The whole town should literally be cleaned out.
"Congress keeps road funds going" by Matt Viser | Globe Staff August 01, 2014
WASHINGTON – Congress on Thursday approved a short-term bill to pay for highway and transit projects for the next nine months, waiting until just hours before lawmakers start a five-week recess to make sure construction money continued flowing to their home states.
The move allowed state transportation officials in Massachusetts and elsewhere to relax, at least for a few months, after weeks of partisan brinksmanship threatened funding for key projects throughout the states. Finally, with the SUV’s and cars lined up to whisk some lawmakers to the airport, the House and Senate acted in a rare display of unity.
I noted in the margin of my printed pos how tired I was of reading that false narrative when they are unanimously endorsing Israel's actions in Gaza to the point of wrapping up more tax loot for Iron Dome before they leave town.
Then I thought of the war budgets that sail through and became enraged at the griping by the Globe because they didn't get the whole damn agenda passed. Obviously, the Israeli, Zionist Jew, Amerikan ma$$ media connections reveal themselves in unusual ways.
Related: A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday designed to curb the striking number of sexual assaults on college campuses
Sorry the sweep is making me limp.
Passage of the $10.8 billion transportation bill means that projects in all corners of Massachusetts — from the reconstruction of Interstate 91 in Springfield to resurfacing of Route 1 in Peabody — can move forward without concerns over federal financing.
Without it, transportation funding would have been cut on Friday by about 30 percent. For Massachusetts, nearly 15,000 jobs would have been jeopardized because 926 active highway and transit projects would have been slowed or stopped. Now the status quo is preserved — at least until May, when the temporary funding in the bill dries up.
“At least for tomorrow the bills will be paid, the projects will continue. For the moment, I guess it’s a sigh of relief,” said Richard A. Davey, Massachusetts state transportation secretary. “But we know come next spring, we’ll be at the precipice again.”
Passage of the transportation funding bill was one of the few accomplishments Congress made on Thursday, as members sprinted toward their vacation deadline. The bill passed the Senate Thursday night, 81-13.
On other fronts, dysfunction and disarray ruled the day. House Speaker John Boehner abruptly canceled a planned vote to provide $659 million in emergency spending to address the surge of young immigrants coming from Central America.
Boehner, Republican from Ohio, pulled the vote because of opposition to the bill from conservative Republicans, but he later huddled with his GOP colleagues and said more votes might be held on Friday. Illustrating some of the disarray of the day, a top Democrat said some of their party’s members had already left, scrambling to get to the airport, and would have to be called back to the Capitol.
With just a few months left, this Congress is likely to be one of the least productive in history. It has enacted only 142 laws, the fewest of any Congress in the past two decades over a similar time period, according to the Pew Research Center. The fact that such a routine item — funding for politically popular road projects — generated high drama and was then trumpeted as a major accomplishment is just another indication, some Democratic lawmakers and outside observers said, of how low the bar has been set in Washington.
“It’s just shameful! Shameful!” said Representative Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon. “This has been bipartisan, forever! Now we’re here, limping along with just another patch.”
The funding for transportation projects was drying up in large part because the Highway Trust Fund relies on an 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax that is not indexed to inflation. It has not been increased since 1993, even as cars have become more fuel efficient and construction costs have grown.
For months, transportation officials warned of the shortfall. The Department of Transportation said its account would have a shortfall by late August if Congress took no action, and it would start slowing its payments to states.
For Massachusetts, nearly $1 billion in annual funding was at stake, about half the total amount of money for the projects since the state covers the other half.
A prolonged funding shortage could have derailed the final phase of the MBTA’s Green Line extension in Medford, and a planned $1 billion South Station expansion.
Active highway projects would have stalled, with orange cones staying put but little asphalt being laid down. A harbor walking path in Dorchester was at risk, as was a new pedestrian bridge in Western Massachusetts.
