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Republicans Dominate Midterm Elections

On Tuesday Nov. 4, millions of Americans turned out to vote in the Federal midterm as well as local and state elections. Dominating the mindset of a majority of the voter-base was disappointment in the last two years under the Democratic Party’s majority in the Senate and dismally low approval ratings for President Obama.

LukeLauer_Elections_Horizontal_CMYKAs a result of these ongoing themes, The Republican Party saw a sweeping set of victories in both houses of the United States Congress, as well as in the state governor setting. Already having a majority, the Republicans gained 14 seats in the House of Representatives – most significantly, ousting three incumbent officials in New York State as well as in Texas, Florida, Iowa, West Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina (among others). John Boehner, of Ohio’s 8th Congressional District, continues his tenure as Speaker of the House and third in line to the Presidency. The current house demographics stand at 243 (R) to 178 (D) with 14 districts undecided (as of Wednesday) due to close calls, run-off elections, or inconclusive results.

The Republicans also managed to pull off a 7-seat gain in the Senate – putting them in the majority for at least the next two years. The incoming Republicans successfully defeated long time Democrat strongholds in Colorado, Arkansas, and North Carolina defeating ex-Senators Mark Udall, Mark Pryor, and Kay Hagan respectively. In addition, the Republicans picked up Montana, Iowa, South Dakota, and West Virginia – and by the end of the week it is predicted Alaska will also be picked up by Republicans.

Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada ends a seven year stint as Majority Leader and will pass off his position of control to the Republican’s Mitch McConnell from Kentucky. The current results from Tuesday’s turnout place the Democrats with 45 and the Republicans with 52. Though the races in Alaska, Virginia, and Louisiana have not been decisively announced (as of Wednesday), no possible outcome would change the final count.

Andrew Cuomo was re-elected to as the Governor of New York State, defeating Republican adversary Rob Astorino. However, the Democrat-laden New York State legislature did see some change with the Senate being overtaken by a Republican majority. New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio teamed up with long-standing U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and Governor Cuomo in an attempt to rally Democratic voters to a victory in the Senate. Despite their efforts, key districts in Long Island and upstate New York swung sharply to the left, increasing the Republicans margin of control.

For Houghton, the reelection of longtime representatives Assemblyman Joseph Giglio, Senator Catherine Young, and U.S. Representative, Thomas Reed, comes as no surprise. A highly Republican region, all three were incumbents and faced little real challenge in getting re-elected (Giglio and Young ran unopposed). Reed faced Martha Roberts from Ithaca, but defeated her.

Though most may consider midterm elections unimportant in comparison with Presidential elections, this weeks results and incoming politicians will determine many of the issues that will be hot topics during the 2016 presidential election. Time will tell if Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or another Democratic presidential candidate has been handily equipped with a Congress they will need to get elected.

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Government Faces Imminent Shutdown

Stop the presses – Congress is, yet again, at an impasse about the national budget and it appears as if this time it will consequently shut down the federal government unless lawmakers can come to an agreement by September 30.

Courtesy of www.cnn.com
Courtesy of www.cnn.com

There are two main issues at hand. Funding for the government for the 2014 fiscal year (beginning on October 1, 2013) must be decided by Congress by September 30. However, lawmakers have had a difficult time passing the appropriations bills required. Adding to this complication is the fact that the government is about to hit the debt ceiling (the debt ceiling is the legal limit on how much total debt that the government can assume) and the decision to raise or lower it, and thus let the Treasury borrow more or less, is highly contested between Republicans and Democrats. The debt ceiling debacle, though, is far more consequential because it has the potential to affect world markets negatively.

Agreements between Republicans and Democrats seem unlikely at the moment. House Republicans in particular have taken the hard line in the past few days and it looks like their demands will not find an easy compromise among Democrats. According to the Washington Post, House Republicans are taking on a “risky, double-barreled attack on President Obama’s healthcare law” and making it the center of the budget debate. In effect, Republican leaders–particularly Speaker John Boehner–told the media that they would put forward a stopgap government funding bill that would block funding to Obamacare. This is in response to many conservatives who are still demanding that Obamacare be halted. This stopgap bill will be put to a vote on Friday, but it is likely to be met unfavorably with Democrats.

