Posted on 07/01/2007 11:28:40 AM PDT by pissant
Washington - Capping nearly seven years of twists and turns and tenacious struggle, the Senate on Wednesday passed the most ambitious campaign reforms in a quarter-century, sending to President Bush a bill to ban the unlimited political contributions known as soft money.
While calling it "flawed in some areas," Bush said Wednesday that he would sign the legislation, creating a new set of ground rules for the presidential and congressional elections of 2004.
Opponents have promised a court challenge.
"This bill won't miraculously erase distrust and suspicion of the Congress overnight. It won't completely end the primacy of money," said Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, who joined forces in 1995 with Arizona Republican John McCain in what became a signature crusade for both. "But it's a big step in the right direction," Feingold said.
Acknowledging the end of an epic legislative battle, opponents accepted their defeat with goodwill and gracious nods to the winners' persistence. But their indictment of the measure was fierce.
Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell said the bill's purpose is a "monumental reworking of the American political system" that assaults free speech. He called it a "sad day for our Constitution . . . a sad day for our democracy and for our political parties."
Though the final vote lacked suspense - passage was all but assured for weeks - it was historic and, at times, emotional.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
As one of 45 Democrats who signed a letter last week to Majority Leader Trent Lott urging consideration of S. 25 on a date certain, I am hopeful that the McCain-Feingold-Thompson campaign finance reform bill will be embraced by most members of the Senate.
http://www.akaka.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Speeches.Home&month=9&year=1997&release_id=1319
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it this year, around the time he began getting interested in a presidential run?
Because I can’t recall if he was criticizing McCain-Feingold within the period between 2003-2007, when he was out of office.
Well, I can give you a video link where explains his vote for NCLB.
http://www.wesh.com/politics/11847228/detail.html
Click the No Child Left Behind link for his explanation of why he voted for it.
No mention of Medicare Part D in the Universal Health Care bit, but I’m curious as to why Medicare Part D is bad legislation. Was it because it allocated more money for Medicare (I’ll admit, my knowledge of the Medicare system as a whole is slim at best).
Hunter has noted before that the Medicare plan he voted did, in fact, end up costing a lot less than it was initially predicted to have cost (I think Sam provided that answer some time ago, back when he was still active).
Clarify what you mean by “transportation”.
Does it matter? You constantly claimed that Fred never voted Pro-Choice, despite evidence to the contrary.
You can argue about its impact as a vote on the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice debate if you wish, but it doesn’t help at all if you simply ignore it and go back to saying that Fred voted Pro-Life 100% anyways.
That Medicare package included authorization for Health Savings Accounts. I KNOW the insurance companies hate the HSA because it cuts them out of being paid when people go to the doctor.
I LOVE the HSA. I doctor shopped until I found physicians that will use ‘no insurance billing’. Most HSAs even provide physician lists of medical professionals that will do billing outside of insurance companies.
So, I don’t understand Medicare. But, I’m thankful for the HSA alternative that came with that package :)
I keep insurance for emergencies; but all my wellness visits and sick child events happen outside the insurance companies.
http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js1045.htm
HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS
• The Medicare billed signed by the President today creates new Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to help individuals save for qualified medical and retiree health expenses on a tax-free basis.
• Beginning on January 1, 2004, individuals under the age of 65 are eligible to contribute to an HSA if they have a qualified health plan.
o For self-only policies, a qualified health plan must have a minimum deductible of $1,000 with a $5,000 cap on out-of-pocket expenses (indexed annually).
o For family policies, a qualified health plan must have a minimum deductible of $2,000 with a $10,000 cap on out-of-pocket expenses (indexed annually).
• Preventive care services, as well as coverage for accidents, disability, dental care, vision care, and long-term care is not subject to the deductible.
• Individuals may contribute up to 100% of the health plan deductible. The maximum annual contribution is $2,600 for self-only policies and $5,150 for family policies (indexed annually).
• Individuals age 55 – 65 may make additional “catch-up” contributions of up to $500 in 2004, increasing to $1,000 annually in 2009 and thereafter. A married couple can make two catch-up contributions as long as both spouses are at least 55.
• Contributions may be made by individuals, family members and employers and are tax deductible, even if the account beneficiary does not itemize. Employer contributions are made on a pre-tax basis and are not taxable to the employee. Employers will be allowed to offer HSAs through a cafeteria plan.
