House Republicans called an "emergency meeting" last week, suspending the usual procedures to rush an urgent piece of legislation to the floor.
Had the new majority finally come up with a job-creation bill? A compromise with Democrats to rein in the deficit?
Not quite. This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM-radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it – or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the federal budget.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers and calculated the impact this emergency measure would have on government spending: "No effect."
Five minutes after acting on this “budgetary emergency,” House Republicans voted to continue the war in Afghanistan – which costs about $10 billion. Per month. They then flew home for a vacation. [mjh: quotes added]
Asked about the massive protests against Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), [U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue] said that public servants have “over bloated” compensation:
Donohue turned truculent when asked whether events in Wisconsin are weakening unions and the right of workers to collective bargaining. [….] He went on to express his concerns that public sector pensions are “out of control” and that public workers compensation is “over bloated.”
Speaking of “over bloated” compensation, Donohue “travels in a chauffeured Lincoln and a leased jet, and his salary, $3.7 million last year, makes him the sixth highest paid lobbyist in the country.”
Donohue apparently has no problem taking cheap shots at people who have dedicated themselves to public service, but what does he do to deserve so much money? As we’ve reported, Donohue runs nothing more than a shell organization to help big corporations pursue nasty lobbying campaigns under the brand of the “U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” a group misleadingly associated with local chambers of commerce. For instance, the health insurance industry secretly funneled $86 million to the Chamber in 2009 to try to kill health reform. Similarly, oil companies, chemical firms, and defense industry corporations have used to the Chamber to run ads or lobby against regulations.
I’m sure the Founders would be right there, making a buck selling AK-47 pistols (yup) to Drug Cartels so they can continue their noble fight to earn a living the way they choose (killing people, ruining lives, destroying nations). Freedom means you get to choose what you destroy for money and guns mean no one can tell you otherwise.
Six banks – Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley together paid income tax at an approximate rate of 11% of their pre-tax US earnings in 2009 and 2010.Had they paid at 35%, what they are legally mandated to pay, the federal government would have received an additional $13 billion in tax revenue. This would cover more than two years of salaries for the 132,000 teacher jobs lost since the economic crisis began in 2008.
Former GOP Sen. Bob Bennett (UT), who lost his seat to a far-right primary challenger after holding it for over a decade, slammed the tea party in an interview with Fox News host Greta Van Susteren Friday. Saying the tea party movement “cost the Republicans control of the Senate,” Bennett warned Republicans to “be careful” about kowtowing to the narrow demands of the hard right when nominating a presidential candidate. Bennett went on to note that the GOP has shifted far to the right from previous Republican presidential candidates like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
“Ronald Reagan would probably not recognize the description of Ronald Regan that is coming out of a lot of the tea party blogs. … [H]e said something that would be absolutely anathema to many of the tea party people when he said it’s better to get 80 percent of what you want than zero. And Reagan would compromise, Reagan would make deals.”
Indeed, as ThinkProgress has noted, the image of Reagan that many conservatives hold dear bears little resemblance to the actual man, who did many things these self-professed Reaganites would not like. Reagan raised taxes, increased government spending, and ballooned the size of government. And Reagan was a staunch defender of unions.
Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) voted no on the initial enactment of the Patriot Act, as well as the extensions of various provisions that have been passed since the Act’s inception almost 10 years ago, including the latest one. Now Sen. Udall is calling for a thorough review of the law before anything more is done to extend any part of the post-9/11 legislation.
Asked about the massive protests against Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), [U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue] said that public servants have “over bloated” compensation: