Finally, some bipartisanship _ oops, nevermind

House Speaker John Boehner heads from a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 19, 2011, to speak to the media. Partisan to the core, Congress careened toward a holiday-season standoff Monday on legislation to prevent a Social Security payroll tax increase for 160 million workers on Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

House Speaker John Boehner heads from a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 19, 2011, to speak to the media. Partisan to the core, Congress careened toward a holiday-season standoff Monday on legislation to prevent a Social Security payroll tax increase for 160 million workers on Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Sen. Mitch McConnell does not high-five easily or often. But a deal to keep American workers’ taxes from rising on Jan. 1 was reason enough for the coolest negotiator in the Senate to lift a hand on camera and slap ? or pat ? some skin.

His celebration was premature.

Furious House Republicans said McConnell’s deal for a two-month extension of payroll tax cuts is 10 months too few. They are prepared to let everyone’s Social Security taxes rise an average $20 a week for a while if that’s what it takes to extend the cut for a year. And they are intent on dragging the vacationing Senate back to Washington to do it their way.

“I don’t care about the political implications,” Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., said Monday.

Senate Republicans do, especially those up for re-election at a time when Americans are more apt to trust car salesmen than Congress.

“The House Republicans’ plan to scuttle the deal to help middle-class families is irresponsible and wrong,” said one, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.

It was at least the third time in a year dominated by partisan standoffs that House conservatives, led by a nearly 90-member freshman class, brought GOP leaders up short on their plans to compromise. The first was last spring when they forced GOP leaders to rewrite spending bills to deepen federal spending cuts. Then there were objections in the summer over raising the nation’s debt limit, which brought the government to the brink of a first-ever default.

Now, the question of compromise is keeping a tax cut ? the stuff of Republican dogma ? hanging on the eve of the presidential and congressional election year.

At stake are Social Security payroll taxes paid by 160 million workers. President Barack Obama and the last Congress agreed to cut them by 2 percentage points a year ago, but only for a year. On Jan. 1, they go back up to 6.2 percent if Congress doesn’t act. Also, people without jobs for more than six months start losing benefits and doctors’ Medicare fees get cut by 27 percent.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, derided what he said was yet another instance of the Senate “kicking the can down the road” with only a two-month renewal of the status quo. Doing it for an entire year would mean more certainty “for job creators and others,” he said.

House Republicans huddled late into the night and planned to instead call Tuesday for formal negotiations with the Senate, rejecting the two-month version.

The dustup marked an unusual disconnect between Boehner and McConnell. Even before the 2010 elections made Boehner speaker, he and McConnell coordinated closely on tactics. This year, they’ve stayed in close contact, either by phone or by shuttling quietly between their office suites at the Capitol, their aides say.

Kentucky’s McConnell is not meek when it comes to partisan brinksmanship.

He’s vowed, for example, to use his perch as the Senate’s top Republican to deny Obama a second term. He considers cartoons mocking his hardcore negotiating style badges of honor, and posts them on his office wall. But even McConnell spoke up Saturday in favor of compromise on the payroll tax, lest another standoff drop Congress’ approval ratings the few points they have left to fall.

“In order to achieve something around here, we have to compromise,” he intoned just before the Senate’s vote Saturday on the two-month tax cut extension. “That is, in fact, what we have done. We have crafted a bill not designed to fail but designed to pass.”

It passed overwhelmingly, 89-10, and senators immediately bolted for a month-long recess, a year of sniping and ugliness finished at last ? or so they thought.

House Republicans immediately balked and insisted on their one-year version, six times more expensive and paid for in part by raising Medicare premiums for people whose incomes exceed $80,000 a year. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid made clear he had no intention of calling the Senate back into session to vote on that or any other bill.

A two-month deal, the House freshmen suggested, was not worth having because it did not afford business owners and others enough time to plan. They were outraged at the Senate ? including 39 of its 47 Republicans ? for voting for a two-month extension.

“The Senate just needs to do its job,” said Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, R-N.Y. “What they sent us over was an insult to the American people.”

“That vote (in the Senate) had a lot more to do with getting out of Washington and going back home and spending time with our loved ones,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark.

So it’s all or nothing? House Republicans are prepared to let taxes rise on Jan. 1?