• Investment earnings accrue tax-free.
• HSA distributions are tax-free if they are used to pay for qualified medical expenses. Qualified expenses include prescription drugs, qualified long-term care services and long-term care insurance, COBRA coverage, Medicare expenses (but not Medigap), and retiree health expenses for individuals age 65 and older.
• Distributions made for any other purpose are subject to income tax and a 10% penalty. The 10% penalty is waived in the case of death or disability. The 10% penalty is also waived for distributions made by individuals age 65 and older.
• Upon death, HSA ownership may transfer to the spouse on a tax-free basis.
Thanks for that tidbit Cal.
Take away the false characterizations about Hunter supporters and Hunter himself and that may well have qualified as the most intelligent comment you ever made on this site.
LOL!
MRS. CLINTON IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP
OBAMA IS A MUSLIM. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
POWER AND MONEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MRS. CLINTON IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP
OBAMA IS A MUSLIM. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
POWER AND MONEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I never knew of that vote, dude.
And that ONE VOTE was for a postal appropriations bill with some buried abortion-related language.
While true, Governor Thompson did (does?) support first-trimester abortions.
You know what, I’m going to instantly retract that last post. Not enough coffee yet this morning apparently. My brain was thinking of Jim Gilmore, not Tommy Thompson.
Sorry.
Although....
Thompson has been a supporter of destroying human embryos for the purpose of experimentation.
Now you know of it. Don’t pretend it didn’t exist.
Where have I pretended since it was posted? Boy, you sure are eager to put words in my mouth.
Not at all.
NOTE: SOURCE - Hard SOURCED from the CFR.org SITE
Total: 69 Pages - Below are EXCERPTS
http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf
Building a North American Community
Report of an Independent Task Force
Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations
with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the
Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales
Task Force Final Report:
Upon reaching a conclusion, a Task Force issues a report, and the Council publishes its text and posts it on the Council website. Task Force reports reflect a strong and meaningful policy consensus, with Task Force members endorsing the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation. Task Force members who join the consensus may submit additional ordissenting views,which are included
in the final report. Upon reaching a conclusion, a Task Force may also ask individuals who were not members of the Task Force to associate themselves with the Task Force Report to enhance its impact. All Task Force reports ‘‘benchmark’’ their findings against current
administration policy in order to make explicit areas of agreement and disagreement. The Task Force is solely responsible for its report. The Council takes no institutional position on the findings or recommendations in the report. The Task Force on the Future of North
America is sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internacionales.
Foreword page 17
Excerpt:
America’s relationship with its North American neighbors rarely gets the attention it warrants. This report of a Council-sponsored Independent Task Force on the Future of North America is intended to help address this policy gap. In the more than a decade since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect, ties among Canada, Mexico, and the United States have deepened dramatically.
The value of trade within North America has more than doubled. Canada and Mexico are now the two largest exporters of oil, natural gas, and electricity to the United States. Since 9/11, we are not only one another’s major commercial partners, we are joined in an effort to make North America less vulnerable to terrorist attack.
This report examines these and other changes that have taken place since NAFTA’s inception and makes recommendations to address the range of issues confronting North American policymakers today: greater economic competition from outside North America, uneven development within North America, the growing demand for energy, and threats to our borders.
The Task Force offers a detailed and ambitious set of proposals that build on the recommendations adopted by the three governments at the Texas summit of March2005. The Task Force’s central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter.
Task Force Report
Shared security threats. Over the last decade, terrorist and criminal activity has underscored North America’s vulnerability. All of the 9/11 terrorists succeeded in entering the United States directly from outside North America, but the 1999 arrest of a person trying to cross
the Canadian-U.S. border as part of a plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport shows that terrorists may also try to gain access to the United States through Canada and Mexico. This person was found to have cased Canadian targets as well, and al-Qaeda has publicly listed Canada as one of its prime targets along with the United States.
Failure to secure the external borders of North America will inhibit the legitimate movement of people and goods within the continent.
After the 9/11 attacks, delays at the Canadian-U.S. border prompted parts shortages in both countries, costing manufacturers millions of dollars an hour. Trade across the Mexican-U.S. border also suffered in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, which hindered U.S. economic growth.
