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Congress breaks until after the holidays, but again Reid keeps them in session to deny Bush the chance to make recess appointments. Congress and the president were in negotiations over appointments, where they offered him a slew of approvals for appointments if he'd only not appoint one guy, Steven Bradbury to the Justice Department. Democrats had concerns over his involvement with legal decisions leading to suspected torture. Bush however refused to not make the appointment, leading Reid to call a stalemate and keep the Senate in pro forma sessions.
The Congressional News Thread is now in a recess of its own until after the first of the year! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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Okay, temporarily out of holiday break just to post this little snippet:
Congress threatens to block White House sales of arms to Saudi Arabia. The skinny? President Bush wants to sell $20 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia and other gulf states to combat the growing influence and power of Iran. The sticking point? Those weapons include JDAM tail kits. JDAMs are relatively inexpensive versions of laser guided missiles (which are extremely expensive). You put a kit on the tail assembly and a dumb bomb all of a sudden has GPS guidance, making them very, very accurate. Half of Congress or so has threatned to block the sale, which Congress may do up to 30 days after being given a formal notice, saying it constitutes a direct threat to Israel.
The funny part? Bush expressed big concerns over the sale of Russian defensive missiles to Iran. So apparently, selling $20 billion in high tech weapons to the enemies of Iran is perfectly fine, but when they buy defensive weapons from Russia, it threatens instability in the region. Boy, you have to love that logic.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want Iran buying weapons either, but you have to wonder at his logic there.
And also this little bit of Presidential Primary News
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Yeah, Reid has been keeping the Senate in "pro forma" session since at least November to stop Bush. To be fair, he isn't just doing it for the heck of it, Senate Democrats have been in negotiations with Bush for weeks now, and have offered to comfirms dozens of nominees if only he'd not nominate ONE guy, but Bush refuses to give in, so Reid has decided to close Bush's loophole.
But then, on the flip side, recess appointments were designed specifically, origially, because long absenses by Congresses could mean it'd take months sometimes for confirmations to be made, so it was a way to grease the wheels so to speak and keep government moving. It was NEVER intended to be a method for the Executive Branch to slip nominees past the Legislative Branch that would never be confirmed if done the fair way.
So I have zero problem with Reid's 11 second sessions.
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The House is back in session. Apparently the Senate is off for an extra week, until the 22nd.
Up first some Congressional environmental news:
I don't remember if I posted it before or not, but there was a story a couple weeks ago about the Bush Administration selling drilling rights in Alaska right in the middle of one of the few on land polar bear habitats (most of them live on the ice). Also, the Fish and Wildlife Service was considering adding the Polar Bear as an Endangered Species, which would be the first animal added to the list as a result of global warming. But, they've held off the decision until after the deadline for such issues to matter to the sale.
In other environmental news, the Interior Department is abandoning plans to save the jaguar population in the southwest, citing too low of numbers of the cats. But others are crying foul, as the animals need to cross the US/Mexican border, saying the species is being sacrificed for a useless border fence. I might, might consider siding with the Interior Department on this one, if their facts are right. If so few of the cats are here, and the breeding grounds are to the south, I'd consider it a better investment to send recovery effort money to Mexico to save them where their numbers are higher and their breeding grounds are located. Still, it DOES seem that whenever the environment comes up against any other concern, the environment loses. But this time might be different, to be fair.
Pentagon asks for more F-22s. Normally I'm in favor of cutting back on military spending, but I favor this. Our Air Force is full of some of the best fighters in the world, but they're all pretty old, as evidenced by the grounding of the F-15 fleet recently. They need to be replaced, and the F-22 is the replacement. Give the Air Force what it needs. Replacing an entire fleet is expensive, but they'll last us another 15-20 years while we move on to the next stage (which I imagine will have phasers).
Hopefully I can get some news soon on actual legislation. If anyone knows of some good sites to see what legislation is currently pending, summaries of legislation, and what not, that is easily maneuverable, I'd be thankful for a link.
Edit to add:
Found a couple more pieces of legislation passed this week.
