Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Nan Swift
Republicans loved Project 2025 until it threatened Big Ag handouts
From Day 1, the Trump administration has moved quickly to implement many of Project 2025’s policy recommendations and to put project architects in positions of power, but agricultural reform is conspicuously absent. The Republican-backed Senate farm bill is only the latest departure from the core values Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise claimed to espouse. That infamous manifesto laid out a governing vision for a Republican administration and the 119th Congress.
A New Political Reality: The 119th Congress
As the 119th Congress takes shape, business leaders are working to build relationships with new members of Congress and committee chairs. Congress will face many obstacles to addressing business, voter, and White House priorities with a razor-thin Republican majority in the House. Amidst political divides and power plays, bipartisan collaboration will be essential to move key legislation forward.
Taxpayers must be included in the clean transition
Earth Week marks the annual reminder of our responsibility to leave the planet in better shape than we inherited it. This year, it falls amid stark reminders that we are failing another moral obligation: fiscal responsibility. With Congress accomplishing little more than spending other people's money these days, fiscal and environmental responsibility are seldom viewed as compatible agendas. But taxpayer and green interests share an intertwined fate.
Open Letter to Congress: Supplemental Spending to Bypass Spending Caps Premature
Open Letter to Congress: Supplemental Spending to Bypass Spending Caps Premature On behalf of the undersigned free-market organizations, we urge all members of Congress to oppose efforts to use an emergency defense supplemental spending package to circumvent spending caps established by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
Testimony in Review—Jonathan Bydlak’s Appearance Before the Senate Special Committee on Aging - R Street Institute
Testimony Print issues: Budget and Spending Reform, Federal Government Affairs, Governance Last week, Resident Senior Fellow and Director of R Street’s Governance Program Jonathan Bydlak testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging at its hearing, titled “Before Disaster Strikes: Planning for Older Americans and People with Disabilities in All Phases of Emergencies.” The timing of the hearing was quite fortuitous, as it was scheduled shortly after the release of Bydlak’s recent...
Congressmen Cohen and Roy Introduce Bipartisan Article One Act
WASHINGTON – Congressmen Steve Cohen (TN-9) and Chip Roy (TX-21) today introduced the Article One Act which would reform the 1976 National Emergencies Act and presidential emergency powers. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are leading the effort in the Senate. While the president should have the flexibility to respond to emergencies, it must be done in a way that respects the separation of powers.
Resources for Redistricting ahead of the 118th Congress
Every 10 years, using updated information from the latest census, the congressional map is redrawn. Particularly for staff who work in a district office, ensuring a smooth transition for both members and their constituents can be a heavy lift. Caseworkers must work quickly to transfer any ongoing work involving those constituents now in new districts because House ethics prohibits legislators from working on behalf of non-constituents.
Comments on Proposed Rulemaking by the Securities and Exchange Commission on “Governing Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and Incident Disclosure” - R Street Institute
Regulatory Comments by Mary Brooks, Brandon Pugh May 5, 2022 Print May 5, 2022 Securities and Exchange Commission 100 F Street, NE Washington, D.C. 20549 Comments of the R Street Institute in the Matter of: A Proposed Rulemaking by the Securities and ) Exchange Commission: “Governing Cybersecurity ) File Number S7-09-22 Risk Management, Strategy, Governance, and ) Incident Disclosure.” ) I.
Event: Pentagon Purse Strings Episode 8: Breaking Down the FY 2022 NDAA and What Comes Next - R Street
As the House seeks to finalize work on its version of the annual defense funding bill—the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—and the Senate looks ahead to both defense appropriations and authorizations measures, the Pentagon Purse String series returns for one final episode on what to expect for the defense budget in FY 2022 and beyond.
Partisan budget reconciliation strategy burns bridges
Even as they push a $1 trillion infrastructure spending package, Democrats are burning bridges with their partisan $3.5 trillion federal budget. This spending plan will make it difficult to tackle big items on the horizon, such as the debt ceiling. To be fair, it’s been a bipartisan effort to turn the annual budget into a partisan effort.
