Good evening and welcome to the Daily Strike. I hope you enjoyed your Veteran's Day, and if you had the day off, I hope you had a nice 3 hour nap like me
VETERAN'S DAY: After yesterday's well-received speech in Fort Hood, the President spoke today at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate Veteran's Day. His speech today echoed yesterday; he talked about how we often fail to adequately appreciate what veterans have done for us. He specifically mentioned how Vietnam veterans were often treated with scorn when they returned in the 1960's and 1970's. I love when President Obama calls out the mistakes of the cultural left.
The President will leave tomorrow morning for Asia. Tonight, he's holding one of his last strategy meetings on Afghanistan. According to reports, the President's key advisers including Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, are leaning towards a plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This would be a significant escalation, but would fall short of the request from General Stanley McChrystal. He better couple this increase with with a new comprehensive end-game strategy. The President will most likely make an announcement after he returns from Asia but before Thanksgiving.
GALLUP: Since it's Veteran's Day and there isn't much else to talk about, I'll mention a very disturbing Gallup Poll I saw today. The poll showed Republicans leading the 2010 Generic Congressional ballot by 4 points, after having trailed for pretty much the past 5 years. Democrats have a natural disadvantage when it comes to the Congressional ballot. Even small Democratic leads can mean heavy losses because Democrats control so many seats in Republican territory. Even more disturbing, independents favor Republican candidates by a 22 point margin. This might be somewhat misleading, because many basically Republican voters call themselves independents these days, but still. The best way to cut into these numbers would be to seriously address voters number 1 concern: jobs. Majority Leader Reid talked today about bringing a jobs bill to the floor of the Senate in January. It would have increased spending on infrastructure and tax breaks for businesses that create jobs. I hope Democrats follow through with a strong jobs bill.
No Congress in session today, so we'll call it an entry. Please leave us some comments.
Showing posts with label Veterans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veterans. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Weekly Strike-7/27-8/2
Good morning and welcome to the Weekly Strike. I'm ready for a jam packed, up and down week of politics as Congress gets ready to adjourn for the August recess (the House after this week, the Senate after next week). Let's get to it.
HEALTH CARE: This will be another crucial week for the prospects of health reform. With Majority Leader Reid declaring that the Senate won't take up a bill by the August recess, all eyes are on the House, and the Senate Finance Committee. House Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, still think that they can get a bill passed on the floor by the recess, even if they have to stay in session for a few extra days. The hold-up continues to be the Energy and Commerce committee, one of the three committees with jurisdiction over the bill. The 7 Blue Dog Democrats who have held the bill hostage are back at the negotiating table with the Democratic leadership. If Pelosi and chairman Henry Waxman can reach a deal with these power-hungry holdouts by Tuesday (no easy task), I think we will see a bill on the floor late this week or over the weekend. If not, we'll be on hold in both chambers until Labor Day.
Only God knows what the Blue Dogs want in a compromise, besides media exposure. The key concession to the Blue Dogs, a Medicare advisory board that would set reimbursement rates, was determined by the Congressional Budget Office to produce only minimal savings over the next 10 years. Blue Dogs are ostensibly concerned about cost, so this might be a setback for negotiations. On the other hand, Blue Dogs are against all other cost-cutting measures, so I'm at a loss for what we need to do to get them on board. There's always the "nuclear" option of bypassing the Energy and Commerce committee and bringing the bill directly to the floor, but the 52 member Blue Dog caucus would get so angry that they'd probably vote against the bill. You know, because this entire fight is about them.
Let's hope a deal can be reached this week so I don't have to keep lobbing insults at the grandstanding, self-absorbed Blue Dog caucus.
Speaking of insults, I can't think of any that would do justice to the Senate Finance committee. Chairman Max Baucus keeps telling us that they'll "be ready when they're ready," but it has been several weeks, and they still have not come up with any bipartisan compromise. Releasing the Finance Committee bill is important. It's like to be a moderate alternative to the bill that passed the Senate HELP committee, and it may spur nervous House Democrats to vote yes on their version of the bill knowing that a more politically marketable bill is emerging in the Senate. Of course, a moderate bill will be worse policy-wise, but that's apparently not the main concern of many Congressional Democrats. We will have comprehensive reports on the health care front as the week progresses.