“We didn’t say it’s all or nothing,” Womack said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-20-US-Congress-Dysfunction-Junction/id-8dd54c8daf034898a46e54620bbef085

fisher investments pacer choice hotels thunder vicente fernandez house md chicago code

Written on January 7th, 2012 , savor Tags: , ,
House Republicans reject 2-month payroll tax cut

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio walks to the House floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. Republicans in the House of Representatives are set to block a Senate proposal to extend a popular tax cut for working Americans for two months, setting up a showdown between Boehner and his own party in the Senate plus President Obama and the Democrats. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio walks to the House floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. Republicans in the House of Representatives are set to block a Senate proposal to extend a popular tax cut for working Americans for two months, setting up a showdown between Boehner and his own party in the Senate plus President Obama and the Democrats. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. Partisan to the core, Congress careened toward a holiday-season standoff on legislation to prevent a Social Security payroll tax increase for 160 million workers on Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Rep. Steny Hoyer D-Md. speaks during a news conference at Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 as House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Rep. James Clyburn D-S.C., listen. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House has rejected a plan backed by President Barack Obama to extend a 2-percentage point payroll tax cut for millions of Americans for two months.

Republicans are demanding immediate talks with the Senate on a year-long extension. Without a bill extending the cuts, payroll taxes will go up for 160 million workers on Jan. 1. Almost 2 million people could lose unemployment benefits as well.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-20-Congress/id-f1666ad39db24334b1b21175cba38e76

chicago code forgetting sarah marshall asterisk joplin missouri alicia keys kirstie alley duke energy

Written on January 3rd, 2012 , savor Tags: , ,
House GOP leaders want new payroll tax cut bill

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Top House Republicans rebelled Sunday against a bipartisan, Senate-approved bill extending payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for two months.

?????The House GOP defiance cast uncertainty over how quickly Congress would forestall a tax increase otherwise heading straight at 160 million workers beginning New Year’s Day. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it could be finished within two weeks, which suggested that lawmakers might have to spend much of their usual holiday break battling each other in the Capitol.

?????A day after rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers used a conference call to spew venom against the Senate-passed bill, Boehner said he opposed the legislation and wanted congressional bargainers to craft a new, yearlong version.

?????”The president said we shouldn’t be going anywhere without getting our work done,” Boehner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated promise to postpone his Christmastime trip to Hawaii if the legislation was not finished. “Let’s get our work done, let’s do this for a year.”

?????A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the House would vote Monday to either request formal bargaining with the Senate or to make the legislation “responsible and in line with the needs of hard-working taxpayers and middle-class families.”

?????Cantor spokeswoman Laena Fallon did not specify what those changes might be, beyond a longer-lasting bill. Boehner, though, expressed support for “reasonable reductions in spending” in a House-approved payroll tax bill and for provisions that blocked some Obama administration anti-pollution rules.

?????Democrats leaped at what they saw as a chance to champion lower- and middle-income Americans by accusing Republicans of threatening a wide tax increase unless their demands are met. If Congress doesn’t act, workers would see their take-home checks cut by 2 percentage points beginning Jan. 1, when this year’s 4.2 percent payroll tax reverts to its normal 6.2 percent.

“They should pass the two month extension now to avoid a devastating tax hike from hitting the middle class in just 13 days,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “It’s time House Republicans stop playing politics and get the job done for the American people.

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the Senate’s No. 3 Democratic leader, said “it’s a make-or-break moment for John Boehner’s speakership.”

“You cannot let a small group at the extreme resort to brinksmanship every time there is a major national issue and try to dictate every move this nation makes,” Schumer said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said by opposing the Senate bill, “Tea party House Republicans are walking away once again, showing their extremism and clearly demonstrating that they never intended to give the middle class a tax cut,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

?????Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the Nevada Democrat would be “happy to continue negotiating a yearlong extension as soon as the House passes the Senate’s short-term, bipartisan compromise to make sure middle-class families will not be hit by a thousand-dollar tax hike on January 1.”

?????Keeping this year’s 2 percentage point payroll tax cut in effect through 2012 would produce $1,000 in savings for a family earning $50,000 a year. The two-month version would be worth about $170 for the same household.

?????On Saturday, the Senate voted 89-10 for its legislation, which was negotiated by Senate Republican and Democratic leaders and backed by solid majorities of senators from both parties. It would provide a two-month extension of the payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits and prevent scheduled 27 percent cuts to doctors’ Medicare reimbursements during that period, reductions that could convince physicians to stop treating elderly patients covered by the program.

?????That measure was praised by Obama, and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., expressed optimism that the measure would become law. Initial bills produced by both sides lasted for a year, but negotiators working on the final product could not agree to savings that would finance such a measure, likely to cost roughly $200 billion.

?????Reid and Schumer said Boehner had asked McConnell and Reid to negotiate a compromise, seemingly suggesting that Boehner had walked away from a deal. Republicans said that is untrue and said the House GOP played no role in last week’s bargaining between the Senate leaders.