Continent-wide consequences mean that Canada and Mexico have an overriding commercial interest in increasing North American security, apart from any other considerations. Inaddition, future terrorist assaults could target critical infrastructure or sites in any of the three countries.
Beyond terrorism, all three countries must deal with a persistent flow of undocumented immigrants. International criminal activity also poses a continuing threat to public safety in the region, including drug and gang-related violence along the Mexican-U.S. frontier. These cross
-border threats cannot be adequately addressed by any one government alone.
Failure to address security issues will ultimately undermine gains on other matters. In the North American context, failure to collaborate effectively to address security issues will have a direct impact on commercial relationships as well as on our freedoms and quality of life.
Shared challenges to our economic growth and development.
NAFTA has dramatically enhanced our ability to make better use of the abundant resources of our three countries and thus made an important contribution to economic growth within North America. Over the last decade, however, our economies have faced growing challenges in increasingly competitive and globalized world markets. We need to do more to ensure that our policies provide our firms and workers with a fair and unfettered basis to meet the challenges of global competition.
Unwieldy North American rules of origin, increasing congestion at our ports of entry, and regulatory differences among our three countries raise costs instead of reducing them. Trade in certain sectors—such as natural resources, agriculture, and energy—remains far from free, and disputes in these areas have been a source of disagreement among our countries. Furthermore, the NAFTA partners have been unable to resolve a number of important trade and investment disputes, which has created continuing tension in our commercial relationships.
Leaders in our three countries have acknowledged these challenges and discussed a wide range of responses during the 2005 Texas summit.
Those involving changes in formal trade agreements will of necessity take time to negotiate and ratify. However, in other areas, notably regulatory cooperation and the expansion of transborder activities in critical sectors such as transportation and financial services, there is a
shared recognition that the three countries can and should act quickly in ways that would make a real difference in improving the competitiveness of firms and individuals in North America.
Shared challenge of uneven economic development. A fast lane
to development is crucial for Mexico to contribute to the security of the entire region. Mexico’s development has failed to prevent deep disparities between different regions of the country, and particularly between remote regions and those better connected to international markets. Northern states have grown ten times faster than those in the center and south of the country. Lack of economic opportunity
encourages unauthorized migration and has been found to be associated with corruption, drug trafficking, violence, and human suffering.
Improvements in human capital and physical infrastructure in Mexico, particularly in the center and south of the country, would knit these regions more firmly into the North American economy and are in the economic and security interest of all three countries.
Leaders in our three countries have acknowledged these problems and indicated their support for a number of promising measures, including immigration reform, but there remains considerable scope for more individual, bilateral, and joint efforts to address development needs.
What We Can Do
In making its recommendations, the Task Force is guided by the following principles:
• The three governments should approach continental issues together with a trinational perspective rather than the traditional ‘‘dual-bilateral’’ approach that has long characterized their relationships. Progress may proceed at two speeds in some spheres of policy. Canada and the United States, for example, already share a long history of military cooperation and binational defense institutions, and they should continue to deepen their bilateral alliance while opening the door to more extensive cooperation with Mexico. Yetmany issues would be better addressed trinationally. Shared concerns range from regional economic growth to law enforcement, from energy security to
regulatory policy, from dispute resolution to continental defense.
• North America is different from other regions of the world and must find its own cooperative route forward. A new North American community should rely more on the market and less on bureaucracy, more on pragmatic solutions to shared problems than on grand schemes of confederation or union, such as those in Europe. We must maintain respect for each other’s national sovereignty.
• Our economic focus should be on the creation of a common economic space that expands economic opportunities for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital, and people flow freely.
• The strategy needs to be integrated in its approach, recognizing the extent to which progress on each individual component enhances achievement of the others. Progress on security, for example, will allow a more open border for the movement of goods and people; progress on regulatory matters will reduce the need for active customs administration and release resources to boost security. North Americans solutions could ultimately serve as the basis for initiatives involving other like-minded countries, either in our hemisphere or more broadly.
• Finally, a North American strategy must provide real gains for all partners and must not be approached as a zero-sum exercise. Poverty and deprivation are breeding grounds for political instability and undermine both national and regional security. The progress of the poorest among us will be one measure of success.
Recommendations
The recommendations of the Task Force fall into two broad categories that correspond with the imperative to build a safer and more prosperous continent. The Task Force also proposes reforms and institutions within each of the three governments to promote progress in these areas. The Task Force has framed its recommendations into shorter-term measures that should be pursued now, and long-term steps to be implemented by 2010.
