They drank a lot of water first:
"Water projects poised to bridge D.C.’s partisan divide" by Henry C. Jackson | Associated Press, December 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — Those occasionally infamous multimillion-dollar water projects that have been derided by good-government types as pork-barrel spending are making a comeback.
In this age of belt-tightening budgets?
The reason: Apparently, this is one of the few areas where members of both parties in Congress see eye to eye.
So basically the broken city series was a bitch session for the Boston Globe regarding what parts of the agenda haven't been advanced because ever since they have been agreeing on so many things!
Republicans and Democrats who found little common ground in 2013 are rallying for a bill they hope to pass early next year approving up to $12.5 billion over the next decade for flood diversion in North Dakota, widening a Texas-Louisiana waterway, deepening Georgia’s rapidly growing Port of Savannah, and other projects.
Actually, they did find it regarding anything Israel, the war machine, and the $urveillance state demanded. I'm so tired of the propaganda pre$$ narrative pi$$ing on us.
That’s the Senate bill’s total. The House version would cost about $8.2 billion. Negotiators are confident they can merge the two and pass the package for President Obama’s signature early in 2014.
Unlike a farm policy and food stamp bill also the subject of ongoing House-Senate negotiations, the differences in the two houses’ water project bills are modest and the acrimony is less.
Negotiators say the roughly $4 billion gap between the two bills is more about how they are written than substantive policy or political differences.
‘‘The important thing is that we all care about reform,’’ said Representative Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania, a Republican and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Shuster’s Senate counterpart, Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, has said much the same thing.
The last time Congress enacted a water projects bill was 2007, and it took two-thirds majorities in both houses to override President George W. Bush’s veto of it.
Negotiators held their first formal meeting before Thanksgiving on blending two versions. Talks continued until Congress left for its year-end break and resume in January.
Lawmakers have been drawn to the big investment in infrastructure sketched out in both bills — and the promise of jobs that entails. Business groups, led by the US Chamber of Commerce, have lobbied members to support the bills, saying they’ll help keep American businesses competitive.
Doesn't that throw the red flag up?
The bills try to address perceptions of years past that water project legislation was loaded with favors by key lawmakers for their home districts and states. This time, both bills eliminate billions of dollars in duplicative projects. Shuster stressed that this bill contains no such ‘‘earmarks.’’
Just because he says it....
Those reforms still are not enough for some conservative groups that pressed lawmakers to oppose the bills, saying they are reform in name only and do not do enough to cut spending.
I thought as much.
‘‘Even before the predictable increase in authorizations as this bill goes through the process, this legislation would only shave a few billion dollars off the backlog,’’ Heritage Action wrote House members.
Tea Party sympathizers in the House largely brushed off conservative critics, buying into the idea that this water projects bill represents both reform and needed investment. To wavering Republicans, Schuster cited Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which directs Congress to establish roads and regulate interstate commerce.
Oh, Tea Party types like me were BETRAYED by OUR WING of CONGRE$$??! First Ron Paul and now this! To hell with the shit-fooleys of politics!
For their part, Democrats breezed past environmental groups concerned about language that speeds up the environmental review process.
Come on in to the ice-cold pool of betrayal, fart-misters. Don't warm the thing up that way, 'kay?
The House bill passed 417-3 in late October, winning support of everyone from Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to Tea Party stalwarts like Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Republican of Kansas. The Senate easily passed its version of the bill in May by a vote of 83-14.
Wow, those are numbers only Israel sees!
Both bills accelerate environmental reviews and allow more money from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to be spent on harbor improvements, but the House version of the bill ramps up spending from the fund more slowly.
The legislation would affect virtually every facet of America’s waterways and authorizes or reauthorizes dozens of projects, though Congress still has to pass separate bills appropriating money for them.
What are they going to do about the Asian carp?
Among them:
■ Dredging and widening the Sabine-Neches Waterway, billed as ‘‘America’s Energy Gateway’’ because the nearly 80-mile waterway services many oil and natural gas refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
What a $urpri$e.
■ $954 million for environmental restoration along the Louisiana coast.
Because the BP oil leak is still having effects even if I never read about it.
■ Expanding the Port of Savannah. Georgia officials have long lobbied for federal backing to improve one of the nation’s fastest growing ports; the bills designate up to $461 million for that purpose.
■ Flood diversion for the flood-prone Red River Valley region of North Dakota and parts of Minnesota. The bills authorize spending about $800 million to relieve flooding in a region that includes the cities of Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn. The region has suffered major floods in four of the past five years.
Because of record snowmelt, something the fart-misting flagshit forgets to mention.