Partisan budget reconciliation strategy burns bridges
Even as they push a $1 trillion infrastructure spending package, Democrats are burning bridges with their partisan $3.5 trillion federal budget. This spending plan will make it difficult to tackle big items on the horizon, such as the debt ceiling. To be fair, it’s been a bipartisan effort to turn the annual budget into a partisan effort.
If you don’t like the score, play better
Senate Democrats, frustrated their increasingly costly agenda is hitting some speedbumps (also known as business as usual), are considering a novel—and dangerous—solution to their legislative logjam: sub out the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director for someone sympathetic to their policy goals.
Congress once again gives away the farm
Tom Vilsack will once again assume the top spot at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to support his confirmation. Vilsack previously served as Secretary of Agriculture for all eight years of President Barack Obama’s administration.
Congress Should Be Mightier Than A Pen
In less than three weeks, President Biden has signed 28 executive orders. This pace puts him well ahead of his predecessors and could soon beat the previous record for “most executive orders in the first month” set in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is important to recognize the context for this wave of executive orders. We are in the middle of an unprecedented health and economic crisis that requires a robust response from key institutions within the Executive Branch.
Navarro's Lima "Success" Story Has a Sad Ending for Taxpayers
White House trade policy advisor and longtime Democrat Peter Navarro wrote in the New York Times today to boost President Trump’s visit to a General Dynamics M1 Abrams tank plant in Lima, OH as an economic success story and slam former President Eisenhower’s prescient warning about the “military industrial complex.” This puff piece is only half the story. It overlooks key details and ignores basic economics.
NTU Joins Coalition Supporting Congressional Authority on Trade
View PDF Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Wyden: As the Senate Finance Committee begins its important work of considering legislation related to tariffs, we write to urge you to include important priorities in any proposal put forth by the Committee. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides Congress with “the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.” Over the years, however, some authority related to tariffs has been delegated to the executive branch.
COMMENTARY: Handouts to farmers no substitute for free markets
THE First Law of Holes warns: “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Unfortunately, Congress and the Trump administration continue to dig taxpayers deeper, as misguided reactions to the trade war have combined to increase the deficit, dampen economic growth and harm the environment. Throughout 2018, many new tariff or retaliatory action announcements dealt farm country a blow—including those actions aimed at our allies.
Handouts to Farmers No Substitute for Free Markets – InsideSources
The First Law of Holes warns, “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Unfortunately, Congress and the Trump administration continue to dig taxpayers deeper, as misguided reactions to the trade war have combined to increase the deficit, dampen economic growth and harm the environment. Throughout 2018, many new tariff or retaliatory action announcements dealt farm country a blow — including those actions aimed at our allies.
Everyone Agrees: Tear Up the Farm Bill And Start Again
NTU joined twelve other major free-market organizations, representing millions of Americans, to urge Congress to reject the 2018 farm bill and start over. PDF with logos. Dear Representatives and Senators, We write on behalf of the millions of Americans we represent in all 50 states to urge you to reject a Farm Bill agreement that combines the worst elements of each bill while jettisoning the few incremental reforms that would have eliminated favors to special groups and industries.
Billionaires and Beach Bums Should Not Receive Farm Subsidies
Billionaires and Beach Bums Should Not Receive Farm Subsidies By Nan Swift, National Taxpayers Union, and Scott Faber, Environmental Working Group Thursday, November 15, 2018 Farm subsidies should help farmers, not billionaires and beach bums, right? Under current law, almost 20,000 residents in the nation’s 50 largest cities received farm subsidies last year, including hundreds who have received payments for 33 straight years.
Year-Round E15 Sales Won’t Keep Floundering Ethanol Policy Afloat
Though commodity prices have dipped (largely as a result of high productivity, making farmers a victim of their own success), farm finances are the envy of other industries and individuals: Median farm household income remains well above the median household income of all other Americans; debt-to-asset ratios are low, and only 0.3 percent file for bankruptcy each year. This is not a Depression-era scenario.