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Not a Congressional issue, but it's a governmental issue, and I didn't want to start a whole new thread for it, so:
Plans abound for redesigning the National Mall. These include creating what some are calling a "pit" to put protestors in with what look like pretty good facilities, but the complaint is that this will be a way of limiting protest and restricting speech. Other plans vary, from simply renovating the grass (pounded into dirt by visitors) and moving the Sylvan Theater, which I didn't even notice when I was there this past summer.
If you'd like to respond with your opinion, you have another couple weeks, before public opinion is closed to them.
Coming up on the Congress' plate?
Economic stimulus package Mortgage insurance legislation to address the FHA's housing insurance program and the refinancing of subprime mortgages House and Senate appropriations for the FY2009 Defense budget.
Senate comes back in session tomorrow.
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In other news, the House again failed to override Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill. Harry Reid has announced that his immediate priorities are the stimulus package and revising and passing FISA, which Bush has said needs to be passed immediately to fight terrorism. Expect a fight over this one.
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Max Baucus, freshman Senator from Montana, seems to be pushing hard for his alternate version of the stimulus package, and in general it looks like the Senate version will have some differences from the House version.
For one, it'll be $500 and $1000 max payments, not $600 and $1200. It also looks like payments will go to people who paid social security taxes, which will mean payments go to a lot more people. He's also pushing for a year of unemployment benefits (which I don't see passing) and wants to add back in the food stamps extension. It's likely that the Senate will pass whatever they come up with and it will go to arbitration where the two sides will work something out. Most of the major details they agree on. I think in the end the food stamps won't pass, and they'll split the difference on unemployment benefits. Payments will probably be five or six hundred dollars, and everyone will get them. Not sure if they still have that $300 thing or not yet, or if everyone would just get $500, I think that'll have to be worked out. Personally I'm rooting for we all get $500.
President Bush has sent Congress a $3.1 trillion budget. It's the first budget over three trillion dollars, and it fudges a lot of numbers. It lowballs money for the wars, and doesn't include an AMT fix, for starters (though those are by a large factor the big ticket items).
Democrats in Congress pretty much laughed it out of the room. They said they won't be considering his budget and will form their own. It would have meant an 8% increase in non-war defense spending, while other departments like HHS, Medicare and medicaid would have all seen multi-billion dollar cuts.
His much ballyhooed executive order to ignore Congressional earmarks, by the way, he post-dated to November, which means it won't matter until FY2009.
For some reason there's either not a lot going on right now in Congress or I can't find the info on it, but the primary news seems to be overshadowing pretty much everything.
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I wasn't sure if I should put this in the Green thread or here, but, I'll put it here.
Senator Charles Grassley in the Senate Finance Committee has added the renewable energy tax credit to the economic stimulus package. The measure would renew the credit, set to expire at the end of the year, for another year, at a cost of $5.5 billion. In the face of almost a hundred billion in investments from private companies over the last two years, it's a fantastic measure aimed to promote more investment in the Green sector of the economy, and does far more long term than just sending checks to everyone, regardless of what they might actually spend those checks on, if they spend them at all. It's being reported that the measure may face opposition from the full Senate, due to vote on the measure later in the week (the vote was postponed due to Super Tuesday) and the White House. Personally I support the measure wholeheartedly, as you might imagine. At a fraction of the total cost of the stimulus package, it will spur more investment in a rapidly growing sector of the economy and help create new jobs. That's precisely what the bill is for. It's business friendly, environmentally friendly, and consumer friendly really.
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Top Democrat says deal may be near on Spy Bill with some sort of immunity for phone companies. Reportedly, Republicans refuse to compromise, preferring the Senate version of the bill and demanding fully immunity, while Democrats refuse full immunity until they are told what it is exactly that the phone companies did in the first place. In response, Democrats were provided with a lot of top secret documents that they are now reviewing. The bright side I guess is that the Democrats asked the White House for secret info before they'd deal, and the White House complied. Kudos for that much cooperation.
The House passed the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008 by a margin of 236-182. This is the measure that will repeal $18 billion in tax breaks for oil companies over 10 years. It will now go to the Senate. President Bush has promised to veto the bill when/if it reaches his desk.
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Over the weekend President Bush vetoed the Intelligence Authorization Bill which would have outlawed specifically waterboarding as torture. President Bush vetoed it because he says waterboarding is a vital tool in the war on terror, has saved American lives in the past, and besides, it's not even torture to begin with. Yesterday the House failed by some 50 votes to override the veto.
