Congress is considering a bill to fight government zombies. That is the name Representative Cathy McMorris Rogers gives to the many government programs that have never been reauthorized by Congress. These “walking dead” programs continue to function with little or no government oversight.

Her bill would gradually cut funding for unauthorized government programs in order to compel Congress to take action on them. Currently, the federal government funds 256 unauthorized programs costing $310.4 billion. This even includes entire agencies like the State Department.

That raises a point. Would Congress refuse to refund the State Department? Certainly not, but imagine the oversight that would occur if even the State Department had to come to Congress and explain its action. Representative Rogers notes that many of these agencies have “become arrogant, they become disconnected from their mission.” She believes that this bill “restores accountability with the elected representatives.”

Under the bill, programs that have expired authorizations would be subject to a 10 percent spending cut the first year of unauthorized status and a 15 percent cut in the second and third years. If Congress fails to reauthorize after that time, the program will be sunsetted (all funding would disappear). In addition to the sunset process, the bill also creates a Spending Accountability Commission to oversee the authorization schedule and review all mandatory spending programs.

Citizens and candidates all complain about spending and the lack of accountability but we rarely see concrete programs that would change the current system in Washington. An automatic cut in spending will get the attention of the agency and members of Congress. This is the type of fiscal discipline with need in Congress.

Voter turnout this election season has been higher than normal. But data from Pew Research helps put the higher than normal numbers of voters in their proper perspective. Through the first 12 primaries of 2016, the combined Republican turnout has been the highest since at least 1980. Democratic turnout has been the highest since 1992, although there was a high turnout in 2008.

Now for the reality check. The combined Republican turnout was only 17.3 percent of eligible voters. The combined Democratic turnout was 11.7 percent. Those percentages should discourage you. Even when there are contested primaries where there is no incumbent, we can’t get even get four out of five Americans to vote.

During the general election more Americans vote than in the primaries. In 2012, for example, 129.1 million Americans voted. That is 53.6 percent of the voting age population compared to fewer than 28 million who voted in the primaries. In other words, there were 100 million more Americans who voted in the general election that did not vote in the primaries.

That means we should be careful not to extrapolate from the primaries to the general election. Supporters of Donald Trump argue that he is turning out lots of people to vote for him, and that will assure his victory in November. Actually, many of the people who may vote for him or Hillary Clinton are not even voting in the primaries.

It is also worth mentioning that Donald Trump received about a third of the votes in the primaries. But that is one-third of the 17 percent who voted. In other words, he received less than 6 percent of eligible Republican voters. Once again, that is why it is hard to extrapolate from the primaries to the general election.

When President Obama was in Austin for a music festival, he said: “We’re the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote.” He talked about barriers politicians put up that “make it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote.”

I must admit, I do not know what he is talking about. Let’s start with a requirement to show a photo ID. I don’t consider that a barrier to voting, but let’s for the sake of argument say that it is. Derek Hunter tracked down the research and concluded that a third (35%) of states have no requirement that voters must show ID to vote. Another fourth (24%) accept secondary proof (such as a utility bill) to prove who they are. Only one fifth of states (20%) have a strict photo ID requirement, and the Obama Justice department has tried rescind some of these requirements.

Another possible barrier is the requirement that a citizen vote on a particular day. But that so-called barrier is fast disappearing. In the past, we had absentee voting. Now we have “no excuse” absentee voting and early voting that makes it very convenient. In fact, three-fourths of the states now open the polls days or even weeks before the actual Election Day. That doesn’t seem like much of a barrier to me.

Another possible barrier might be that sometimes you have to wait in line. Frankly, I have never had that problem when I have used early voting. But I have heard of people having to wait in line to vote. But let’s put this in context. Most of us have had to wait in very long lines at the DMV or perhaps at airports. We may not have liked the wait, but you couldn’t really call that an unjust barrier to getting a license or boarding an airplane. A long line should not be considered an unjust barrier to voting.

I disagree with the president. I don’t think we make it so hard to vote. Most people don’t vote because they are apathetic, not because we erect insurmountable barriers to voting.

