Blogmaster's note: I have recently made the decision to turn off the blog comments for right now. Things are really getting busy at LPHQ as we get closer and closer to the 2008 elections, and moderating blog comments and keeping spammers out are not something that's an urgent priority. In its place, I encourage you all to check out United Liberty.org and participate in the discussions over there.

Current issues that you should know about:

Real ID Act:
Last week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the final plans for the Real ID Act, which included at two-year delay. States now have till 2011 to become compliant with the new regulations that have gone largely unfunded by Congress, leaving the states responsible for the bill. However, all but a handful of states are mounting protests. Joining the 17 states that have already balked at the program, 20 more have passed legislation protesting the program in at least one chamber of their legislature.

The Libertarian Party of Alabama has been working diligently to get its state government to join with the many other states that will not be instituting the federal mandates. Party Chairman Stephen Gordon, along with fellow Libertarian Mike Rster, have found a legislative sponsor to bring up a bill that would block the Real ID Act from Alabama. "Alabama is prime territory for a repeal of any state funding or involvement in a federally mandated invasive program such as Real ID," says Gordon. "We value our privacy and don't mind telling Uncle Sam to get off our backs."

So far, the states that are refusing to the Real ID Act include Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.

FISA:
After becoming law in August of last year, the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are once again up for a vote. This time around, the Bush administration wants to see the amendments made permanent. As it stands now, the amendments that legalized the Bush administration's surveillance of American citizens' communications with people "reasonably believed to be outside the United States" -- whatever that means -- are set to expire Feb. 1.

Without a strong Democratic protest to the FISA amendments, the Bush administration just might get their way as it has on nearly every issue related to the "War on Terror." The Bush administration calls FISA an essential tool in the "War on Terror," saying that without it, Americans would be at a high level of risk of terrorist attacks.

Libertarians can help by writing letters to Democratic Senators urging them to stay strong in fighting the FISA amendments. The Senate Democrats who voted for the bill last time around include:

Bayh (D-IN)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Salazar (D-CO)
Webb (D-VA)

A full breakdown of the voting statistics can be found here.

Economic stimulus package:
The economy is in trouble, or at least it's quickly headed in that direction. While the "R" word hasn't been thrown around just quite yet, recession is certainly on everyone's mind. In an attempt to stave-off an economic downturn, which is the last thing Bush wants right before he leaves office, Congress is proposing a hefty economic stimulus package.

Details of the package are just being worked out, but some estimates of the cost put it at around $100 billion to $150 billion. Congressional economic stimulus packages are largely ineffective because of the time it takes from their passage to actual implementation. Additionally, the idea that Congress can micromanage the economy is relatively absurd. Tom Firey, of CATO, wrote in a recent blog entry that "stimulus packages have a much shoddier record, however: they take months to move through Congress, and additional months to implement — long after the recession has come and gone."

A crucial part of the stimulus package, if Congress decides to go ahead with it, would have to be assurances that any tax cut would be offset by a spending reduction. Otherwise, the government takes on more debt, and goes right back to where it started. But given the propensity of the Bush administration to spend like a Democrat with a complicit GOP tagging along, it's doubtful this will happen.

The best thing Congress can do for the economy is cut taxes, cut the size of the government and cut spending.

Trimming the fat from the omnibus spending bill:
Last month's $555 billion dollar omnibus bill was hailed as a conservative victory by the GOP, which had convinced their Democratic counterparts to ditch many of their projects at the last minute. However, that didn't stop Democrats and Republicans alike from throwing in mountains of pork barrel projects--more than 9,000 in all. In reality, most of these projects were created in committee reports, and not actually a part of the bill itself.

One option the Bush administration has, and one that the National Taxpayers Union has suggested, is that Bush issue an Executive Order telling the federal agencies to ignore these projects. The Bush administration hasn't really said what it plans to do. Given that many of these projects come from Republicans themselves, don't hold your breath.

The NTU letter to Bush can be found here.