Boehner won support Sunday from McConnell. His spokesman, Donald Stewart, said the best way to craft a new bill “and provide certainty for job creators, employees and the long-term unemployed is through regular order” ? a term used to describe the normal process of negotiations between the House and Senate.

?????The Senate bill included language cherished by Republicans giving Obama 60 days to approve an oil pipeline stretching from western Canada’s tar sands to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, unless he declared the project hurt the national interest. GOP leaders had thought that provision would assure enough votes to pass the overall legislation.

?????Obama had previously said he was delaying a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until 2013, allowing him to wait until after next November’s elections to choose between unions favoring the project’s thousands of jobs and environmentalists opposed to its potential pollution and massive energy use. Obama initially threatened to kill the payroll tax bill if it included the pipeline language but eventually retreated.

?????Despite the Keystone provision, House Republicans used a Saturday conference call to express anger about the Senate bill and frustration that their leaders seemed willing to agree to the compromise, participants said. Many demanded a return to some of the House bill’s spending cuts, including reductions in Obama’s health care overhaul law of last year, and several expressed a willingness to work through the holidays to revamp the legislation, Republicans said.

?????Though GOP leaders support extending the payroll tax and jobless benefits, some House Republicans question doing that, arguing it won’t produce jobs and could weaken Social Security. The payroll tax, subtracted from workers’ paychecks, is used to finance Social Security.

The Senate adjourned Saturday and is not scheduled to conduct legislative work until late January. That could potentially complicate quick work on a revised payroll tax bill because all 100 senators would have to agree to let the Senate hold any votes before then.

?????

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-18-Congress%20Rdp/id-580f4c5db3564706952172e4f320a656

alex rodriguez yemen sea world san diego duke nukem forever demo yemen news scripps national spelling bee nkotbsb

Written on January 2nd, 2012 , savor Tags: , ,
Democrats abandoning millionaire surtax proposal (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Democrats are abandoning their demand for a surtax on millionaires to help finance payroll tax cuts in a sign that lawmakers are trying to broker a compromise on Congress’ highest-profile year-end dispute.

Even so, there is no clear path to quick bipartisan agreement on the legislation, which would prevent an automatic Social Security tax increase on 160 million workers and the expiration of jobless benefits for people out of work the longest. Both would occur Jan. 1 without congressional action.

Lawmakers are also embroiled in a squabble over a huge, separate spending bill, a dispute that would force a shutdown of most of the government on Saturday unless it is resolved. Neither party wants to risk the wrath of voters by shuttering government doors.

Republicans say they plan to try winning House approval for a $1 trillion measure financing dozens of agencies through next September.

But that means a conflict with the White House, whose communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, said President Barack Obama had problems with some social, environmental and other provisions in the legislation. Pfeiffer said Congress should approve a short-term bill to keep the government open while final disputes are resolved.

House Republicans officially unveiled the massive, bipartisan spending bill late Wednesday to fulfill transparency rules, but Senate Democrats had yet to officially sign on. However, the measure wasn’t expected to change much, if at all, before a vote Friday, despite White House protests and an explicit veto threat regarding provisions placing limits on the ability of Cuban immigrants to visit families on the island or send money back to them.

The pre-Christmas wrangling caps a contentious year in a capital hindered by divided government, with Democrats controlling the White House and Senate while Republicans run the House. Lawmakers have engaged in down-to-the-wire drama even when performing the most mundane acts of governing, such as keeping agencies functioning and extending federal borrowing authority, tasks that are only becoming more politically delicate as the calendar nears the 2012 election year.

That finger-pointing was reflected Wednesday in some of the back and forth between party leaders.

“My friend is living in a world of non-reality,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had suggested that Congress quickly complete its spending work. Reid said unresolved disputes made that impossible.

“The House has done its work. It’s time for the Senate to do theirs,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, referring to House approval this week of payroll tax legislation.

That bill drew solid opposition from Democrats and Obama in part because it would force work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries, which Obama would rather delay. They are also unhappy that the bill is financed by cuts to civilian federal workers, Obama’s health care overhaul bill and other programs that Democrats say would avoid meaningful contributions from the rich.

Senate aides said top Democrats are writing a new version of the payroll tax legislation that would exclude a 1.9 percent surtax on people earning more than $1 million a year, a levy Democrats relied on to pay for their previous payroll tax cut bills. Instead, they said, their new legislation’s savings would include higher fees that government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would charge to back mortgages and revenue from selling portions of the broadcast spectrum.

Republicans minimized the importance of the Democratic retreat on taxing high-income people.