THE WHITE HOUSE: President Obama is doing his part to sell health care reform this week. The President holds a tele-town hall at the AARP in Washington tomorrow, where he will make his case for reform to the senior citizen community. On Wednesday, Obama will hold separate events in Raleigh, NC and Bristol, VA to talk health care. The Big Picture will be writing today on how the President has to change his strategy in his efforts to promote the bill.
The President has a very busy schedule today. He starts the day at a summit with Chinese leaders in Washington. The meeting is being billed as a "strategic and economic dialogue" to improve relations between the two countries. Obama will be joined by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The President also holds an event with the head of FIFA, the soccer federation, to discuss the U.S's bid for the World Cup, and he welcomes the WNBA Detroit Shock to the White House.
THE HOUSE: The House schedule is subject to change depending on what happens with the health care reform bill, but here's what we know so far. The House starts today and tomorrow with a slew of suspension bills. A couple of them are actually very important. There are a few bills dealing with veterans health care, and one very important bill addressing food safety. The Food Safety Enhancement Act would strengthen federal efforts relating to the safety of commercially distributed food, and also would broaden the FDA's authority to regulate food products. I bet you won't see one news story about this bill, but if enacted, it will have a significant impact in preventing some of the food-borne illness crises we've seen in recent years.
On Wednesday, the House takes up the last of 12 appropriations bills, the one funding the Department of Defense. This bill seems pretty bad to me at first glance. Unlike the Senate, the House bill contains funding for the costly F-22 fighter jet program. It also, I believe, does not contain funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, meaning that we'd have to pass more of those vaunted, budget-busting supplemental spending bills. It's pretty difficult to vote against funding the Department of Defense, so I expect the bill to pass easily. The Rules committee hasn't yet released a list of acceptable amendments, but I hope it allows one to strip the F-22 funding from the bill.
On Thursday, the House takes up a very important measure dealing with executive pay at corporate and financial institutions. The bill would require that shareholders vote on executive compensation, and that the vote be reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The problem with the bill is that the vote will be non-binding. Executive boards could ignore their shareholders entirely, and give themselves a lavish amount of money. Hopefully, though, a vote by the shareholders on executive compensation would cause bad publicity for companies that are hoarding money at the top.
Prior to week's end, we may see some conference reports or Senate bills come before the House in advance of the recess. We'll keep you posted.
THE SENATE: Now that the health care bill is off the table for the next two weeks, the Senate can move on to other business. They'll start today with consideration of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill, which has already passed the House. This is only the 3rd appropriations bill the Senate has taken up so far. They'll have to get a move on if they want the 12 bills signed into law by the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. After that, Majority Leader Reid hopes to move several bills by the time the Senate leaves town on August 7th. Most notably, we should expect a vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor either late this week or next week. The Judiciary committee, after a week's delay, will vote on her nomination tomorrow. I expect her to be confirmed with at least 13 of the committee's 19 members voting yes. So far, no Democrats have come out in opposition to her nomination, and one committee Republican, Lindsay Graham (SC), has offered his support. She should be confirmed with somewhere between 65-75 votes on the Senate floor. The Senate also will try to take up a House-passed safety net package that will increase the Federal Housing Authority's mortgage limit as well as states' borrowing authority for unemployment insurance. We also may see a bill extending highway funding for 18 months (funding under the Surface Transportation Act is running dry), and a previously blocked measure designed to increase tourism, a priority of Majority Leader Reid, who represents tourist haven Las Vegas.
That's it for now. Leave us your comments, and see you tonight!
HEALTH CARE: This will be another crucial week for the prospects of health reform. With Majority Leader Reid declaring that the Senate won't take up a bill by the August recess, all eyes are on the House, and the Senate Finance Committee. House Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, still think that they can get a bill passed on the floor by the recess, even if they have to stay in session for a few extra days. The hold-up continues to be the Energy and Commerce committee, one of the three committees with jurisdiction over the bill. The 7 Blue Dog Democrats who have held the bill hostage are back at the negotiating table with the Democratic leadership. If Pelosi and chairman Henry Waxman can reach a deal with these power-hungry holdouts by Tuesday (no easy task), I think we will see a bill on the floor late this week or over the weekend. If not, we'll be on hold in both chambers until Labor Day.