Renewable fuels mandate is costing Americans billions
Mandates under the Renewable Fuel Standard are displacing much more affordable petroleum fuel with expensive biodiesel. That includes millions of gallons that are imported from overseas. Regardless of your opinions on free trade or globalization, you should look with suspicion on a policy that creates an artificial need for a fuel-rich country to import foreign fuel. The fact is, American biodiesel production is simply not keeping up with the levels required by the RFS mandate.
Coalition Urges Milcon Conferees Not to Bust Spending Caps
The undersigned organizations, on behalf of millions of Americans, write to urge conferees to H.R. 5895, the Fiscal Year 2019 Energy and Water and Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act (or “Minibus”), to reject any attempt to increase discretionary spending above the caps agreed to by Congress only five months ago.
Renewable Fuel Standard ‘Solutions’ Will Only Add To The Problem
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has been a disaster since its well-intentioned beginnings more than 12 years ago. It aimed to lower greenhouse gas emissions, a respectable undertaking, and to produce more domestic fuel. It didn’t take long, however, to watch this experiment plummet to failure – harming businesses, consumers and the environment, all while costing taxpayers millions of unnecessary dollars. The problem is that Big Corn has a stronghold on the administration.
Let's agree to agree: Here are "No-Brainer" bills that can bridge the divide in Congress
These days, it often seems like the only thing we agree on in politics is just how much we disagree. In 2016, the Pew Research Center found that roughly half of registered voters, Democrat or Republican, were "afraid" of the opposing party. And the more a respondent was involved with politics, the more that fear grew.
Big ethanol's fuel mandate costs American taxpayers millions
Government’s toll on taxpayers is easy to compute when April 15 rolls around or when a receipt clearly shows the portion of a cost that’s attributable to sales taxes. There is no such clarity for taxpayers where the federal renewable fuel standard is concerned. But the burden is indeed there, and it’s significant.
Big Ethanol is fooling no one in E15 and RFS fights
Opportunistic messaging is as common in Washington as Metro delays. But when an industry group selectively employs the same free market arguments it usually rejects in order to push for special treatment for its product, that's a level of rich hypocrisy that demands a response.
NTU Salutes the Navy's Delay to Conduct Frigate Evaluations
“I am pleased at the decision by the U.S. Navy to delay awarding the construction contract of the new frigate for one year,” Nan Swift, NTU Federal Affairs Manager commented. “NTU had supported the recommendation to do so made in a recent report by the Government Accountability Office that raised concerns regarding program cost and design. The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) on which the new frigate is based, suffered from similar cost and design issues that have continued to plague the program.
Ethanol Industry’s Blend Wall Logic Puts Taxpayers at Risk - Morning Consult
This November, the election is not the only political decision that will affect American consumers in a big way. It also is when the Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to announce how much ethanol must be blended into the 2017 fuel supply for our country to satisfy the federal Renewable Fuel Standard requirements.
The Small Business Advocate Show
The Small Business Advocate® Show , with creator and award-winning host Jim Blasingame, airs live Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., Eastern Time. It's the world's only weekday small business radio program dedicated to small business. Nan Swift joins Jim Blasingame to report on whether President Obama offered anything constructive in his State of the Union speech other than campaign rhetoric, plus progress in repealing the Death Tax on small business families.
Enough of big ethanol bullying consumers
Refiners are right to push back against proposals to increase the RFS blending targets. These proposals could soon force the introduction of higher ethanol blends like E15 and E85 gasoline, containing 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent ethanol respectively. Ethanol producers already enjoy a wealth of support, thanks to federally guaranteed sales courtesy of the Renewable Fuel Standard — a biofuels policy that requires ever-increasing volumes of ethanol be blended into our gasoline supply.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Nan
Contact Nan, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack