Is there ANYTHING that smokers will NOT have to subsidize?
(I think they should implement the "fat tax" on fast food, and share the burden with the fat folks so they appreciate the smoker abuse of the gubmint)....
Posted on 07/26/2007 5:17:00 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Beset by poor approval ratings and internal differences, congressional Democrats hope to give themselves a triumphant send-off when Congress departs on a monthlong summer vacation.
"They can't possibly do all the things they want to do," counters Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader.
Perhaps not.
But Democratic leaders, seven months in power, have set an ambitious agenda for themselves for the next 10 days, even momentarily dispatching their efforts to end the Iraq war to the background.
They intend to send President Bush bills to counter terrorism and tighten congressional ethics, measures that were among the party's half-dozen top priorities when Congress convened in January.
The House and Senate are scheduled to vote on legislation expanding the health care program for low-income children — a signature issue for the new majority — and raise tobacco taxes to finance it.
After more than a decade out of power, House leaders intend to place their stamp on farm programs. And begin the dismantling of a Republican-enacted alternative to traditional Medicare that provides billions in federal subsidies to insurance companies. Additionally, some Democrats still harbor hope of passing of an energy measure.
"Republicans on both sides of the Capitol are in a mode of delay. I think they fear we will pass our agenda, which the American people supports," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader.
"Obviously, we do have some internal divisions," he conceded, adding, "Sometimes you have to get right up to the point of decision making before they're resolved, but we think we'll do that."
Even if they succeed, it's not clear congressional approval ratings will improve much. Just 24 percent approved of Congress' job performance in the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll, and other surveys suggest much of the dissatisfaction is the result of Congress' inability to force an end to the war.
Those efforts will resume in earnest in the fall.
On the farm bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi intervened in recent days to add $4 billion in funding for nutrition programs. The move was designed to appeal to urban liberals in her caucus after they complained that the bill had largely failed to rein in payments to wealthy farmers in a time of high commodity prices.
Ironically, Pelosi's earlier talk of imposing even greater changes in the farm programs brought protests from rural state Democrats, many of them first-termers from swing districts.
To pay for the additional funds, Democrats came up with a tax increase aimed at domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations. Democrats said it was nothing the Bush administration hadn't embraced years ago, but it brought howls of protests from Republicans.
"We feel very betrayed by that," said Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the top Republican on the Agriculture Committee.
And that, in turn, sent Democrats scurrying for additional changes. The solution — another $800 million for international food as well as an undetermined amount to settle racial discrimination claims black farmers lodged several years ago against the Agriculture Department.
The low-income children's health measure has strong support within both parties in the Senate. "Americans overwhelmingly support getting kids covered," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., as he guided the bill through the Senate Finance Committee. Supporters said the $35 billion measure would allow 6.6 million people to maintain their current health coverage, and provide protection for another 3.2 million uninsured children. It is financed by a 61 cent-per-pack increase in the cigarette tax.
Bush has a veto threat pending against the bill, which he has said would expand government-run health care.
But given the popularity of the measure, his allies in the Senate have a modest objective. They hope to show enough strength to sustain his threatened veto.
In the House, Democrats drafted a companion measure that underscores a dramatic ideological divide between the parties on health care. Like the Senate bill, it expands health coverage for the low-income.
In addition, it cuts $157 billion over the next decade from federal subsidies to HMOs that provide private coverage under Medicare, and repeals other provisions that Republicans enacted to give seniors an alternative to traditional Medicare.
"We think if this passes and becomes law, Medicare Advantage over much of the country will not continue," said Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., the senior Republican on the Ways and Means Committee.
Republicans adopted a strategy of delay on the measure. And there was talk of trying to win approval of an amendment that defined a fetus as a living person — a tactic designed to embarrass Democrats, if not thwart passage of the overall bill.
Elsewhere, Republicans picked their spots.
They claimed credit when Democrats jettisoned two provisions from the compromise anti-terrorism measure, including one conferring new labor rights on security workers. The legislation would enact many of the remaining recommendations from the 9/11 commission.
Nor does the GOP seem eager to block enactment of an ethics bill that requires greater disclosure of fundraising by lobbyists and mandates that senators divulge their own attempts to gain federal funding for pet projects.
I thought this was going to happen in the first 100 days?
How many poor smokers will give up health insurance premiums to fund their increasingly expensive addiction?
Why do they need to add 4B to a Farm Bill for Urban congressrats?? Is Do Nothing Nancy adding more Abortion Clinics to the Inner City??
Pray for W and Our Troops
Yes, this is the longest 100 days EVER.
They started off with a blast today. Accusing yet another Republican of “perjury” in their phony, baloney, plastic banana good time rock ‘n’ roller “justice” system and then threatening more “special counsels.” I’m just trying to figure out if this country has become more like the old Soviet Union or the Nazi’s Third Reich. It’s definitely closing in on those two models.
Seems to me they don’t have to do anything and their fortunes rise. Stand back and let Dubya be is incomprehensible self, stuck on 2003 talking points, and their fortunes rise.
No idea why they don’t just put things on cruise control.
Is there ANYTHING that smokers will NOT have to subsidize?
(I think they should implement the "fat tax" on fast food, and share the burden with the fat folks so they appreciate the smoker abuse of the gubmint)....
Outside that, the Dem's are NOWHERE near united, hence, they cannot move any idea forward without Black Robes legislating from the bench or or the MSM twisting their ideas trying to make said ideas seem sane.
RNC/GOP, GET WITH IT! CONSERVATISM SELLS, ALWAYS DOES! Quit pussy footing around and sell OUR ideas!
Ferpetesake, they’re proposing ethics bills and all we can come up with is fetus bills? People are sick of that stuff. Why don’t we propose some tougher ethics bills. Why don’t we propose tax breaks. Why don’t we propose stuff people want to hear about? This fetus stuff will never see the light of day.
They’ll want to get some things accomplished to burnish their image — but not enough to delay, even for a minute, another vacation.
“Punishing” the GOP in ‘06 sure paid dividends.
The GOP was not in the woodshed long enough in 2006. They may get another trip in ‘08.
Well, you see, it was really 100 business days, each made up of 24 business hours, each with 60 business minutes made of of 60 business seconds. Their time won't be up until (sound of BtD's calculator keys clicking furiously) - oh, I figure 26 July 20016. It'll be a Tuesday.
This message brought to you by William Rivers Pitt of DU...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
If you took all the taxes off of tobacco, the poor could probably afford health care.
According to the RATS, they only used 7 hours of the first 100. Plenty of time to sell out the country and fill their pockets before summer vacation to Europe on our dollar.
Probably - of course, that means ALL of us.
Yea, but they were supposed to use their first 100 hours in their first 100 hours. ;-) Isn’t that what “first” means? Must be something akin to global warming credits. LOL!
Life inherently includes the opportunity for continuous learning. Whether one participates is a choice. ;-)
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