Only God knows what the Blue Dogs want in a compromise, besides media exposure. The key concession to the Blue Dogs, a Medicare advisory board that would set reimbursement rates, was determined by the Congressional Budget Office to produce only minimal savings over the next 10 years. Blue Dogs are ostensibly concerned about cost, so this might be a setback for negotiations. On the other hand, Blue Dogs are against all other cost-cutting measures, so I'm at a loss for what we need to do to get them on board. There's always the "nuclear" option of bypassing the Energy and Commerce committee and bringing the bill directly to the floor, but the 52 member Blue Dog caucus would get so angry that they'd probably vote against the bill. You know, because this entire fight is about them.
Let's hope a deal can be reached this week so I don't have to keep lobbing insults at the grandstanding, self-absorbed Blue Dog caucus.
Speaking of insults, I can't think of any that would do justice to the Senate Finance committee. Chairman Max Baucus keeps telling us that they'll "be ready when they're ready," but it has been several weeks, and they still have not come up with any bipartisan compromise. Releasing the Finance Committee bill is important. It's like to be a moderate alternative to the bill that passed the Senate HELP committee, and it may spur nervous House Democrats to vote yes on their version of the bill knowing that a more politically marketable bill is emerging in the Senate. Of course, a moderate bill will be worse policy-wise, but that's apparently not the main concern of many Congressional Democrats. We will have comprehensive reports on the health care front as the week progresses.
THE WHITE HOUSE: President Obama is doing his part to sell health care reform this week. The President holds a tele-town hall at the AARP in Washington tomorrow, where he will make his case for reform to the senior citizen community. On Wednesday, Obama will hold separate events in Raleigh, NC and Bristol, VA to talk health care. The Big Picture will be writing today on how the President has to change his strategy in his efforts to promote the bill.
The President has a very busy schedule today. He starts the day at a summit with Chinese leaders in Washington. The meeting is being billed as a "strategic and economic dialogue" to improve relations between the two countries. Obama will be joined by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The President also holds an event with the head of FIFA, the soccer federation, to discuss the U.S's bid for the World Cup, and he welcomes the WNBA Detroit Shock to the White House.
THE HOUSE: The House schedule is subject to change depending on what happens with the health care reform bill, but here's what we know so far. The House starts today and tomorrow with a slew of suspension bills. A couple of them are actually very important. There are a few bills dealing with veterans health care, and one very important bill addressing food safety. The Food Safety Enhancement Act would strengthen federal efforts relating to the safety of commercially distributed food, and also would broaden the FDA's authority to regulate food products. I bet you won't see one news story about this bill, but if enacted, it will have a significant impact in preventing some of the food-borne illness crises we've seen in recent years.
On Wednesday, the House takes up the last of 12 appropriations bills, the one funding the Department of Defense. This bill seems pretty bad to me at first glance. Unlike the Senate, the House bill contains funding for the costly F-22 fighter jet program. It also, I believe, does not contain funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, meaning that we'd have to pass more of those vaunted, budget-busting supplemental spending bills. It's pretty difficult to vote against funding the Department of Defense, so I expect the bill to pass easily. The Rules committee hasn't yet released a list of acceptable amendments, but I hope it allows one to strip the F-22 funding from the bill.
On Thursday, the House takes up a very important measure dealing with executive pay at corporate and financial institutions. The bill would require that shareholders vote on executive compensation, and that the vote be reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The problem with the bill is that the vote will be non-binding. Executive boards could ignore their shareholders entirely, and give themselves a lavish amount of money. Hopefully, though, a vote by the shareholders on executive compensation would cause bad publicity for companies that are hoarding money at the top.
Prior to week's end, we may see some conference reports or Senate bills come before the House in advance of the recess. We'll keep you posted.
THE SENATE: Now that the health care bill is off the table for the next two weeks, the Senate can move on to other business. They'll start today with consideration of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill, which has already passed the House. This is only the 3rd appropriations bill the Senate has taken up so far. They'll have to get a move on if they want the 12 bills signed into law by the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. After that, Majority Leader Reid hopes to move several bills by the time the Senate leaves town on August 7th. Most notably, we should expect a vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor either late this week or next week. The Judiciary committee, after a week's delay, will vote on her nomination tomorrow. I expect her to be confirmed with at least 13 of the committee's 19 members voting yes. So far, no Democrats have come out in opposition to her nomination, and one committee Republican, Lindsay Graham (SC), has offered his support. She should be confirmed with somewhere between 65-75 votes on the Senate floor. The Senate also will try to take up a House-passed safety net package that will increase the Federal Housing Authority's mortgage limit as well as states' borrowing authority for unemployment insurance. We also may see a bill extending highway funding for 18 months (funding under the Surface Transportation Act is running dry), and a previously blocked measure designed to increase tourism, a priority of Majority Leader Reid, who represents tourist haven Las Vegas.
