Tag Archives: gop led congress

112th Congress: do nothing, take a month long vacation

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First Read via Political Wire: “For those who have departed on their August recess, we salute you — for going down as one of the most unproductive, contentious, and unpopular Congresses in modern history. So in addition to last summer’s debt-ceiling debacle, the Super Committee’s failure, and the near-government shutdown during 2011, Congress has failed to come together to pass a comprehensive farm bill. And Senate Republicans yesterday filibustered a cybersecurity bill.” “

So here’s your current Congress: Republicans are working to block or dismantle laws; Democrats are focusing on protecting what’s already law; and no one is getting stuff done. As we wrote earlier this week, one of the most profound changes on Capitol Hill is the job requirement. It’s no longer about bringing home deliverables to your state or congressional district (like roads, bridges, or new schools). Instead, it’s about scoring ideological points and waging partisan crusades.”

Roll Call: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this evening rejected a plan offered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to set up a vote on repealing the 2010 health care law before the end of September. “Our Republican friends are hopelessly stuck in the past,” Reid said before objecting to a GOP unanimous consent request. “They continue to want to fight battles that are already over.””

Those teaparty government haters have the greatest jobs in the federal government. Where else can you show up, do nothing, actually hurt the people you’re supposed to be working for, and then take a month-long break? The best thing we can do for our country is to vote them out, put people in who actually want to work for their paycheck, and clean up this huge mistake.

The GOP-led House rejects Obama tax cuts, will recess until September

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“Bain Capital is the kind of small business that our Republican colleagues are trying to protect.” — Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

The Huffington Post reports that the House will recess this week — until September — without coming to an agreement on the Bush tax cuts and the wealthiest incomes: “The Democratic bill resembled President Barack Obama’s tax plan, which calls for letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for incomes of more than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals. The Republican measure would extend all the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, but end breaks passed in 2009 that help about 25 million middle-class households.”

“Each side made stark arguments, with Democrats casting the issue as protecting the middle class, and Republicans countering that they were safeguarding small businesses and jobs.

“”The president wants to raise taxes on the so-called rich,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “Well, let me tell you who the so-called rich are. About a million of those people that you want to increase taxes on are small business owners.”

“”Their priority is cutting taxes of the very wealthy in this country,” countered Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “They want to give households that earn more than $1 million a year a tax cut –- on average –- of $160,000 next year.”

“[...] Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) derided the policy as “supply-side voodoo,” echoing criticism first made by George H. W. Bush. Pascrell noted that since the George W. Bush cuts were passed in 2001 and 2003, the income gap in America has grown.

“”To those members concerned with tax fairness, today, wealth concentrated with the top 1 percent is at the same level as the period immediately preceding the Great Depression,” Pascrell said. “So you shrunk the middle class with your great economic ideas between 2001 and 2008, and what you did, what you did is made the rich richer. I salute you.”

“[...] “These are not mom-and-pop businesses,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), arguing that only 3 percent of businesses with fewer than 500 employees would face tax hikes. “Bain Capital. Bain Capital [is] the kind of small business that our Republican colleagues are trying to protect.”

“Democrats also argued that with the expiration of the 2009 cuts — the child tax credit, a bigger earned income tax credit and a break on college tuition — middle-class families would face on average a $1,000 tax hike.

“[...] The failure of Congress to agree on taxes on the remaining 2 percent of Americans guarantees that the argument will be carried through to the campaign trail over the summer, and will be a prime debating point in the fall when Congress returns from its summer break.


Obama Plan Is 39.4% Just Saying… (via: randomactsofchaos)

And that’s 39.4% on the one percent!

