tax system and start over with a whole new tax system which works. So, today I am inviting you to join my effort by submitting comments for the public record and asking the members of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee to advance LR 264 CA out of committee. The deadline to submit comments for the public record is February 2, 2022 at 11:00 a.m.

The procedure for submitting online comments to resolutions and bills for the record has changed this year. To submit a comment online, go to the Legislature’s webpage at www.nebraskalegislature.gov. In the “Search Current Bills” box enter LR 264 CA to get the webpage for the resolution. Then, click on the “Submit Comments” box. Complete the information asked for and post any comments in the comments box. Just tell the committee members why you want the consumption tax. Afterwards, you will receive an email asking for you to confirm your submission. Be sure to respond to that email. Unless you respond to the confirmation notice, your comments won’t be submitted for the public record. Let’s show the Revenue Committee how much Nebraskans want this kind of tax reform.

Ever since being elected to the State Legislature back in 2016, I have received more emails in support of an Article V convention of the states than on any other single issue by a long shot. The emails I receive in support of a convention of the states out-number those in opposition to it by a margin of about twenty to one. So, there is no question that voters in the Panhandle of Nebraska support LR 14, the resolution which calls for a convention of the states.

Once LR 14 passes in the Legislature, it would serve as Nebraska’s application for a convention of the states under Article V of the United States Constitution. Two-thirds of the states would have to pass similar legislation in order to successfully call for a convention of the states. A convention of the states would allow the fifty states to propose amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendment proposals would then have to be ratified by two-thirds of the states in order to successfully amend the United States Constitution.

Last year LR 14 was voted out of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee but failed to advance beyond the first round of debate on the floor of the Legislature by only two votes. By declaring LR 14 as his priority bill again for 2022, Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings, the introducer of the resolution, was able to bring the resolution back up to the floor for another round of debate and another vote. On January 10th the resolution advanced to Select File by a vote of 32-10; then, ten days later it advanced to Final Reading on a vote of 32-8. So, LR 14 will likely pass the final legislative hurdle sometime later this week.

Successful legislation is needed by 34 states in order to call for a convention of the states. Nebraska will likely become the 16th state to pass this kind of legislation. However, the remaining states would only get five years to pass their legislation before Nebraska’s expires. Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha successfully amended LR 14 last week to include a proviso that the resolution expires on February 1, 2027. This means that LR 14 would only be good for the next five years.

LR 14 puts limits around what could be discussed at a convention of the states. Just like legislation passed by the other 15 states, LR 14 would limit amendment proposals to three topics. Amendment proposals would be limited to imposing fiscal restraints on the federal government, limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limiting the terms of office for officials and members of Congress. Any other topic would be ruled as out of bounds. This is important information to know because many opponents of LR 14 wrongfully believe that a convention of the states could stray away from these three topics. However, LR 14 was very carefully worded so as to avoid a runaway convention.

I believe a convention of the states is very much needed. Federal spending is out of control. According to the U.S. Debt Clock, our national debt is now nearing $30 trillion and this is a debt that our grandchildren and our great grandchildren will likely never pay off.

The federal government has grown too big. Whether we want to talk about federal vaccine mandates or critical race theory being taught in our public schools, there can be no question that the federal government has gained too much power over our states, over our local governments, and even over our individual lives.

Finally, we need term limits in our federal government. The disaster of a man who has become our nation’s 46th president shows why term limits are so important. Biden represented the State of Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009 without ever passing any kind of meaningful legislation, except for his 1994 “tough on crime” bill, which he later contradicted as president of the United States by directing the Department of Justice to focus their efforts on domestic terrorism, law enforcement, and parents who complain about the teaching of critical race theory. For these reasons and more, I believe an Article V convention of the states is needed in order to restore stability to our federal government.