Although there are have been some protesters at various presidential rallies, most of the media attention has been on those protesting Donald Trump rallies. That is understandable since many of them have used bare-knuckle tactics and a mob mentality.

To listen to some in the media, it is Donald Trump’s fault that these clashes are taking place. Certainly his provocative rhetoric has intensified the reaction. But let’s put some of this in context. Leftist groups routinely shut down events on college campuses if they disagree with what the speaker might say. I have seen this first hand in my experience speaking at universities. I have a great deal of sympathy for what has been done to many Christian and conservative speakers on campus.

The level of verbal (and sometimes physical) attack from protesters at these Trump rallies should concern all of us. The Washington Post recently interviewed Brandon Tatum (an officer of the Tucson Police Department). He is an African-American officer who attended as a civilian and said: “I could not believe what I saw.” He went on to describe what he thought might turn into a “full-fledged riot” at the event, not because of the Trump supporters but because of the protesters.

These protesters have become the front line shock troops in the battle over the future of America. The George Soros-funded Moveon.org is conducting fund raising activities and mobilizing protesters. So is Black Lives Matter along with other radical groups. Some protesters blocked the highway leading to a Trump Rally in Arizona. One Facebook post said: “Remember when Tea Party activists blocked a highway to a Barack Obama rally? No, I don’t remember that either.”

These clashes will no doubt continue. The only real question is whether we will let the liberal bullies win.

In nearly every one of the presidential campaigns you hear lots of doom and gloom. And I agree that there are many things in this country that need to be fixed. But it is also worth remembering that things are better than we know.

David Harsanyi reminds us that in many ways, we never had it so good. He argues that we have lost any sense of context. Let’s compare our current situation to the Great Depression. Let’s compare our comfort to a Dust-Bowl-era family trekking across Oklahoma looking for work. Let’s compare our current gas prices and ease of transportation to someone waiting hours in the 1970s for rationed gas.

Someone in the millennial generation may feel slighted if they don’t look at the context of their lives. College enrollment has nearly doubled in the last three decades. True, many more of them are graduating with huge student loans. We can see why the slogans of Bernie Sanders resonate with them. But these young adults will do better in the world because they have a college degree, even if it takes them as long to pay off student loans as it took me to pay off college and graduate school loans.

Part of the problem is that some of them grew up in the comfort of large homes purchased at four percent interest rates and “low middle-class tax rates instituted by Ronald Reagan.” That world may not return any time soon, but our presidential candidates assure us that things will get better. Hillary Clinton talks about “solutions for America,” and Donald Trump says it is time for us to “start winning again.”

David Harsaynyi reminds us that: “every successive year the world becomes less poor, less violent, and freer.” In the midst of the doom and gloom, it’s worth taking a moment to remember that we never had it so good.

As we get closer to April 15, more and more Americans hope they don’t have to deal with the IRS and an audit of their tax returns. But some Americans have had to deal with the IRS for years just to get a tax-exempt status.

You may remember the IRS scandal from five years ago. Congress demanded answers, and the IRS and other political officials said the problem was just a few rogue employees in Ohio. Congress asked for the emails of Lois Lerner. Well, we were told, they were lost in a hard disk crash and there was no backup. Congress never seemed to be able to get satisfactory answers.

Fortunately, Congress did something about it. House Speaker Paul Ryan explains in a recent column that they were able to implement policy reforms that will make a difference to future religious groups and political groups.

Congress learned that the IRS was threatening to impose a gift tax on donors to conservative non-profit groups. That would have forced many of these groups to close their doors. Congress passed a law making it clear that these donations are exempt.

Because of the actions of Congress, a codified Taxpayer Bill of Rights hangs in every IRS building. It prevents agency employees, like Lois Lerner, from using their personal email addresses for official business. Organizations can now self-declare their tax-exempt status. If the IRS rescinds their status, they have a right to appeal.

Many Americans fear the power of the IRS, and the IRS scandal from a few years ago shows that fear is justified. Fortunately, Congress has been able to reign in some of the excesses that surfaced five years ago and make it easier for religious and political groups to function without problems and intimidation.