That's it for now. Leave us your comments, and see you tonight!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Daily Strike-4/9/09-War's Beginnings and Ends
Good evening and welcome to the Daily Strike. I will start out by saying that I would have much rather been at President Obama's Passover seder than my LSAT class. Let's take a look at the day in politics.
WAR: Today, the President officially requested $83.4 billion to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the fiscal year (September 30th). The funds will be needed around Memorial Day, when funds appropriated last year begin to run out. Most of the funding will be for operations and personnel. Additional funding is included for equipment and intelligence, including new money for counter terrorism operations in Pakistan. This, hopefully, will be the last time that Obama will have to request "supplemental" war funding from Congress. Bush always pretended like these wars were "emergencies" so that his budget proposals would look more "fiscally responsible." Obama has included war costs in his Fiscal Year 2010 budget request.
Remember the battles in 2007 over war funding? Democrats tried to attach withdrawal language to supplemental funding bills, Bush vetoed them, the Democrats caved, the war continued etc. Well now, the funding battle will take on a different tone. For starters, Obama at least has some semblance of an end-game in Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. Second, Obama is a fundamentally anti-war President at his core, so Democrats in Congress trust that he won't use this money to escalate pointless wars to further the vague and unreachable goal of "victory against terrorism."
Still, there will be some definite political wrangling over this money. I expect some serious resistance from liberals, especially in the House. These liberals are justifiably worried, particularly about increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. Iraq war critic, and Vietnam veteran Rep. John Murtha said today that "“I have great concern about adding any forces. I’ve said over and over again, it took me 15 years to realize that adding troops in Vietnam did not win the war for us.” Obama doesn't seem to be attaching any benchmarks to this funding (at least as of yet), so liberals may feel like they're just throwing more money down a black hole. Look for staunch anti-war Reps. Barbara Lee (CA), Maxine Waters (CA), Jan Schakowski (IL), Dennis Kucinich (OH), Ron Paul (TX-yes that Ron Paul) and Senators Russ Feingold (WI) and Barbara Boxer (CA) to vote against, if not lead a charge, against increased war spending.
I assume that Republicans won't have a problem spending this money. They seem to be less impulsively critical of Obama's Afghanistan and Iraq policies than they are of his other policies. They also never saw a war funding request from Bush that they didn't like. There are a select few Republicans, like Paul, Jimmy Duncan (TN), Walter Jones (NC), who will vote against the money because they are both fiscal conservatives and principally against the war. A few more, surely, will vote against it because it originated from the Obama White House. Ultimately, I expect the money to be approved pretty easily. I just hope that Congressional liberals hold Obama's feet to the fire, especially on Afghanistan.
VETERANS HEALTH CARE: If we continue to send troops to foreign wars, we will need a strengthened Veterans Health Care system. Today, President Obama took an important step in improving the quality of care for returning soldiers. The plan centers around new electronic records system that would track all service members, both active and inactive. The new technology will help stop delays and backlogs in the VA system. The VA has always been a guinea pig of sorts for health care policy ideas, so maybe this electronic records system can make it's way into our new public health system! I'm glad Obama made this announcement. A few weeks ago he completely screwed up by even mentioning an idea to have private companies pay for veterans' health care. It's not good, morally or politically, to have the veterans against you.
ODDS AND ENDS:
-An article in the New York Times yesterday stated that Obama plans to push for immigration reform later this year. Critics will say, again, that Obama is trying to do too much. There are legitimate concerns of anti-immigrant sentiment being more prevalent during a recession, which would make reform more difficult. As The Big Picture pointed out, though, it would fulfill the Glenn Beck/Bill O'Reilly nightmare of more Hispanics being permanently endowed to the Democratic Party. Anything that makes Beck and O'Reilly worry must be good, right?
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