Personal Burden Formula-Pres. Obama's "misery index"

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Congress made history, but tomorrow is a mystery!

The 111th Congress made the history books this year. The Pelosi/Reid lead Congress failed to pass for the first time ever:

--A budget resolution that serves as a blueprint and guideline for Congressional spending for the year

--A single appropriations bill through both Houses of Congress. These 12 approps. bills, when married together, make up the full funding of our Federal Government for the year

The History:
The formal Congressional budget process was created in 1974 when Congress passed the Budget and impoundment act. Every year since then Congress has passed a budget through one or both Houses of Congress... Not this year!

The formal appropriations process was created in 1866-67. Every year since then Congress has passed at least some or all of the appropriations bills through both Houses of Congress....Not this year!

This Congress has failed to enact some or all of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that are set to expire Dec. 30, 2010. This prompts payroll admins all over America to start increasing withholding (take more money from your pay check) to cover the tax increases that result from failing to extend all or part of the Bush tax cuts.

The Mystery:
Will Congress extend some or all of the Bush tax cuts before year's end? If so when and how much? This is the mystery that puts many in America in a state of anxiety.

Stay tuned,

Grade Gov | They work for YOU. Remind them.

Grade Gov | They work for YOU. Remind them.

Congress didn't have an historic or teachable moment before their 4th of July recess

This past week, the House of Representatives really struggled to finish their work before they were able to take off for their week-long Independence Day holiday recess. You see, members of Congress have been hearing from you loud and clear, especially when it comes to the out-of-control spending. They have heard your voices so loudly that they are now afraid to vote on big expensive bills, hence the struggles from last week. Let me set the stage a bit. The House has had in its chambers the very important war funding bill since late May. The POTUS requested it in March and it was to fund our two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to replenish FEMA. He used the "emergency designation" so as to not ask Congress to pay the tab associated with the bill. The cost at the time of the request was $33B. The Senate dealt with the bill first, in part because Speaker Pelosi was afraid she couldn't get her members to vote for the bill because of its price tag. So the Senate had the first legislative crack at the bill. They porked-up the bill to a grand total of $60B. All of this is added directly onto the debt because the POTUS designated it as an “emergency”. Now it is the House of Representatives' turn to pass this vital funding bill. However, the Speaker can't muster the votes needed to pass the bill. She had the perfect storm of problems brewing in her chamber with this piece of legislation this past week. The fiscally conservative "blue dog" democrats in the House didn't like the huge spending. They number in the mid 50's as far as a voting bloc in the House. The anti-war, "move-on" liberal democrats didn't like the underlying bill, because they hate both wars. Now add to this the House purest that are upset that Congress hasn’t passed a Budget for the first time in our Nation’s history. All of this added up to a perfect storm for the Speaker to have to navigate through. Defense Secretary Gates has been screaming for this money to fund the Department of Defense for weeks and the Speaker continued to put him off. Well, last Thursday night, Speaker Pelosi had to "fish or cut bait" as they say. What did she end up doing to get this bill through the House of Representatives by a vote of 215 to 210? She added an entire 1 year budget resolution to the text of the bill and then deemed it passed! That's right, remember the "Slaughter Rule" from the Health Care debate days? This is the rule named for the Chair- person of the House Rules committee Louise Slaughter (D-NY). The Slaughter Rule would have allowed members of the House of Representative to vote on the rule governing floor consideration of the Health Care bill and that was going to count as the final vote on passing Obama care. The public made such a fuss about the "Slaughter Rule" being used to allow members to bypass the final vote, that the leadership abandoned the idea at the last minute. This 90 sec Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFUemyvaObE will remind you of that time in our country's legislative history that wasn't destined for the history books. Well, Speaker Pelosi resurrected the "Slaughter Rule" and that is how she was able to get the votes to advance the War Supplemental through her chamber late Thursday night. They voted on the rule that governed the debate limits for the War Supplemental. The vote passing the rule counted as the vote for final passage of the $80B dollar War supplemental appropriations bill along with the budget resolution. As the video says, first members of Congress don't read the bills, now they don't even vote on them, and they can become law. As we all enjoyed our Nation’s birthday this past weekend, and some of us gave thanks to those brave men and women who fought to give us our wonderful independence, we need to be equally thankful that this current batch of members of the House of Representatives weren’t called upon to help out….. “back in the day.”
Stay tuned,

Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a former 4 times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority and Minority-(retired). Currently she is the owner of GradeGov.com http://www.gradegov.com/

Congress stuck in the mud when it comes to spending!