Another initiative by Republicans, this time regarding the debt ceiling, will also target Obamacare directly. In order to lift the debt ceiling, Republicans are demanding that the healthcare law be delayed, as well demanding as other measures such as an overhaul of the tax code and an approval of an energy pipeline.

Needless to say, Democrats are aghast at what Republicans are demanding and the issues seem to point to a battle of wills that will force a government shutdown. In addition to Republican demands making compromise between the two parties highly unlikely, it seems doubtful that Democrats will extend an arm to help as they know that public opinion is strongly against Republicans in this matter. According to a poll taken by CNN, most Americans (51%) would blame the GOP should a government shutdown occur, thus strengthening Democrat popularity and electoral prospects. According to the poll, only a third would blame Democrats.

At the moment, the best possibility to avoid government shutdown by the deadline is if Senator Reid sends back the stopgap bill to the House, stripped of its demands to defund Obamacare. Then the hot potato would be placed again in Speaker Boehner’s hands to either approve the measure with Democratic votes or else to shutdown the government. This, however, does not seem likely.

Recently, congressional budget decisions have taken a pattern most familiar to college students: wait until the last minute before the due date and then patch together a final document. In this instance, it looks like Congress’ current debacle is no different.

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President Obama Unveils Budget Proposal

This past Wednesday, President Obama unveiled a new budget plan to be sent to Congress. Obama’s proposal will also be considered next to other plans that have already been proposed, including, most notably, two separate competing plans drawn up by Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in the House and Senator Patty Murphy (D-Wash.) in the Senate.

Courtesy of money.cnn.com
Courtesy of money.cnn.com

Obama’s proposal, a ten year plan, calls for about $300 billion in new spending measures for employment and public works, along with major new taxes for the wealthy, and some entitlement reforms. The plan calls for, among other things, an extra charge of 94 cents added to the cost of a pack of cigarettes. (The proceeds from the charge will be used to help finance programs for preschool education, programs that Obama mentioned in the State of the Union Address earlier this year.) Besides this striking feature, the plan will also call for $700 billion in new tax increases for the wealthy which, not unexpectedly, does not please many Republicans in Congress. However, the President has also made several concessions to Republicans, such as reducing Medicare benefits for wealthy couples.

By far, however, the largest concession that the President’s plan offers the Republicans is to reduce Social Security by applying a chained consumer price index (chained CPI) that will be less generous in calculating benefits. (Along with Social Security, the chained CPI will index  spending and taxes by tying them directly to the rate of inflation.) Compared to the old model of calculating benefits, the new formula will cause benefits to tick up at a much slower rate. This is expected to save the federal government about $130 billion within the next ten years.

This is a bold step by the President, as trimming Social Security is often considered untouchable by the members of his own party. Regardless, some Republicans in Senate are pleased with the concession and see this as a point where Republicans and Democrats can begin to compromise, though many Republicans advocate for higher Social Security costs. Other Republicans, however, do not see Obama’s move as a conciliatory measure and do not think that the concession really reforms entitlements. According to the Washington Post, Representative Ryan said that, “I don’t see this as fundamental entitlement reform as much as clarifying a statistic which does happen to save money.”

Obama’s proposal comes several days late – 65 days, to be exact. Usually in Washington, the president is the one to initiate discussions on the budget but, with several fiscal crises in the first quarter of this year, Obama’s initiative was delayed and the Senate and House of Representatives have already proceeded with their own initiatives.

Republican congressional plans generally seek to balance the budget within ten years and cut spending. Their counterparts, Democrat congressional plans, also seek to reduce deficit, but not to balance the budget. President Obama’s plan is no different in this respect. Regarding the level of national debt, one Republican plan from the House will level off debt within ten years, but another  plan submitted by the Republican Study Committee would reduce it significantly. Obama’s plan, like other Democrat plans, will not reduce national debt significantly and  will continue to let it to swell.

Budget talks in the upcoming weeks will continue to be debated.  Continue to keep an eye on the news for further developments.

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Congress Scrambles to Prevent Sequester

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are busy trying to prevent the sequester, massive spending cuts totaling to roughly $85 billion this year and over $1 trillion over the next ten years, that will hit the federal budget on March 1.

Courtesy of ivn.us
Courtesy of ivn.us

Should lawmakers fail to prevent the sequester, it will lop off a good portion of discretionary spending for defense and domestic programs and will also affect some mandatory domestic spending (most notably Medicare.) No programs will be eliminated, but all will be considerably scaled back.