State transportation officials said they could have gotten by in short-term — in the hopes that the funding would come later — and it would have taken several months for the effects to be readily apparent.
But they warn that Congress’s patch-work solutions are making it increasingly difficult to plan for construction projects that are often years in the making.
“The federal government asks us to do 5-, 10-year plans. The irony is we get seven, eight months of funding,” Davey said. “You’ve got Congress asking us for long-term plans without the corresponding long-term funding commitment.”
Massachusetts lawmakers have all supported the short-term funding plan, although with reluctance.
“This is the world we live in at the moment,” said Representative Michael Capuano, a Somerville Democrat who is on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. “We keep kicking the can down the road on everything it’s not good leadership and it’s not good government.”
Capuano said he would rather have a six-year bill without any federal funding at all.
“I wouldn’t vote for that, but at least you could plan,” he said. “This is the worst. You can’t even plan. What road can you build? What Green Line extension can you build? It’s just not a way to run government and not a way to run business either.”
In April, President Obama proposed spending $302 billion on transportation over four years. But his plan was financed in part by closing business tax loopholes, a move Republicans oppose.
With no long-term funding plan under discussion, Congress began turning toward a short-term fix just to get through the current construction season.
Two weeks ago, the House overwhelmingly passed legislation that would provide $10.8 billion, enough to fund projects until May 2015. The bill relied on an accounting maneuver that would lower corporate pension requirements over 10 years, thereby raising companies’ taxable income and giving more funds to the government.
The accounting practice is considered a gimmick by some financial watchdogs.
The Senate this week overwhelmingly passed legislation that aimed to provide $8.1 billion, enough to fund the projects until December. Rather than use the so-called “pension smoothing,’’ the Senate bill would raise more federal money by increasing compliance with tax rules.
A technical error in the Senate legislation meant the funding fell $2 billion short — an error that House critics seized upon.
There were several disputes between the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate. The Senate wanted to fund the projects until December, planning to pass a long-term bill during a lame duck session of Congress. The House wanted to fund them until May, waiting until a new session of Congress — when Republicans think they may control both House and Senate — to deal with a long-term plan.
But the House refused to budge. On Thursday, with the clock ticking down, they rejected the Senate proposal.
Several hours later, the Senate simply passed the House plan.
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"Senate Democrats opened debate Wednesday on an emergency measure to help stem the flood of young immigrants from Central America, though they still face two uphill votes — another procedural, and one of final passage — before they can head home for the five-week August recess having passed legislation to address the crisis at the southern border."
"In blow to new GOP leaders, revolt scuttles border bill vote" by Ashley Parker | New York Times August 01, 2014
WASHINGTON — Facing a rebellion among their most conservative ranks, House Republicans were forced Thursday to scuttle an emergency spending measure to address the surge of young Central American migrants at the southern border, in a major embarrassment to the new leadership team.
House Republican leaders are expected to hold another meeting with their members Friday to decide how to move forward, and many lawmakers said they would stay in Washington as long as necessary to put the bill on the floor. Some lawmakers had already departed Thursday for the five-week summer break, and were summoned back to the Capitol.
The Republicans, who have long called for strengthening security at the nation’s southern border, may be forced to head home for the five-week August recess with nothing to show for their efforts — something many Republicans fear will be an enormous political liability.
The blow to Speaker John A. Boehner and his new team — including Representatives Kevin McCarthy of California, the new majority leader, and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the whip — makes it unlikely that legislation to address what both Democrats and Republicans call an urgent humanitarian crisis will reach President Obama’s desk before the August break.
A Senate bill to address the plight of the migrant youths died Thursday night in a procedural vote.
“This situation shows the intense concern within our conference — and among the American people — about the need to ensure the security of our borders and the president’s refusal to faithfully execute our laws,” House Republican leaders said in a statement.
“There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries,” the statement said.