Congress found itself mostly tied up in knots this week as both the Senate and the House chambers tried to find votes for passage of bills that have huge price tags, and have no offsets or spending cuts to pay the cost of the bills. The first is the $115B tax extender bill that this writer has discussed in previous Washington Week pieces. This bill extends as many as 50 expired tax provisions many of which are popular with state Governors, teachers, doctors and the unemployed. This bill has languished in the Senate for the second week and at one point had a price tag of $140B, with about $70B offset by cuts. The Senate conducted two vital votes on the main substitute amendment offered by Sen. Baucus (D-MO) which required 60 votes. The first attempt to adopt the $140B substitute failed to reach the 60 vote threshold by 15 votes. The vote (Link to vote: http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00190) was 45 to 52. This woefully short final vote tally sent the Senate Democrats back to the drawing board and they shrunk the price tag of the bill considerably. The next time the vote occurred on the substitute amendment, now modified, the vote (link to vote: http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=2&vote=00194) was 56 to 40. In between these votes, GOP Senators offered amendments to cut the cost and help pay the price tag associated with the bill. Sen. Lemieux (R-FL) offered an amendment (link to amendment text: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2010_record&page=S5082&position=all) that would allow the government to return to the spending levels from 2007, just before the recession. Sen. LeMieux said during the debate: "So if we go back to 2007 level spending at $2.729 trillion, by 2013 we would balance the budget, and by 2020, instead of having a $25.7 trillion national debt, we would cut the current national debt in half, and it would be somewhere around $6 trillion, and we would save America." The LeMieux amendment did not get a vote prior to the Senate leaving for the week, but it is expected to be voted on early next week in the Senate. On Friday, in an effort to take some of the pressure off of the Senate as a result of failing to pass the extenders bill, the Senate passed a quickly cobbled together bill to help doctors who see Medicare patients. Without this quickly passed bill, doctors who see Medicare patients would be cut 21% when the submit their bills for reimbursement by the Federal Government. This postpones that cut in their pay until the end of November. Senate watchers this week clearly needed ointment for their neck aches after watching the tax extender bill and it's roller coaster price tag. The House tried to garner votes for the war supplemental appropriations bill that the POTUS requested in March to pay for our war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the replenish FEMA. The bill originally was costing us $33B and after the Senate got through with it, the price was $60B. The House wants to add more, making the total $84B. None of this is paid for or offset so getting enough votes to pass this in the House is getting harder and harder for the Speaker. Since she didn't have the votes to pass the supplemental this week, she instead had the House consider small business lending and tax relief legislation. This bill has a price tag of approx. $30B and it is paid for and offset....sort of. You see, the offset comes from 2015 taxes. Yes, you read that correctly, the House legislation requires large corporations to pay their 2015, 3rd quarter estimated taxes, now. This bring the U.S. Treasury a pot of money to pay the small business lending and tax relief bill. The bill gives small businesses tax write-offs for upstart costs from $5,000 to $20,000. Technically, a member of Congress can say that he/she voted for the small business bill because it was fully offset. However, any 8th grader can figure out that when the Federal Government goes to collect the 3rd quarter taxes in 2015, the bill collector will get zero. So when you hear about Congress passing a fully paid- for small business tax relief and lending bill, you can chuckle under your breath about the smoke and mirrors that Congress uses to "pay for" things in Washington, DC. Maybe Sen. LeMieux has it right, going back to spending levels from 2007 is clearly better than paying for things by collecting taxes from 2015.Stay tuned

The U.S. Senate tried to end the EPA's action on Cap 'N Trade

Congress is back from their week long Memorial Day break trying to spend more money without paying the bills. The Senate debated the $115B tax extenders bill most of the week. About 1/2 of the tab associated with the bill is paid for and efforts to pay the entire tab are being offered by the GOP in the Senate. On Thursday, the Senate paused the consideration of the tax extenders bill to debate a resolution offered by Sen. Murkowski (R-AK). The resolution would put a stop to the EPA RULE issued in December of last year that basically is the groundwork for the agency to implement a Cap 'N Trade initiative. She needed 51 Senators to join in the effort. The final vote was 47 to 53. The Senate GOP are at 41 in numbers so Sen. Murkowski was able to get 6 Democratic Senators to help in her cause. But she needed 10 Democrats to join her to get it passed. This means that the EPA will continue to write regulations re: greenhouse gases and recording their levels and ultimately taxing them. The 6 Democratic Senators that joined her effort were:
Lincoln (D-AR), Landrieu (D-LA), Bayh (D-IN), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR) and Rockefeller (D-WVA)
The House of Representatives is working to get the votes to pass the Senate passed War supplemental approps. bill aimed at funding the war efforts in Iraq & Afghanistan. The original request by the POTUS had a price tag of $33B. By the time the Senate passed the bill, it reached a total cost of $60B. The House is hoping to pass it next week, with a total price of $80B. Because the original "shell" bill was to fund Wars, the POTUS was able to deem the bill an emergency and thus it doesn't have to be paid for or offset by spending cuts. Therefore, the total bill, whatever the final number, will be added directly to our debt.
Keep your GRADES and letters coming on GradeGov.com. Because Congress is hearing you, they are at least struggling to get the votes to pass these big bills adding to our debate. Let your voice be heard on GradeGov.com.

Health Care vote flip floppers

Even though the Health Care Senate bill became law yesterday, the Senate still needs to debate, amend and pass the reconciliation/corrections bill. The bill is limited to 20 hours. At about 5pm tonight, the Senate will begin what has been dubbed a vote-a-rama which calls for back-to-back votes which could last for days, before a final vote occurs on the bill. Watch how this will work here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA-KKJxXbBQ

Remember, if the Senate makes changes, it must return back to the House for more debate and another vote.
See who flipped their Health Care vote...This list is those House members who voted "no"-against the Health Care bill last November and flipped their vote and voted "yea"-for the bill last Sunday in the House.
Many of you on GradeGov have asked for a list of Health Care vote flip-floppers. These are Members of the House that voted against the Health Care bill in November, but flipped their vote and voted to pass the bill last Sunday Night. Here you go, log onto GradeGov and let your voice be heard.
John Boccieri (OH-16)
Allen Boyd (FL-2)
Bart Gordon (TN-6)
Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24)
Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)
Betsy Markey (CO-4)
Scott Murphy (NY-20)
Stay tuned,
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