Nebraska’s economy has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic better than any other state in the Union. According to Politico’s State Pandemic Response Scorecard, Nebraska’s economy ranks first in the nation. Nebraska continues to enjoy record low unemployment, and last fall the Department of Revenue reported that our state’s incoming tax revenues beat the projection of the Forecasting Board by 7.7 percent.

Despite our economy doing so well, the State of Nebraska has been given more than a billion dollars in federal funds to spend this year and next year from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Nebraska is slated to receive $520 million for 2022 and another $520 million for 2023 for a grand total of $1,040,000,000.

Because I have a seat on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, just how to spend this money is something that concerns me directly. The principles of fiscal responsibility have never been more relevant to our State than now. Therefore, today I would like to tell you about the three most important principles of fiscal responsibility which should guide our lawmakers as they spend this money.

First, the guidelines for spending ARPA funds are very confusing and convoluted. Lawyers even have a difficult time deciphering the ARPA rules. If we do not carefully abide by the rules for spending ARPA funds, we may find ourselves in a position of having to pay the money back to the federal government. The last thing Nebraskans need on their backs is the added burden of giving even more of their hard-earned money to the federal government. Therefore, the first principle I will follow is to make sure that all of our ARPA monies stay in Nebraska.

Second, ARPA funds need to be used for one-time expenditures only. Because we will not be receiving these federal monies year-after-year, ARPA funds should not be used to create new programs which will obligate State monies for years to come. Instead, ARPA funds provide our state with the unique opportunity to fix or upgrade those things which have deteriorated over the years.

Third, ARPA monies need to be used to benefit the people of Nebraska, not government agencies. The primary purpose of these ARPA funds is to put Americans back on their feet and to help them recover from the ramifications of the COVID-19 restrictions. Over the course of the past two years many small businesses were forced to close their doors, people were laid off from their jobs, and people struggled to make ends meet. Therefore, ARPA funds need to be used to help small businesses succeed, employ more Nebraskans, and provide relief to struggling families.

Lawmakers will need to practice fiscal restraint this year. Spending a billion dollars of other people’s money is a difficult task when the goal is to do it in a fiscally responsible way. My hope is that the Legislature won’t just view these ARPA funds as free money to spend on furthering their favorite government programs.

Government money is never free. Whether we realize it or not, Americans will eventually have to pay back every dime that gets spent out of these ARPA funds. The U.S. national debt is nearing $30 trillion. If Americans were to pay off their total indebtedness this year, every taxpayer would have to somehow come up with $238,534, according to the U.S. Debt Clock. We need to remember that the federal money we spend today will have to be paid back by future generations of Americans. Therefore, we need to use these ARPA funds to grow our state’s economy so that future generations of Nebraskans will be able to live and thrive in our state.

The second session of the 107th Legislature has already begun and new bills are now being introduced. Although new bills may only be introduced within the first ten legislative days of the session, I expect approximately 500 new bills to be introduced this year. Many of these bills will likely venture outside of the scope of what good government ought to do. Therefore, today I would like to remind my readers about what good government is supposed to do.

Milton Friedman once famously said that “Freedom is a tenable objective only for responsible individuals.” He was right. Government is needed because human beings are prone to doing what is morally wrong and irresponsible. In Christianity, we call this kind of behavior sin. In American politics, though, this is the kind of behavior which treads on our most basic rights and liberties. Therefore, the primary purpose of government is to protect those rights and liberties guaranteed to us by the American Constitution and the Nebraska State Constitution. Tyranny and oppression are what results when governments stray too far away from this primary purpose of government.

Because the primary duty of government is to protect our rights and liberties, it is unreasonable to ask the government to do that which goes beyond these limits. For example, compassion is neither a right nor a liberty; instead, it is a virtue which must be learned and practiced on a completely voluntary basis. Governments cannot coerce their citizens to be compassionate. A government which regulates compassion ends up oppressing its own citizens by punishing them for non-compliance, and this results in a tyrannical government that is uncompassionate towards its own citizens.