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Related: Sunday Globe Specials: Washington's Water Supply
Globe coverage dried up as Congre$$ took a leak on you:
"Thousands of Mass. residents to lose jobless benefits" by Edward Mason | Globe Correspondent, December 28, 2013
Nearly 60,000 Massachusetts residents will lose unemployment benefits Saturday when the federal extension program expires, according to state labor officials, even as joblessness remains historically high and long-term unemployment hovers near record levels.
Across the country, more than 1.3 million jobless workers will be cut off from benefits because Congress adjourned without reauthorizing the extensions as part of the recent bipartisan budget deal.
Their way of saying Merry Xmas.
Democratic leaders say they will press to restore the emergency program when lawmakers return to Washington next month, but it remains unclear whether the Republican-controlled House will support another round of extensions....
A$$hole Republicans!
According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, extending the jobless benefits would cost nearly $26 billion over two years — a cost some Republicans balk at.
But they plowed tens of billions back into the military in the latest budget deal.
The economy and labor market have gained momentum in recent months, but....
That's a lie!
See: Globe Xmas Gift: Xmas Day Shopping
Had enough horse $hit yet?
And they wonder why we no longer believe a damn word?
“We have never seen in our lifetime anything like this,” said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies.
And it has been a five-year recovery, or so we were told by the money mouthpiece known as the AmeriKan ma$$ media.
Darlene Boylan of Waltham was laid off from a market research firm last year — her second layoff in three years — and since then has managed to get by with part-time jobs supplemented by unemployment benefits (Massachusetts allows residents to collect reduced benefits if they can get only part-time work.)
Now Boylan, 45, will lose $150 a week in unemployment benefits just as her part-time job as office administrator at a local college comes to an end. With her savings nearly wiped out, she is struggling to meet mortgage payments and save her home from foreclosure.
No bailout for her.
“I don’t sleep well,” Boylan said. “Finding a job is on the top of my mind every day. From a survival standpoint, I’m open to taking whatever I can and hoping for the best.”
Jobs Americans won't do.
The federal unemployment benefits, which have helped support consumer spending, have been eliminated just as the plodding economic recovery appears poised to accelerate.
It cost more in the taxes they take to give you to spend, so how that helps consumers spend I don't know -- and now the economy is plodding.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a forecasting firm in West Chester, Pa., said the benefit cuts will suck some $25 billion from the US economy over the next year, slowing job growth the economy desperately needs.
As if unemployment insurance was somehow creating jobs -- but that is the mindset that dominates the monied mouthpiece!
And why is the Globe even talking to an "expert" from Moody's? Didn't they rate all the mortgage-backed securities crap AAA?
In Massachusetts, the loss of the benefits could further buffet an economy that has seen unemployment rise....
Oh, they will now blame that and sequestration for the s*** economy. Anything but the looting banksters.
Also see: Homeless For the Holidays
Some recovery.
Congress first approved emergency benefits at the beginning of the recession in 2008, eventually allowing jobless workers to collect benefits in some states for more than two years, depending on local unemployment rates. During the worst of the recession, Massachusetts residents could collect up to 99 weeks, or just under two years. That was later cut to 73 weeks as the economy improved.
Prior to the recession, Massachusetts provided unemployment benefits to jobless workers for up to 30 weeks.
The job market remains tough, particularly for older workers and those with less education and skills. The unemployment rate for high school dropouts is double that of those with at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the Labor Department. Americans over 45 account for 40 percent of those workers unemployed for more than a year.
But it's a great recovery that is gaining momentum, blah, blah, f***ing blah.
In March, Lori Cairns, 55, of Worcester lost her job as a case manager at the Henry Lee Willis Center, a nonprofit social service agency, when its funding was eliminated and the center closed. A college graduate, she has sent out 10 resumes a week, even applying for jobs that do not require a degree. She said she feels lucky if she gets one call back a month. “It’s terrifying to need to look for a job,” Cairns said. “There are a lot of part-time and minimum wage jobs. There’s no other options.”
The Massachusetts economy has created nearly 47,000 jobs over the past year, a job growth rate of about 1.5 percent, but that is not fast enough to absorb laid-off workers trying to find employment and new workers entering the labor market, said Robert Forrant, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
And yet we were outpacing the nation in job growth, blah, blah, f***ing,m blah!!!
Yasmani Santiago, a 32-year-old father of three from Dorchester, had only about four weeks left to collect if Congress had extended the emergency benefits, but it would have helped support his family while he completes a training program to become a plumber. Laid off from a food services company about a year ago, Santiago said he sought a variety of jobs, including at hospitals and social service agencies, only to encounter disappointment when interviewers told him his high school diploma and skills would not qualify him for the positions.
Now, he worries how he will make the rent and buy groceries without the $320-a-week unemployment check.
“I can’t keep my head above water [now],” Santiago said. “I’m going week to week.”
And Congress is filling up the pool with even more piss!
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Yup, they can't get food stamps or unemployment through because that is when parti$an$hip rears its ugly head.