Your GOP-led Congress and jobs, jobs, jobs

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Dave Weigel remarks on the lousy jobs forecast and how your Congress is ON IT:

“Michele Bachmann assures us that the economy is struggling because of “uncertainty.” Mitt Romney wants the “kick in the gut” to end. Amid all the verbs and gerunds expressing disappointment, Eric Cantor gives us a sort of heads-up about how Congress will respond: “In the coming weeks, the House will vote to stop the tax hike on working families and remove the red tape burdening small businesses to reduce uncertainty and make America more competitive.” What this means, functionally: The House will hold yet another vote on full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It will pass, and die in the Senate. Tread carefully. After that vote, you don’t want to be mobbed on the street by newly certainty-infused people offering you jobs.”

And another thing:

Source: keepyourbsoutofmyuterus

Postal Workers begin four-day hunger strike, say Congress is killing the postal service

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“Not the Internet, not the recession, not private competition, Congress is killing the postal service,” Community and Postal Workers United wrote in a statement, NPR reports.

Federal Eye reports: ”But the biggest target is Congress, which has not passed legislation to reform the cash-strapped agency. The Senate approved a bill in April that would rebalance postal finances by giving billions of dollars to offer buyouts and early retirement incentives to employees. Several bills are pending in the House.”

Thursday morning’s 6 barely interesting things

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Sen. Levin would ‘love’ Armed Forces Network to drop Limbaugh - Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that the Armed Forces Network should drop conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I would hope the people that run it see just how offensive this is and drop it on their own volition,” Levin told CNN. VoteVets.org, the largest progressive group for American military veterans, is calling on the American Forces Network to stop broadcasting Limbaugh’s show in the wake of his attack on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. “Rush Limbaugh has a freedom of speech and can say what he wants, but in light of his horribly misogynistic comments, American Forces Radio should no longer give him a platform,” they said. “Our entire military depends on troops respecting each other – women and men. There simply can be no place on military airwaves for sentiments that would undermine that respect. When many of our female troops use birth control, for Limbaugh to say they are ‘sluts’ and ‘prostitutes’ is beyond the pale.” || Send an e-mail to the Armed Forces Network, telling them there is no place on military airwaves for talk like Limbaugh’s. || Remember, your tax dollars fund the Armed Forces Network, which means you’re funding Rush’s co-pay for Viagra — so essentially we’re all paying Limbaugh to have sex! [image: leftish]

ANALYSIS: In Almost Every Primary, Romney Wins Big Among The Rich, Loses The Working-Class Vote - In both states, Romney won among those making more than $100,000 by 14 points, even though he lost among all other income demographics. This trend occurs in virtually every state that has voted thus far. A ThinkProgress analysis of exit/entrance polls from the 14 states that have conducted them shows that Romney consistently does best among those earning more than $100,000 or $200,000 a year, while more often than not losing among middle- and working-class voters. The only states where this wasn’t true were Massachusetts, his home state where he served as governor, and Virginia, where Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich weren’t even on the ballot.

Number of U.S. Hate Groups on the Rise, Report Says - [A]ccording to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center… which has kept track of such groups for 30 years, recorded 1,018 hate groups operating last year. The number of groups whose ideology is organized against specific racial, religious, sexual or other characteristics has risen steadily since 2000, when 602 were identified, the center said. Antigay groups, for example, have risen to 27 from 17 in 2010. The report also described a “stunning” rise in the number of groups it identifies as part of the so-called patriot and militia movements, whose ideologies include deep distrust of the federal government. In 2011, the center tracked 1,274 of those groups, up from 824 the year before.

Gun Sales Rise In Texas As NRA Spouts Anti-Obama Fantasies (or how the rightwing nutjob base will believe ANYTHING the NRA tells them!) - National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, recently claimed that Obama would eliminate the Second Amendment — and guns owners’ rights — if he is re-elected. “All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term,” he said at the Conservative Poliltical Action Conference last month. Once he does not have another election to worry about, LaPierre told conservatives that Obama would “get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom.”