“I don’t think it’s much of a concession,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “It never had any chance of passing the Senate, let alone the House.”

In one instance of cooperation, the Senate was expected to give final congressional approval Thursday to a $662 billion defense bill that would allow the administration to prosecute terrorism suspects in the civilian justice system.

The White House had initially issued a veto threat against the bill over language requiring the military to handle some terrorism suspects. An agreement was reached by including a provision ensuring that the role of domestic law enforcement agencies would be unchanged.

The bill, which the House approved Wednesday by 283-136, lays the groundwork for weapons purchases, U.S. military activity overseas and the Energy Department’s national security programs. Reflecting a period of tight budgets and diminishing U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the legislation envisions $27 billion less spending than Obama proposed ? money that will be supplied in separate legislation.

Also Wednesday, the Senate rejected rival Republican and Democratic proposals to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget.

On the dispute over the giant spending bill, GOP aides have said that as a backup plan, they might push a short-term bill through the House financing agencies into January if they can’t win enough support for the $1 trillion package.

Passage of the spending bill, by removing the threat of a federal shutdown, would take pressure off House Republicans to continue bargaining on the separate payroll tax legislation.

However, spotlighting the degree of disagreement between the two parties, they are even at odds over whether the $1 trillion measure is a bipartisan compromise or not.

Republicans and at least one Democrat said agreement had been reached earlier in the week. But the White House and Reid said disagreements remain, with Reid citing provisions relating to travel to Cuba and funding for the Commodities Future Trading Commission.

The spending bill would finance the Pentagon and nine other Cabinet-level departments, as well as scores of smaller agencies. It would trim the budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency, foreign aid and Congress itself while providing funds to combat AIDS in Africa, patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, operate national parks and boost veterans’ health care.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_rdp

sherpa patent ku 11 ted nugent may 21st doomsday ben eager

Written on December 18th, 2011 , savor Tags: , ,
Monti forms new Italian government

Italy’s premier-designate Mario Monti speaks to the media after finishing his meetings with Italian political leaders and civil society organizations’ representatives at the Senate, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. Monti will submit his list for a new government to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Italy’s premier-designate Mario Monti speaks to the media after finishing his meetings with Italian political leaders and civil society organizations’ representatives at the Senate, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. Monti will submit his list for a new government to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Italy’s premier-designate Mario Monti speaks to the media after finishing his meetings with Italian political leaders and civil society organizations’ representatives at the Senate, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. Monti will submit his list for a new government to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Italy’s premier-designate Mario Monti, center, sits, during a meeting with industrialists and union representatives at the Senate, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. Italy’s premier-designate Mario Monti began talks on Monday to create a new government of non-political experts tasked with overhauling an ailing economy to keep market fears over the country from threatening the existence of the euro. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

People of Freedom party secretary Angelino Alfano addresses the media after talks with Italy’s new premier-designate economist Mario Monti, at the Senate, in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011. Mario Monti began talks on Monday to create a new government of non-political experts tasked with overhauling an ailing economy to keep market fears over the country from threatening the existence of the euro. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

ROME (AP) ? Economist Mario Monti announced Wednesday he has formed a new Italian government, opting to put technocrats instead of bickering politicians in his cabinet to enact reforms that can save the country from financial disaster.

Monti told reporters at the president’s palace that for the time being he will serve as economy minister as well as premier, as he seeks to implement what he called “sacrifices” to heal the country’s finances and set the economy growing again.

The 68-year-old former European Union competition commissioner, along with his new cabinet ministers, will be sworn in the early evening (1600 GMT), formally ending the 3 1/2-year-old government of Silvio Berlusconi as well as his 17-year-long run of political dominance.

Monti said he would lay out his emergency anti-crisis policies in the Senate on Thursday, ahead of a confidence vote. A second vote, in the lower Chamber of Deputies, will follow, likely on Friday.

He stressed that economic “growth” is a priority.

In explaining why he chose his ministers from outside the ranks of Italy’s fractious political parties, Monti said that his consultations with party leaders led him to the conclusion “that the non-presence of politicians in the government would help it.”

Monti has said Italy can beat the crisis if its largely polarized citizenry ? often bitterly divided over Berlusconi’s long tenure ? can pull together. He has also met with union leaders and employers’ representatives.

“I hope that, governing well, we can make a contribution to the calming and the cohesion of the political forces.”