The sequester will also affect federal employment. According to a Washington Post article, about 800,000 employees at the Pentagon will be put on unpaid leave if Congress cannot obtain a solution to the sequester. Military members and their families will also face cuts to benefit programs. Economic growth in the United States is also expected to slow and unemployment will raise a quarter of a percentage.

The sequester is the result of the debt ceiling crisis in the summer of 2011. It was intended to be an incentive for Congress to come to an agreement to cut federal spending, however, no agreement was ever reached. Originally, the sequester was supposed to take place in the beginning of this year (during the fiscal cliff crisis), but Congress made a deal to prevent the cliff and the sequester was delayed for another two months.

Nobody in Congress is pleased with the situation; neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can agree on how to best prevent the sequester.

President Obama and the Democrats are suggesting that the best way is to increase taxes. Obama has advocated for closing tax loopholes and increasing tax rates for the wealthy. The Democrats in Congress are pushing for tax increases, spread out over the course of a decade, and they are also recommending other measures such as cutting farm subsidies and tax subsidies for oil companies.

Republicans, on the other hand, do not want to raise taxes at all and thus find themselves not able to agree with Democrat proposals. Republicans are also very concerned about defense spending being cut, more so than domestic spending, and are pushing for considerably large domestic spending cuts instead. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, wrote, “The president’s sequester is the wrong way to reduce the deficit, but it is here to stay until Washington Democrats get serious about cutting spending. The government simply cannot keep delaying the inevitable and spending money it doesn’t have.”

Overall, the sequester is another issue in the long debate over the size and role of the federal government, with the Democrats on the side of an expanded government and Republicans on the side of a smaller government. The results of the sequester that arise within the next week should be a test case to the larger debate. Hopefully, though, Congress will find a compromise to the sequester that is appealing to both political parties and will secure the future of American defense and overall well-being.

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Next Up in Congress: Immigration Reform?

During the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Obama spoke on the topic of immigration reform, saying, “Send me a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next few months, and I will sign it right away.”

Courtesy of bigthink.com
Courtesy of bigthink.com

During his speech, Obama mentioned three things that he wishes in an immigration reform package. One, he desires to continue to increase border security; two, he would establish “a responsible pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants already here; and three, he would reform the process of legal immigration so that there would be fewer waiting periods and would attract those that would help create jobs and help to grow the economy.

This was not merely talk. In recent weeks, comprehensive immigration reform has been steadily approaching legislative reality. A bipartisan group of senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, was formed only a few weeks ago with the task of developing a framework for reform that could possibly develop into a bill. This group has spearheaded the effort to come up with solutions to the many problems of immigration in this country – namely, illegal immigration, undocumented workers, insecure borders, and problems with the process of legal immigration, along with other issues.

For once, this seems to be a movement that will receive much, if not total, support in Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that immigration reform makes economic sense as immigrants are a key part of economic growth and development. Given the current economic uncertainty, immigration is a vital issue to address. The GOP also seeks to broaden its base, especially after the last presidential election where most of the Hispanic vote went to President Obama. Offering solutions to the immigration problem and presenting themselves as open to discussion will help develop support for the GOP platforms.

The public has also demonstrated consistent support for immigration reform. According to a Gallup poll, more than seven in ten Americans support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and more than eight in ten Americans support legislation that would require that all employers verify that their employees are living in the United States legally.

Efforts to reach across the aisle and compromise about immigration also seem to be gaining ground, particularly from Senator Marco Rubio (R.-FL) who is quickly becoming a GOP superstar. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has been consistently leading the effort on behalf of the GOP to get discussion going. However, a hurdle that must cleared for legislation regarding immigration is a pivotal controversy within the Republican Party itself.
There are a significant number of GOP members who do not wish a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, saying that it amounts to amnesty. There are others within the party that disagree. Rubio dodged this issue in his speech in the GOP response to the State of the Union Address on Tuesday evening, but in recent weeks he has shown his support for a process of citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

The United States may well be on its way to immigration reform within the coming weeks. As talks and discussions among Congress become more serious and legislation begins to develop, the United States may even be implementing new immigration reform by the next State of the Union Address in 2014.