Every year the Ruling Class in America takes more power away from the people by seizing control of the government. Lawrence Lindsey writes about this in his new book, Conspiracies of the Ruling Class. The irony is that many people might actually think he is part of the Ruling Class. He has served as a Federal Reserve Governor, Harvard professor, and assistant to three presidents. That is why the observations in his book are so powerful.

He documents the shift of power to the Ruling Class in two ways. First, there is the shift of power to the federal government away from the states and local governments. Second, is the shift from elected representatives to bureaucrats and the Ruling Class.

He gives lots of examples. He talks about how the FCC gave itself regulatory power over the Internet. By a vote of 3-to-2, they gave themselves the power without any input from our elected representatives. Lawrence Lindsey says it doesn’t matter if that was a good decision or a bad decision. The problem is that three unelected bureaucrats decided whether they should have that power.

The Ruling Class believes it knows better than Congress. He says they have a progressive superiority complex and have been attacking and undermining the Constitution for nearly a century.

The EPA, for example, was granted regulatory control of “navigable waters” under the 1972 Clean Water Act. The states were given control of other bodies of water. But the EPA decided to give itself more power by redefining the term “navigable.” I think we all know what the word “navigable” means. It means you can navigate it in a boat. Instead, the EPA defined it to be any body of standing water.

Lawrence Lindsey’s book reminds us that we need to work to break the power grab of our current leaders and replace them with real leaders and statesmen.

If you have wondered how so many evangelicals can vote for Donald Trump, you are not alone. Many commentators admit that it is one of the most puzzling aspects of the 2016 presidential campaign. Donald Trump lost the evangelical vote to Ted Cruz in Iowa, but has done well with evangelical voters since then.

Ralph Reed in a recent column attempts to bring some light to the subject. He first explains that Donald Trump isn’t doing any better among evangelical voters than previous Republican presidential candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney. He has been winning about one-third of evangelicals.

Reed also reminds us that evangelicals “don’t vote solely based on abortion and gay rights.” A recent survey of evangelical voters found that their primary issues were the economy (26%), terrorism (21%), and immigration (9%).

It is also worth noting that evangelical voters don’t cast their ballots based only on the religious commitment of the candidate. In 1980, the voters could choose between the religious Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, who rarely attended church and became the first divorced man to occupy the White House. Evangelicals admired Reagan’s pro-life stand and socially conservative values.

Reed says the deepest crack running through the Republican electorate is not religion but class. Donald Trump’s “strongest support comes from white voters without a four-year college degree, especially blue-collar evangelicals.” They are responding to their economic circumstances and resonate with Donald Trump’s pledge to bring jobs back to America and to stop illegal immigration.

We might add that they also resonate with his claim to be pro-life and his desire to protect religious liberty. Moreover, they are convinced that Washington is broken. That is why the two insurgent candidates (Trump and Cruz) have done so well in this election season.

We are all familiar with the racial controversies that developed at the University of Missouri. In the end, the chancellor and the president resigned. Once that happened, it was easy to see that the controversy and the subsequent resignations would have a detrimental impact on student enrollment. Apparently, this caught the university off guard.

Fox Sports was able to obtain a copy of the interim chancellor’s letter to the university community. “I am writing to you today to confirm that we project a very significant budget shortfall due to an unexpected sharp decline in first-year enrollments and student retention this coming fall.”

This should not have been an “unexpected decline” in student enrollments. Weeks of news coverage that catered to some of the outrageous claims and demands of campus radicals certainly would make both students and their parents reconsider whether they wanted to enroll at the University of Missouri.

The interim chancellor went on to explain that the significantly lower enrollment leaves the university with a $32 million budget gap. And we might mention that this shortfall will continue each year as the smaller entering freshman class makes its way through the various degree programs.

In order to deal with this major financial hit, the administration has implemented an across-the-board hiring freeze for all units on campus. No new staff. No new faculty. No new raises. The annual merit increase program will be zero for the entire campus.

Think of the irony. Many of the radicals wanted more African-American professors to be hired. Because of the racial controversy, no new professors black, white, or Latino will be hired this year or perhaps for many years to come.

This is the huge financial cost when campus radicals get national attention and ruin a university’s reputation.