US Politics Mega-thread - Page 332

On July 12 2013 07:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I know, that's why I included the text and pointed out that it wasn't the same.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) launched a barn-burner of a speech Thursday on the Senate floor, excoriating Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for continued obstruction when it comes to presidential nominees. He escalated the battle by setting up test votes next week on a series of potentially controversial nominees.

“Senator McConnell broke his word,” Reid said. “The Republican leader has failed to live up to his commitments. He’s failed to do what he said he would do — move nominations by regular order except in extraordinary circumstances. I refuse to unilaterally surrender my right to respond to this breach of faith.”

The remarks were Reid’s first in weeks on the issue of nominations and Senate gridlock, a brewing fight that he sidelined last month in order to pass immigration reform through the Senate. McConnell has been regularly arguing for weeks that Reid is breaking his word by threatening to change the rules with the nuclear option after he agreed not to upon passage of the modest rules changes in January which preserved the filibuster.

In Thursday’s speech, Reid cited GOP filibusters to slow down the confirmations of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense and John Brennan for CIA director. He also cited the GOP’s promise to filibuster Richard Cordray or any other nominee for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless Democrats agree to weaken the agency.

The size of the circle represents the number of jobs in each industry today.
The circle's position on the vertical axis shows the number of jobs lost or gained since the start of the recession.
The circle's position on the horizontal axis shows average hourly earnings for workers as of this spring.

On July 12 2013 08:04 DeltaX wrote:


Well, the house republicans were allowed to defend DOMA, so I assume that if any part of the government could have standing to defend it. Longer term, I would say that governments should be legally required to at least defend laws in district court. Not defending them at all would cause huge issues with people just not defending any law they don't like as a way to get rid of them.

On July 12 2013 22:20 Klondikebar wrote:


Well that's one of the privileges afforded to the executive branch. It only has to enforce a law when the judicial branch compels it to. That's why DOMA hasn't been enforced for all of Obama's presidency. Our federal executive branch didn't want to enforce it so...states were still allowed to legalize gay marriage. When it went to the Supreme Court, the judges there could have compelled Obama to enforce it if it turns out the law was constitutional and necessary to the betterment of the people.

I'm pretty sure state constitutions aren't exactly like that, but I'm pretty sure the checks and balances system akin to our federal one holds for all state constitutions.

On July 12 2013 22:45 DoubleReed wrote:


DOMA has been enforced by Obama. DOMA just stops federal recognition of same sex marriages. It doesn't stop states from recognizing them. If Obama didn't enforce it, then gay marriages would have been recognized by the military etc.

Obama just didn't defend it in court.

On July 12 2013 23:04 Klondikebar wrote:


I was under the impression the scope of DOMA allowed Obama to stop even states from recognizing same sex marriages and he simply chose to not enforce that.

But if what you're saying about defending the ban is true and house Republicans are allowed to defend it in the GA's stead...ugh this is gonna be such a waste of time. NO higher court is going to uphold these bans. It's just gonna be people dragging their heels and wasting tax dollars.

On July 12 2013 23:04 Klondikebar wrote:


I was under the impression the scope of DOMA allowed Obama to stop even states from recognizing same sex marriages and he simply chose to not enforce that.

But if what you're saying about defending the ban is true and house Republicans are allowed to defend it in the GA's stead...ugh this is gonna be such a waste of time. NO higher court is going to uphold these bans. It's just gonna be people dragging their heels and wasting tax dollars.

On July 13 2013 01:08 Sermokala wrote:


Wtf DOMA just Identified what tax benifits that married couples would get and excluded same sex couples from those same benifits. It has never had anything to do with the states.

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases.

WASHINGTON -- House approval of a scaled-back farm bill is setting up what could be an even bigger fight over food stamps and the role of domestic food aid in the United States.

Food stamps have been a part of farm bills since the 1970s to gain urban Democratic votes for the rural measure. But that union has soured this year as the food aid has exploded in cost and House Republicans have taken aim at the program. Normally bipartisan, farm bills have become much less so.

Republican leaders in the House won passage of the smaller farm bill on a party-line vote Thursday by dropping a section of the bill that dealt with food stamps, saying they would deal with that issue in a separate bill. After rallying most of his caucus to vote for the farm portion of the bill, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Republicans would "act with dispatch" to get a food stamp bill to the floor.

It remained unclear what a food stamp bill would look like, how it would move through the House or how quickly lawmakers could craft a bill. While Democrats have opposed any cuts to the $80 billion-a-year program, designed to give people temporary food assistance when their income falls beneath a certain level, Republicans have proposed many different approaches to trimming it. The program has more than doubled in cost in the last five years as the economy faltered and now serves around 1 in 7 Americans.

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., has pushed the idea of a split bill for more than a year. A farmer, he has maintained that Congress should consider food stamps by themselves.

On July 13 2013 12:10 radiatoren wrote:

Am I the only one finding the republican idea good? I mean, the reasons for it is a tragic political hostage-taking of a program to gut it to oblivion with no interest in making it work, but in the end two so completely different issues do not belong in the same bill. It might have been a fitting pair 60 years ago, but not today, when food is so highly processed.

On July 13 2013 12:15 cLutZ wrote:
The farm bill should read as follows:

I. All farm subsidies are henceforth eliminated.

II. The department of Agriculture is henceforth eliminated.

On July 14 2013 01:36 aksfjh wrote:

If we existed in a vacuum, yes, it would be good. However, legislation almost always requires some sort of compromise and bargaining to limit radicalism dominating the legislative branch. You have to be willing to give the other guy what he wants so that you can have what you want. By decoupling, they're trying to get ONLY what they want so they can piss all over what the other guys want.

On July 14 2013 05:07 radiatoren wrote:

Just saying that I think there are better combinations and tradition is not necessarlly the best measure for what should be counterweights. If they really want to serve the bills as balanced compromises, they need to mix it up so they get a more fluid dynamics. Coupling military spending bills with minimum wage bills one year and military spending and social security the next might be just what the doctor ordered in terms of making it clear who is trying to stall who on what.

How the mortgage interest deduction could change

Congressional action on the U.S. tax code could dramatically alter one of its sacred cows: the mortgage interest deduction. And the change could come in 2013.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R.-Mich.) held tax reform hearings in April to eliminate loopholes. He said he's "carefully looking into revising" the popular provision that many in the real estate business consider crucial to the industry. ...

"It costs at least $70 billion a year in lost tax revenues," said Will Fischer, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and co-author of a study released last month that called for changing the mortgage interest deduction into a tax credit. ...

In his paper, Fisher states that in 2012, 77 percent of the benefits from the mortgage interest deduction went to homeowners with incomes above $100,000. Close to half of homeowners with mortgages—mostly lower and middle-income families—received no benefit from the deduction, according to Fisher. ...

The various proposals would have a tax credit from a low of 12 percent to a high of 15 percent, without the need for taxpayers to itemize their returns. The proposals would limit the mortgage interest covered in the credit up to $500,000, or half of what it is now. All but one of the major proposals would eliminate the tax credit for a second home.

"A tax credit is a much fairer way to help homeowners, especially those that need it, like lower income families," argued Fisher.