What about government spending? Good governments tend to only spend taxpayer monies on what is necessary to secure our basic rights and liberties. Whenever governments stray too far away from this primary purpose of government, they inevitably fall into fiscal irresponsibility, waste, and reckless spending. Many of our State agencies have little or nothing to do with securing our basic rights and liberties.

American society has been moving further and further away from this understanding of the primary function of government. Today too many Americans believe it is the primary responsibility of the government to take care of them and to solve all of society’s problems. They expect the government to take responsibility for their lives from the cradle to the grave. They forget that our American form of government is a form of self-rule and is comprised of the governed. As president Abraham Lincoln famously said in his Gettysburg Address, our constitutional republic is supposed to be “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

As the second session of the 107th Legislature convenes this year, I will be on the lookout for those bills which protect our constitutional rights and liberties. These are the bills which matter most, and these are the kinds of bills which I will be quick to introduce and to co-sign. Whether they be bills that protect unvaccinated persons from undue government mandates, bills that protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms, or bills that protect our taxpayers from being over-taxed by the government, these are the kinds of bills that will merit my attention this year.

In my July 10, 2020 article I wrote about the use of certain therapeutic re-purposed prescription drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 symptoms. I especially talked about the potential benefits of inhaled budesonide and hydroxychloroquine. After I published that article, I received some harsh criticism from several folks who accused me of not following the science. Well, it turns out 18 months later that I was right all along.

Treating the symptoms of original COVID-19, along with its delta and omicron variants, has been driven by politics rather than science from the very beginning. The pharmaceutical companies who make the vaccines administered in the United States get paid by the federal government every time someone gets vaccinated, including the booster shots. So, exploring treatments of COVID-19 with inexpensive therapeutic repurposed drugs, such as budesonide, hydroxychloroquine, and ivermectin, undermines the profit margins that these large pharmaceutical companies expect to make.

There is a growing number of people who have been reading the science on the coronavirus and who are turning to off-label utilization of (i.e. utilizing a drug for purposes other than those approved by the FDA when a company originally files for approval) therapeutic drugs as an alternative to vaccines, especially for treating the symptoms of the coronavirus. My intention today is not to dissuade you from getting vaccinated against COVID-19; instead, I believe that the coronavirus vaccines should be a private matter between an individual, his or her physician, and healthcare team without any undue interference from the government. Government mandates which force people to get vaccinated against their will are grossly immoral and inappropriate, especially in a society where freedom reigns.

Some institutions are now secretly turning to therapeutic drugs to treat the symptoms of COVID-19. One such institution is the NFL. The Green Bay Packers star quarterback, Aaron Rogers, recently let the cat out of the bag when he was interviewed on Pat McAfee’s Sirius XM show. When Rogers contracted the disease earlier this year, he took ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as well as monoclonal antibodies. Rogers told McAfee during the interview, “There are many teams who are recommending a lot of the same treatments I got for their players.”

In response to how Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, scorned the use of ivermectin as a horse dewormer, Rogers said, during the interview “If you want to rip on me for taking horse dewormer, and whatever else you want to talk about, that’s fine. But I also got better in 48 hours. And I had symptoms.” Numerous studies have shown that ivermectin has many anti-viral properties which Dr. Gupta failed to acknowledge to his CNN audience.

Rogers ended that segment of the interview by calling for a fair and honest debate on the use of therapeutic drugs for treating coronavirus symptoms. Rogers called for a public debate between Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Peter McCullough, who is one of the world’s leading cardiologists and epidemiologists, who advocates for the use of these therapeutic drugs. Rogers said, “Let’s have a debate. Let’s hear about sides. Wouldn’t that be awesome?” I agree.

Until we can have an honest and fair debate in our country about how best to treat the coronavirus and its variants, news about the coronavirus will continue to be slanted by political ideologies and spun by corporate interests. We owe it to the citizens of the United States of America to end the cancelling of all dissenting opinions and to give them news instead of propaganda.