The GOP legislation awaiting Romneys signature isnt simply a return to the era of George W. Bush. From abortion rights and gun laws to tax giveaways and energy policy, its far worse. Measures that have already sailed through the Republican House would roll back clean-air protections, gut both Medicare and Medicaid, lavish trillions in tax…
Category: Congress
46 Republicans Claim Wind Credits Are Too ‘Costly’ After Voting To Retain Billions In Big Oil Subsidies
The future of wind tax credits is still tied up in Congress as the clock runs down to extend the production tax credit for wind (PTC) expiring at the end of the year. This week, 47 House Republicans urged House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to let them expire. Although GOP districts hold 81 percent of…
Paul Ryan vs. The Stench
“I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him,” Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Republican Party of Iowa, told The New York Times on Sunday. Coming from a resident of Iowa, a state where…
Case Will Test Constitutionality Of The Filibuster : NPR
The non-partisan advocacy group Common Cause has filed a law suit with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to get the Senate’s use of the filibuster declared unconstitutional. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz speaks with Common Cause president Bob Edgar. MORE: Case Will Test Constitutionality Of The Filibuster : NPR.
GOP Nominee Ryan: I Didnt Vote For The Defense Cuts I Voted For
Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan has gotten in hot water before for criticizing President Obama for the very same defense cuts that he voted for in 2011. When confronted with this incongruity today on Face The Nation, Ryan simply denied that he ever voted for the cuts, telling an incredulous Norah O’Donnell that he didn’t actually vote…
Since When Did Paul Ryan Become a Liar?
Ryan seems to have fallen victim to circumstances he didn’t quite foresee. The Romney campaign has spent the last several weeks practically daring the national press corps to call out its lies. Well beyond the usual exaggerations of a national campaign, Romney has built its entire message around two accusations — “you didn’t build that”…
Paul Ryan: The Man Who Wasnt There
Judged by the entirety of his career, Ryan is merely a good-looking version of a typical Obama-era Republican. He calls for budgetary discipline while exploding the deficit. He speaks of lowering taxes but merely shifts the burden to the middle class. Back in the Bush administration, he rarely met a boondoggle he didn’t embrace. On…
Rep. Steve King: Minority Students “Feel Sorry for Themselves”
On Tuesday, trackers from the super-PAC run by the progressive phone service provider CREDO grabbed footage of King at a town hall meeting in Le Mars lamenting that minority students are falling for a communist victimization narrative promoted by student organizations. King, who recently sponsored a bill to make English the national language, launched into an extended rant…
Paul Ryan Cosponsored All the Most Extreme Anti-Abortion Bills
Over his career in the House, GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan has endorsed a number of measures that would limit or completely bar abortion in the United States. Although Ryan’s anti-abortion credentials have gotten plenty of coverage since he was announced as Romney’s veep choice, the full extent of the measures he’s endorsed is breathtaking, and includes…
How’s Medicare Playing In The Florida Senate Race?
News outlets report on how Medicare is shaping the much-watched Florida Senate race as well as how this year’s House candidates that are physicians also tend to be Democrats. Politico: Medicare Shaping Tight Florida Senate Race Rep. Paul Ryan didn’t just inject Medicare smack into the presidential race in swing-state Florida. He also created a new…
Paul Ryan and Todd Akin Partnered On Radical Personhood Bill Outlawing Abortion And Many Birth Control Pills
Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that Rep. Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin R-MO and GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan both cosponsored the bill that introduced America to the despicable term “forcible rape.” As it turns out, this may only be the second most sweeping attack on reproductive freedom that both men partnered on. Ryan and Akin also…
This Congress could be least productive since 1947
In 2011, after Republicans took control of the U.S. House, Congress passed just 90 bills into law. The only other year in which Congress failed to pass at least 125 laws was 1995. These statistics make the 112th Congress, covering 2011-12, the least productive two-year gathering on Capitol Hill since the end of World War…
FAQ: How Paul Ryan Proposes To Change Medicare
Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s choice for vice president, has provoked consternation from Democrats and anxiety among some congressional Republicans with his proposals to reshape Medicare. The Republican-controlled House, along party lines, twice approved his proposals to overhaul the popular social insurance program for the elderly and disabled by giving beneficiaries…
GOP Is For Tax Cuts, Unless They Help You Buy Insurance
During a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday, House Republican lawmakers grilled the director of the Internal Revenue Service on his agency’s ruling allowing qualified individuals to get tax credits to buy health insurance in federal health insurance exchanges. The Associated Press: Republicans Grill IRS Commissioner On Health Care House Republicans on Thursday grilled the head of the…
When Congress fails
The Obama administration is acting unilaterally to give states more flexibility in designing their welfare programs. This is something Republican and Democratic governors have wanted for some time, and the White House has been clear that they do not intend to permit states to ease up on work requirements — ““no plan that undercuts the…
Republicans want to raise taxes on the poor. Why?
As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin Hatch is the Republican point man on taxes in the Senate. And he’s got a plan. It’s called the Tax Hike Prevention Act of 2013. He’s even got Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate Republicans, as a co-sponsor. Hatch’s plan would extend all the Bush tax…
House Republicans To Boehner: If We Can’t Repeal Obamacare, Shut Down The Government
Since much of the implementation of ObamaCare is a function of the discretionary appropriations process, and since most of the citizens we represent believe that ObamaCare should never go into effect, we urge you not to bring to the House floor in the 112th Congress any legislation that provides or allows funds to implement ObamaCare…
Senate Republican Plan Raises Far More People’s Taxes than the Senate Democratic Plan
Senate Republicans would raise taxes on millions of families at the end of this year. In fact, based on our analysis, the Senate Republicans’ plan would likely raise taxes on more than 20 million families—about 10 times as many people who would see higher taxes next year under the Senate Democrats’ plan offered by Majority…
Republican Jobs Bills Won’t Actually Create Jobs, Say Economists
The GOP jobs package, which currently includes 32 bills, represents Republicans’ hallmark legislative accomplishment over the past two years. In the months ahead of the election, they will lean on it as proof of two things: that they are not the do-nothing obstructionists that Democrats paint them as, and that they are working hard to…
Our Broken Political System
Elected politicians would, at least theoretically, be expected to either represent such views or at least respond to them. But you can forget about that. On occasion, democratic pressure can build on representatives to either change a position or lose their jobs, making life sufficiently uncomfortable for them. But this is rarer than a red…