House Speaker John Boehner has made many a headline laying blame for the sequester upon everybody elses’ shoulders but his own. He insisted the President was responsible for the massive spending cut set to go into effect March 1st. He’s touted his own accomplishments pushing through 2 sequester replacement bills in the House, forgetting to mention the obvious one-sided nature of both those pieces of legislation. And throughout most of this week he has thrown the entire weight of the sequestration onto the Senate who has not even considered the House bills and have come up with none of its own, despite a $110 billion Democratic replacement plan already released.
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February 28, 2013
The next time Speaker Boehner chastises Senate…
February 15, 2013
Economists Shoot-down Boehner’s Minimum Wage Claim
Both times in fairly recent years federal minimum wage was increased with the cooperation of Republican leadership. In 1996, the Republican-controlled House under Newt Gingrich, the minimum wage was raised from $4.25 to $5.15 over a 2 year period. The next wage increase took place a decade later, in 2006-2007, when Democrats won back control of the House. They found support for the increase in then President, George W. Bush. This instance raised the minimum rate to its current level of $7.25 per hour.
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January 30, 2013
Gun Control Debate: A few facts
Given the numerous calls for the gun control legislation after the multitude of mass shootings this past year alone and the subsequent debates across the country taking shape now, it goes without saying many a gun control proponent has found themselves in an elongated back and forth with a pro-gun advocate. Much the rhetoric from the pro-gun side includes claims that “They’re taking away our guns” or “Obama is violating the 2nd Amendment, impeach him” or “Gun laws don’t work”. Much of this rhetoric sprouts from any number of right-wing blogs or Fox News opinion page and of course from the current leader of the National Rifle Associate, Wayne LaPierre whose recent comments have yet to endear him in the minds of American public.
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January 21, 2013
What are Republicans’ Priorities Now?
In 2010, the Republicans’ leader in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, stated publicly that the party’s number one priority would be to deny President Obama a second term. This decision was made during a quiet, behind closed doors meeting of GOP luminaries both past and present on inaugural eve 2009. They determined it was better to pursue a strategy of obstructionism meant to halt any Democratic legislation rather than taking action to the address the economic calamity the country, and the world, was facing at that time.
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January 17, 2013
Daily Scoop Extra: DCCC agenda suggestions for House GOP Retreat
As congressional Republicans head to a luxury golf resort in Virginia for this year’s strategy conference, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee offered a few suggested agenda items their GOP counterparts should consider including;
Suggested House Republican Retreat Agenda Items
- Have breakfast paid for by lobbyists
- How to stop talking about “legitimate rape” and insulting women
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January 17, 2013
Daily Scoop: GW’s Interior Secretary’s New Bathroom Cost WHAT?
As we watch the congressional Republicans demand sacrificial spending cuts for not hobbling the U.S. economy over raising the debt ceiling, the cost taxpayers paid for George Bush’s Interior Secretary’s personal bathroom has come to light.Dirk Kempthorne, former Idaho governor, served as the Bush Administration’s Secretary of the Interior from 2006 to 2008. It took six years but the bill for his personal restroom renovations has finally been released and it cost taxpayers a whopping $222,000, more than many houses cost.
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January 8, 2013
Poll Update: Congress loses popularity contest to Root Canals & Nickelback
While Congress loses the popularity contest to other such things that American detest as root canals, colonoscopies and NFL replacement refs they do edge out ahead of Lindsey Lohan and the ebola virus… so YEAH! Congress, good on ya!
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December 22, 2012
Daily Scoop: When you don’t vote…
How Dark Money Helped Republicans Hold the House and Hurt Voters
In the November election, a million more Americans voted for Democrats seeking election to the U.S. House of Representatives than Republicans. But that popular vote advantage did not result in control of the chamber. Instead, despite getting fewer votes, Republicans have maintained a commanding control of the House. Such a disparity has happened only three times in the last century.
Analysts and others have identified redistricting as a key to the disparity. Republicans had a years-long strategy of winning state houses in order to control each state’s once-a-decade redistricting process.
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November 5, 2012
Daily Scoop: Congressional Tax Report suppressed by GOP
From the New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.
The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency’s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, cited the study a week and a half after it was withdrawn in a speech on tax policy at the National Press Club.
But it could actually draw new attention to the report, which questions the premise that lowering the top marginal tax rate stimulates economic growth and job creation.
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October 3, 2012
Politifact gives Conservative PAC a Smackdown
Newspapers in the battleground states of Florida and Ohio were riddled with ads from the conservative political action committee Government is Not God claiming the darndest things. Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize winning factcheck website, took notice and essentially gave what can only be described as a serious smackdown.
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