Never Do Anything / Your GOP-led Congress not at work - The reason [Boehner] lost the urban/suburban Republicans is because Teabaggers stripped out mass transit funding, since Madison, Hamilton and Washington didn’t ride light rail. Boehner knows he’s in trouble: “The American people entrusted us with the majority in the House. What we do with it us up to us,” he said. “We can use it to take steps together, one at a time, toward the vision we share. Or we can do nothing. We can squander the time we’ve been given … allowing our internal disagreements to paralyze us.” Only the soft bigotry of low expectations would let someone think that passing a highway bill, the most bog standard piece of everyday legislation, is an indicator that the House isn’t paralyzed. Boehner knows he’s doomed to repeat 1948 and his suicide caucus won’t let him do anything about it.

Massive solar storm heading for Earth - Airlines and energy suppliers are on alert as the largest solar storm in five years heads toward Earth, threatening to disrupt flights and power lines. The eruption on the surface of the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), has led to a “massive amount of solar particles heading towards Earth”, which are due to hit the planet between 6am and 10am on Thursday morning, a Met Office spokesman said. But he added that the phenomenon was likely to go unnoticed by most. The forecaster has advised airlines that they may reroute planes from near the polar regions where the radiation caused by the storm is likely to be most intense, while energy suppliers have been warned that the National Grid could also be affected. Solar storms can also cause communication problems, such as radio blackouts, as well as affecting satellites, disrupting oil pipelines and making global positioning systems (GPS) less accurate.

Nasa footage shows two solar flares erupting on the sun:

…

If capital gains tax cuts are allowed to expire, Grover Norquist wants Obama impeached

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The other day I wondered if the do-nothing-GOP-led Congress might actually do SOMETHING with the threat of Bush’s tax cuts on capital gains coming up for expiration. Well, the man who owns the GOP Congress with the anti-tax pledge he had them all sign — Grover “drown government in a bathtub” Norquist — has a plan:

Norquist: Republicans Will Impeach Obama If He Doesn’t Extend Bush Tax Cuts

[...] when asked what Republicans should do if faced with a Democratic majority that won’t keep the tax cuts, Norquist had a simple answer:“impeach” Obama.

NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?

NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

Norquist certainly revels in his power, but suggesting Republicans impeach the president over tax cuts is wildly outlandish. According to the constitution, the president, vice president, or public officials can only be impeached for “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Continue reading…

It’s really very funny that the average, working and middle class teaparty chumps think they own Congress because of the 2010 election, when in realty it’s a guy who launched the K Street Project — which was nothing more than a shady DC-insider effort, specifically set up to help corporations and one-percenters gain access to GOP politicians and their votes. Taxed Enough Already? lol…

Related:  Continue reading →

How our do-nothing Congress could wipe out most of the nation’s deficit by just being themselves

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Don’t you think it will be interesting to see if the GOP led Congress, which has sat on its collective ass since the 2010 election, will suddenly spring to life to defend the one percenters and their current tax rate on capital gains?

[T]he New York Times noted today…plans to raise tax rates are unlikely to move through Congress before the 2012 elections. What that conventional wisdom ignores, however, is that Congress doesn’t have to do anything to raise the tax rate on capital gains. Doing absolutely nothing, in fact, would raise Romney’s taxes by a significant amount.

This is because the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are scheduled to expire January 1, 2013, bumping the capital gains tax back to 20 percent. An obscure provision that limits deductions for high-income earners is set to return on the same day. The Affordable Care Act also enacted a tax on high-income taxpayers that will raise the rate on capital gains. Those changes require no Congressional action — rather, they require Congressional inaction — and would raise the capital gains rate significantly, as the Tax Policy Center pointed out:

Put it all together, and the top tax rate on capital gains is scheduled to increase from 15% today to 25% on January 1.

Romney, meanwhile, would ask Congress to pass a tax cut that would cut his tax bill by millions of dollars. As ThinkProgress has noted, Congress could actually wipe out most of the country’s deficit by doing nothing.

John Boehner has no problem threatening to allow the payroll tax cuts to expire for random political issues. Let’s see what happens in the next few months over the expiration of capital gains tax cuts.


image: socalwayfarer