Making North America Safer Security
The threat of international terrorism originates for the mostpartoutside North America. Our external borders are a critical line of defense against this threat. Any weakness in controlling access to North America from abroad reduces the security of the continent as a whole and exacerbates the pressure to intensify controls on intracontinental movement and traffic, which increases the transaction costs associated with trade and travel within North America.
September 11 highlighted the need for new approaches to border management. In December 2001, Canada and the United States signed the Smart Border Declaration and an associated 30-point Action Plan to secure border infrastructure, facilitate the secure movement of people and goods, and share information. A similar accord, the United States-Mexico Border Partnership Agreement, and its 22-point Action Plan, were signed in March 2002. Both agreements included measures to facilitate faster border crossings for pre-approved travelers, develop and promote systems to identify dangerous people and goods, relieve congestion at borders, and revitalize cross-border cooperation mechanisms and information sharing. The three leaders pledged additional measures at their March 2005 summit meeting.
The defense of North America must also consist of a more intense level of cooperation among security personnel of the three countries, both within North America and beyond the physical boundaries of the continent. The Container Security Initiative, for example,launched by the United States in the wake of 9/11, involves the use of intelligence, analysis, and inspection of containers not at the border but at a growing number of overseas ports from which goods are shipped. The ultimate goal is to provide screening of all containers destined for any port in North America, so that once unloaded from ships, containers may cross land borders within the region without the need for further inspections.
WHAT WE SHOULD DO NOW
• Establish a common security perimeter by 2010. The govern-
ments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States should articulate as their long-term goal a common security perimeter for North America. In particular, the three governments should strive toward a situation in which a terrorist trying to penetrate our borders will have an equally hard time doing so, no matter which country he elects to enter first. We believe that these measures should be extended to include a commitment to common approaches toward international negotiations on the global movement of people, cargo, and vessels. Like free trade a decade ago, a common security perimeter for North America is an ambitious but achievable goal that will require specific policy, statutory, and procedural changes in all three nations.
• Develop a North American Border Pass. The three countries
should develop a secure North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers. This document would allow its bearers expedited passage through customs, immigration, and airport security throughout the region. The program would be modeled on the U.S.-Canadian ‘‘NEXUS’’ and the U.S.-Mexican ‘‘SENTRI’’ programs, which provide ‘‘smart cards’’ to allow swifter passage to those who pose no risk. Only those who voluntarily seek, receive, and pay the costs for a security clearance would obtain a Border Pass. The pass would be accepted at all border points within North America as a complement to, but not a replacement for, national identity documents or passports.
• Develop a unified North American border action plan. The
closing of the borders following the 9/11 attacks awakened all three governments to the need for rethinking management of the borders.
Intense negotiations produced the bilateral ‘‘Smart Borders’’ agreements. Although the two borders are different and may in certain instances require policies that needto be implemented at two speeds, cooperation by the three governments in the following areas would lead to a better result than a ‘‘dual-bilateral’’ approach:
Harmonize visa and asylum regulations, including convergence
of the list of ‘‘visa waiver’’ countries;
Harmonize entry screening and tracking procedures for people, goods, and vessels (including integration of name-based and biometric watch lists);
Harmonize exit and export tracking procedures; Fully share data about the exit and entry of foreign nationals; and
Jointly inspect container traffic entering North American ports, building on the Container Security Initiative.
• Expand border infrastructure. While trade has nearly tripled across both borders since the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and NAFTA were implemented, border customs facilities and crossing infrastructure have not kept pace with this increased demand. Even if 9/11 had not occurred, trade would be choked at the border. There have been significant new investments to speed processing along both the Canadian-U.S.and Mexican-U.S. borders,
but not enough to keep up with burgeoning demand and additional security requirements. The three governments should examine the options for additional border facilities and expedite their construction.
In addition to allowing for continued growth in the volume of transbordertraffic,suchinvestments must incorporatethe latest technology, and include facilities and procedures that move as much processing as possible away from the border.
More at the PDF
Ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1859244/posts?page=138#138
As you can see from this excerpt, txrangerette, the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR] is all for border control. BUT, they are for North American Continent Border Control and free flow of people and goods with in the borders of the continent.
ping
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