Recently in Congress Category

Hallelujah! At long last, some backbone. Following his recess appointment of Richard Cordray as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday, President Obama announced 3 appointments to the National Labor Relations Board: "The move, which is arguably as important as the Cordray appointment, will ratchet up opposition from Republicans and make this an even bigger fight, since they have been attacking the NLRB regularly for its moves to streamline union elections and inform...

Here's my TV viewing schedule for this evening. Seinfeld re-runs on TBS from 6 o 7, followed by Saints-Packers pre-game on NBC at 7, followed by the kickoff somewhere around 7:30. No speech. Why bother?By all accounts, President Obama's jobs speech before a joint session of Congress tonight will just be more of the same old, same old, Republican-lite, warmed over policies on unemployment--tax cuts. If I'm going to get yadda yadda yadda, I'd rather...

Harry Reid has announced his three choices for the joint committee in charge of focusing on the wrong problem: "In the first of what will be a closely watched selection process for a powerful new deficit panel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will appoint Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.), Max Baucus (Mont.) and John Kerry (Mass.) as his three choices for a super committee charged with finding more than $1 trillion in spending...

Congress did not pass a bill funding the FAA before leaving Washington for their paid summer vacation.  Republicans are trying to cut a program that subsidizes small, rural airports.  This cut would save American taxpayers $16 million per year.  Congress was unable to agree on cutting this program before they left for vacation, so now the FAA is shut down.  Here are the numbers:FAA employees working without pay or out of a job:    4,000FAA construction...

I offer this viewpoint as an alternative and not necessarily something I believe in strongly. It's hard to believe in anything strongly when you work seven and eight days at a time and work the graveyard shift. That being said, I know progressives are up in arms over what the president and Congressional Democrats did in facilitating a debt ceiling deal. Funny, but the new job has a way of putting things in perspective.I think...

The debt ceiling talks have begun to remind me of the Cuban Missile  Crisis.(Above--Soviet missiles in Cuba. Big trouble back in 1962.)Which side will blink first?(Here are facts about the Cuban Missile Crisis.)As for the debt ceiling negotiations, I hope President Obama does not sell us out with benefit cuts and domestic spending cuts that make life tougher than it is already. The wealthy have the resources to pay more taxes. If the debt is such a...

Should Abe Lincoln have given into everything that Jefferson Davis and the South wanted in order to solve a great national problem?President Obama has likely compromised more than he should on the debt ceiling debate. And yet still it is not enough for Republicans.Mr. Obama may not be another Lincoln, but today's Republican Party of States Rights and mindless government bashing would have fit in just fine with the Confederacy.Just how far backwards are we going to go in...

If any further proof was needed that the answer to that question is "not no but hell no" here goes. President Obama hurt the Wepublican senators wittle fee-fees in his press conference:"The Republicans were stung by Obama's Wednesday press conference, when he unfavorably compared GOP lawmakers to his school-age daughters, who he said get their homework done on time." Actually, that is unfair--to the president's daughters. Republicans have a ways to go before they reach...

From The Hill yesterday:"The White House, seeking an agreement to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2, on Monday said it would not insist that any deal include an end to former President George W. Bush's controversial tax rates on the wealthy...The White House said the president is pushing the GOP to agree to eliminate some tax breaks for businesses and loopholes for wealthier taxpayers, but is not seeking to eliminate the...

Extreme conservative House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has pulled out of the ongoing debt ceiling talks in Washington.Republican Senator John Kyl of Arizona--who has a problem with facts--has also left these talks.It appears that additional stimulus  and possible tax increases for those most able to pay may be on the table as needed steps to help the economy.What a welcome difference from the Republican strategy of working to keep the economy from recovering in order to hurt President Obama politically.I'm wary of all sides...