A long-time veteran of Washington policymaking, Mike Franc oversees Heritage's outreach to members of the U.S. House and Senate and their staffs. From 1993 to 1996, he served as Heritage's Director of Congressional Relations. In 1996, he served as Director of Communications for House Majority Leader Richard Armey of Texas. Before joining Heritage, he served in the Office of National Drug Control Policy and as Legislative Counsel for then-Representative William Dannemeyer of California. A graduate of Yale University, Franc earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc http://media.townhall.com/TownHall/icons/TH-feed-icon-128x128.gif http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc TownHall.com, Where your opinion counts. 128 Copyright (c) 2013 Townhall.com, A Salem Communications Web. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED jim.dearras@townhall.com (Jim De Arras) Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:01:00 GMT Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:01:00 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ His State of the Union address began with a focus on our government's foremost responsibility -- national security. This, the first of many bold policy proposals, would reverse the debilitating effects of the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2008/02/08/the_other_state_of_the_union 183c200d-8d27-4b3c-97bf-2bfe0d31b839 Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:01:00 GMT Recall how, after the Sept. 11 attacks, virtually any legislative bid miraculously morphed into a "security" measure? Opportunists re-dubbed a routine, pork-laden farm bill the "Farm Security Act," and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2008/01/25/stimulus_plan_needs_to_be_long_term 24bd811a-d108-4ca8-9cb9-cd21125a13f9 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:53:17 GMT To better understand the never-ending policy struggles between the president and Congress, consider the uniquely different perspectives that both bring to the legislative process. By virtue of his national... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2008/01/04/earmarks_still_a_problem 79002f35-a841-4b2a-b966-a60e1b347cd6 Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:58:58 GMT The next president will be judged by the adequacy of his (or her) response to the two overriding challenges facing America today -- winning the war on terrorism and surmounting the fiscal consequences of the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/11/30/democrat_tax_alternatives_could_distance_them_from_blue_state_voters f7fc665e-fafa-4793-8625-36f0dca12da7 Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:08:27 GMT Amid all the chaos on Capitol Hill -- a possible vote to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney one day, shenanigans over the annual spending bills the next -- one constant has been the prolonged, backroom negotiation... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/11/09/schips_path_for_illegal_immigrants 2c57679e-11ab-4005-946f-c11326b923a7 Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:31:34 GMT In July, the Treasury Department released a study cataloguing the ways our deplorable tax code restricts U.S. competitiveness. "Our tax system," it said, "disrupts and distorts a vast array of business and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/11/02/us_tax_code_hampers_competitiveness c7e6ef4d-444a-42e1-8ef7-c810def14011 Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:54:37 GMT "Showing apparent signs of concern over events in Iraq," ABC News reported last week, Osama bin Laden warned his terrorist comrades that: "Your enemies are trying to break up the jihadi groups." He implored them to... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/10/27/will_congress_permanantly_close_the_intelligence_gap 70504d72-03d3-4d04-b948-4428643d9394 Sat, 27 Oct 2007 04:01:01 GMT Remember the endless end-of-session confrontations between President Reagan and the Democratic-controlled Congresses of the 1980s? Former Speaker Tip O'Neill and his allies would bundle the year's spending bills into... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/08/24/coming_spending_fights_could_be_80s_replay a5c94e32-2142-456b-ba00-76e1c5eb2786 Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:40:00 GMT Principled conservative lawmakers have been called many things as they doggedly pursue their quest for smaller government. In the House, liberals have resorted to using the "f" word -- "fringe" -- to describe... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/08/10/small_government_efforts_arent_fringe 458fa99e-4ff4-4a5e-8bd9-75e39049159a Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:51:09 GMT During the heady days of 1993 when former First Lady Hillary Clinton assembled a group of health experts to reconfigure our health-care system, liberal strategists realized that the march toward socialized medicine... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/07/27/schip_a_step_towards_socialism 8594835a-7f49-46f6-bcd6-dc57cdea6ff1 Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:16:37 GMT Liberals who favor withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq believe the situation there is relatively straightforward: We are enmeshed in a civil war, a deeply-rooted sectarian conflict the outcome of which matters little to... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/07/20/the_left_continues_to_mischaracterize_the_war 163ba4e5-f172-4fa5-b074-31249bf4b337 Fri, 20 Jul 2007 18:20:03 GMT The role the Senate plays in our legislative process was best described by George Washington. "We pour legislation into the senatorial saucer," he told a skeptical Thomas Jefferson, "to cool it." Indeed, after two... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/06/08/american_support_for_amnesty_fades b9122e2d-a619-405b-a23b-96cd0ee21776 Fri, 08 Jun 2007 20:45:14 GMT The debate over the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill has forced lawmakers to grapple with another contentious issue, namely: What exactly are the fiscal consequences of granting citizenship to the 12 to 15... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/06/01/amnestys_heavy_fiscal_impact ef5467f6-495f-478d-bd1d-58015fd5417a Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:44:12 GMT A certain irony surrounds the scheduled explosion of tax liability under the Alternative Minimum Tax. Namely, this is a "Blue State tax," with the heaviest concentrations of affected taxpayers living in states that vote http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/05/11/republicans_overwelmingly_populate_blue_states bcdb3179-d5d3-4ceb-8c1b-ed678bc4e652 Fri, 11 May 2007 14:41:55 GMT When President Bush proposed to enhance U.S. "competitiveness" by doubling federal spending on research in the physical sciences over the next decade, adding 100,000 math and science teachers to the nation's high school http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/04/27/the_wrong_way_to_fuel_competitiveness 10988669-eaa9-4c05-94cf-61e38da0efbd Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:48:55 GMT "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert," Nobel economist Milton Friedman once quipped, "in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." Friedman's admonition is especially pertinent to the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/04/20/durbin_wrong_again_in_pushing_big_government_for_medicare_expenses eb166b3f-d827-4f14-8372-b66b77bf4530 Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:50:58 GMT A recent poll by the Pew Research Center has unleashed a torrent of obituaries for the principles conservatives hold dear. To Paul Krugman of The New York Times, the poll demonstrates that conservative values are... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/04/02/democrats_will_face_legislative_disagreements e108d051-f631-4c89-a6f9-43aae353b804 Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:45:37 GMT Get ready for the invasion of the armchair generals. With 535 Capitol Hill generals struggling to define every aspect of when and how our troops in Iraq may be deployed, timetables for their withdrawal and specific requ http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/03/23/fighting_a_war_with_535_generals d4ab60db-35c3-4602-a693-fe15b3a3e20c Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:47:45 GMT In every legislative struggle, ideological boundaries inevitably emerge. Factions of conservative and liberal lawmakers and their allies define the right and left walls of the debate. The forthcoming battle over the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/03/16/left_vs_right_on_education 8aa4c3ca-cfa6-4fb2-a1d5-0c91699d64d8 Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:30:13 GMT "Welfare," it has been said, "is mistrusted by those who pay for it and held in contempt by those who receive it." This may be true for those who deplore the loss of dignity and the self-destructive behavior that... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelFranc/2007/03/02/states_addiction_to_welfare_corrupts_federalist_system 305267dc-d29a-424c-8a4b-3cf754277012 Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:03:02 GMT