On Wednesday the House passed the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 bt a vote of 268-148 . This act would require insurers to treat mental illnesses in the same manner as physical illnesses. Aspects of the bill include equality in financial requirements, treatment limits, out-of-network coverage. It also requires coverage of all diseases covered by Congressional plans.
Last week the Senate passed the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act 79-13 .
Several bills were introduced in the House and Senate, including but not limited to appropriations for FY2009 for our spy agencies, a bill to ban "phishing" and a bill for modernizing safety and security standards for public schools.
Upcoming this week in Congress?
Yesterday the Banking Committee met in the Senate to discuss ways to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
Yesterday and today the defense appropriations committee will be meeting concurrently to discuss FY2009 appropriations and to discuss the deal with EADS/Nortrup Grumman and how pissy Boeing is being about it.
There will be a hearing this week from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on budget cuts for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Thursday there will be a hearing of the House Financial Services Financial Institutions Subcommittee on credit card company practices
Today there will be a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee on the estate tax.
Congress is expected to press the slaughterhouse exec who failed to show up last month to answer questions about the practices at the slaughterhouse that was discovered to have been lax and negligent in their duties, prompting the largest beef recall in US history. He hasn't been heard of since writing a letter last month saying he was "shocked and horrified" by the news.
Congress is expected to have at least a brief battle this week on next year's budget. At stake? Democrats want to let Bush's tax cuts expire and use the money to generate a surplus in a couple years along with generous increases to domestic programs. Republicans want to keep the tax cuts in place and slash spending on Medicare, housing, community development, and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.
Democrat Andre Carson has won a special election in Indiana that makes him the second Muslim in Congress. He joins fellow Congressman Keith Ellison in that regard.
Democrats in Congress (the House) pushed through a measure yesterday to establish an outside Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate possible breaches of ethics in Congress. Republicans objected, saying Congress should be able to police itself. Neither side seems to be happy. Punishment would still be handed down by the Ethics Committee, which angered some Democrats who wanted to give the Office more power, and Republicans don't want it to exist at all.
Many in Congress are wondering where all Iraq's money is going. Estimates for this year range from $45 to $60 BILLION dollars in SURPLUS for Iraq due to high oil prices. This comes from a special investigation from Congress aiming to find out why Congress is funding the reconstruction of a country that is sending it's own money to offshore banks not in the US, and comes amidst accusations of widespread corruption in the Iraqi government. The US has spent $45 billion thus far on reconstruction efforts.
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Two versions of a bill in the House were introduced that call for a variety of things, dealing with China's relations (or lack thereof) with Tibet, and the US stance on the issue.
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Middle Class Opportunity Act of 2007 introduced in the House. Not sure the timing of this, it says it was sponsored in October, but, according to Congress.org it was just introduced the other day. The Act provides certain tax cuts, child tax credit boosts, and modifies the education tax credit (in a good way it looks). You can read it on Thomas for more info.
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I haven't updated this in awhile, mostly because I didn't think anyone was reading, but there's a lot more to that story than your link says.
Personally I think the vacation at this particular moment is an awful idea, both politically for Democrats, and just because they have a lot of crap they need to get done and now isn't the time for a month long vacation. I think they should call a special session, get back in there and really hammer out a deal on this. I think Democrats are a little wary of that because hammering out a deal means taking the issue away from Obama in the Fall, but I don't much care about that, I think they should have a serious debate about it now.
As for the Republicans - give me a break. They were in charge of Congress for more than a decade, and now we're supposed to believe that postponing a vote on a measure that won't produce any oil for 10 years is going to ruin the economy here and now? What a crock. Don't get me wrong, I think they should get together and hammer out a deal too, but the demagoguery the Republicans are throwing over this is so ludicrous as to be farcical. Republicans did the same thing when they were in power. Does that make it right for the Democrats? No, one would have hoped they'd do it better, but it does make me laugh that the Republicans think they have a leg to stand on with their criticisms.
I have to say though, good play by the Republicans, and bad play by the Democrats. Both of them are full of crap to a certain degree, but to a nation that often doesn't pay attention to details, it's good press.
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