The shift in power to a technocratic government has caused bickering within Berlusconi’s conservative People of Freedom Party, which eventually endorsed Monti. But Berlusconi’s main coalition ally, the Northern League, has announced it will stay in the opposition during Monti’s government.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-16-EU-Italy-Financial-Crisis/id-cbe2291836d64fd69a5e26c174214a2b

san francisco 49ers san francisco 49ers pacquiao vs marquez pacquiao vs marquez junior dos santos junior dos santos evelyn lauder

Written on November 17th, 2011 , savor Tags:
Senate GOP blocks Obama infrastructure plan (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republicans in the Senate Thursday dealt President Barack Obama the third in a string of defeats on his stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines.

Supporters of the failed measure said it would have created tens of thousands of construction jobs and lifted the still-struggling economy. But Republicans unanimously opposed it for its tax surcharge on the wealthy and spending totals they said were too high.

The 51-49 vote fell well short of the 60 votes required under Senate procedures to start work on the bill. Every Republican opposed the president, as did Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska and former Democrat Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who still aligns with the party.

Obama’s loss was anything but a surprise, but the White House and its Democratic allies continue to press popular ideas from Obama’s poll-tested jobs package in what Republicans say is nothing more than a bare-knuckle attempt to gain a political edge by invoking the mantra of jobs but doing little to seek compromise.

“The truth is, Democrats are more interested in building a campaign message than in rebuilding roads and bridges,” said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “And frankly, the American people deserve a lot better than that.”

Obama ripped Republicans in an unusually tough statement issued by the White House.

“The American people deserve to know why their Republican representatives in Washington refuse to put some of the workers hit hardest by the economic downturn back on the job rebuilding America,” Obama said. “It’s time for Republicans in Congress to put country ahead of party and listen to the people they were elected to serve. It’s time for them to do their job and focus on Americans’ jobs.”

After Republicans blocked Obama’s infrastructure plan, the president’s Democratic allies immediately killed a competing GOP infrastructure plan that would have extended existing highway and transit spending programs and paid for the spending with a $40 billion cut in unspent funding for other domestic programs. The White House opposed the measure over its spending cuts and provisions that would block recent clean air rules and make it harder for the administration to issue new rules.

Obama unveiled his $447 billion jobs plan in September and has launched a campaign-style effort ? featuring multiple rallies in states crucial to his re-election bid ? to try to get it passed. In votes last month, Republicans blocked the entire $447 billion jobs package and a subsequent attempt by Democrats to pass a $35 billion piece of it aimed at preventing layoffs of teachers and firefighters.

Another political flash point is the way Democrats have sought to pay for Obama’s jobs measures ? a surcharge on income exceeding $1 million. The idea enjoys wide backing in opinion polls but is stoutly opposed by Republicans, who say it would hit small business owners and therefore threaten job growth.

With the demise of Thursday’s measure, an announcement could come as early as Friday on what’s the next piece of Obama’s jobs agenda to break out for a stand-alone vote. Democratic aides say the next measure would be legislation to provide a $4,800 tax credit for hiring an unemployed veteran and increasing the tax credit for hiring a veteran with a service-related disability to up to $9,600.

Republicans back the idea of the veterans hiring tax credit.

Thursday’s legislation would have provided an immediate $50 billion investment in roads, bridges, airports and transit systems. It also called for a $10 billion bank to leverage private and public capital for longer-term infrastructure projects.

The measure would be financed by a 0.7 percent surcharge on income over $1 million.

After Obama’s full $447 billion jobs bill was filibustered to death last month, the White House immediately announced it would seek votes on component pieces. That’s a way to exert political pressure on Republicans sensitive about their own jobs agenda, which so far has centered on relaxing regulations and boosting offshore oil exploration and drilling.

Obama last week uncorked a “We Can’t Wait” initiative that relies on executive authority rather than legislation from a bitterly divided Congress to help homeowners refinance “underwater” homes and give borrowers relief from their student loans.

Meanwhile, House GOP leaders are casting blame on the Senate for failing to act on 15 “forgotten” jobs bills, including a measure to repeal a law requiring federal, state and many local governments to withhold 3 percent of their payments to contractors until their taxes are paid.

Also Thursday, the House is poised to approve bipartisan legislation to remove a Securities and Exchange Commission ban that prevents small, privately held companies from using advertisements to solicit investors. The SEC ban, says bill sponsor Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., unfairly limits the ability of small companies to raise capital.

“While the president is out doing campaign events all over the country, what he could do is to actually come to Washington and be focused on trying to help pass bills that would create a better environment for job creation and help put the American people back to work,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111103/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_jobs

janeane garofalo neil degrasse tyson neil degrasse tyson braves braves harrys law orioles

Written on November 6th, 2011 , savor Tags: , ,

gethardcashhijack.com is proudly powered by WordPress and the Theme Adventure by Eric Schwarz
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

gethardcashhijack.com