The leaders had hoped to push through a modest $659 million emergency spending measure, well short of the $2.7 billion that Senate Democrats had proposed and the $3.7 billion that Obama had requested.
But Republican leaders in the House were not able to summon enough support for even their more modest proposal before they head home.
The minimalist legislation offered by Boehner also underscored how the prospects of a broad immigration overhaul have ground to a final crushing halt amid more than a year of congressional infighting and dysfunction.
The Senate, meanwhile, seemed unlikely to clear a final procedural hurdle to even vote on its own $2.7 billion immigration bill.
Early in the 113th Congress — fresh off a Republican autopsy report of the unsuccessful 2012 presidential election that said the party had to reach out to Hispanics and other minorities in order to survive — hope ran high for a broad immigration bill, one that would have included a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
Unlikely bedfellows, such as business and labor and technology officials, as well as religious leaders and farmers, signed on to help.
At the time, a flood of young migrants at the southern border was not even part of the debate.
Yeah, speaking of missing kids.... they can't even keep track of the ones we have without adding illegals?
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I'm sorry I wasn't keeping my eyes on the road or border, readers.
I did see this:
"House backs GOP plan to sue Obama over use of power" July 31, 2014
WASHINGTON — A sharply divided House approved a Republican plan Wednesday to launch a campaign-season lawsuit against President Obama, accusing him of exceeding the bounds of his constitutional authority. Obama and other Democrats derided the effort as a stunt aimed at tossing political red meat to conservative voters.
Just a day before lawmakers were to begin a five-week summer recess, debate about the proposed lawsuit underscored the harshly partisan tone that has dominated the current Congress almost from its start in January 2013.
Republicans said the legal action, focusing on Obama’s implementation of his prized health care overhaul, was designed to prevent a further presidential power grab and his deciding unilaterally how to enforce laws....
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I'm for impeachment based on principle and the rule of law, something that means nothing here in 21st-century AmeriKa.
Also see:
Wisconsin’s high court upholds voter ID law
Senate OK’s $16b spending bill to improve VA health system
"House OK’s bill to improve veterans’ health care access
WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday to expand veterans’ access to health care, acting on bipartisan outrage about long waiting lists, falsified reports of health care improvement, and a crush of new patients from the wars ending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 420-5 vote sends the bill to the Senate where final passage is all but assured before Congress leaves Friday for a five-week summer recess. President Obama has promised to sign it.
Look at the partisanship!
The bill promises to clean up the scandal-scarred Department of Veterans Affairs by granting the secretary of veterans’ affairs broad new authority to fire and demote senior executives. It also would authorize the leasing or construction of 27 new VA facilities, set aside $5 billion to hire more doctors, nurses, and other health care providers, and $10 billion to pay for veterans’ health care at private and public facilities not run by the department."
Related: VA Finally Fixed
Also see:
Afghan election officials to resume audit of presidential vote
Related: Obama Commits More Troops to Afghanistan
It was a major commitment to get you that post.
UPDATE: House passes $694m border bill
The measures are unlikely to ever become law, as the White House, most Democrats and immigration advocates strongly oppose the proposals. ‘‘I'm going to have to act alone,’’ Obama said.
The votes held late Friday capped a week of turmoil on Capitol Hill as both chambers stumbled towards resolution on a series of complex issues. The Senate adjourned Friday after approving $225 million in emergency funding for Israel’s ‘‘Iron Dome’’ missile defense system, a measure later adopted by the House.
Oh, I'm so glad they picked up the tab on Israel's Iron Dome before leaving.
So when does construction begin on the one for Palestinians?
But senators failed to confirm dozens of nominees to serve as U.S. ambassadors to several countries, including Guatemala — where much of the immigration crisis originates — and South Korea, a key Asian ally, with lawmakers preparing to scatter across the globe for campaign rallies, town hall meetings, taxpayer-funded fact-finding missions and vacations with family and friends."
How many are going to Israel to be manipulated by that government?
