Tag Archives: Congress

Congress IS Getting a Special Deal Under Obamacare

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The Obama Administration cut Congress a break when it allowed them to keep their health insurance subsidies. Will Congress at some point be forced to vote on that special deal? [Credit: Getty Images]

The Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion cut Con­gress a break when it allowed them to keep their health insur­ance sub­si­dies. Will that spe­cial deal prove polit­i­cal­ly viable?  [Cred­it: Get­ty Images]

[Updat­ed Octo­ber 1, 2013]

The new health care exchanges opened for busi­ness today, even as most fed­er­al gov­ern­ment oper­a­tions shut down.

That result is exact­ly the oppo­site of what House Repub­li­cans intend­ed when they set­tled on their strat­e­gy of link­ing gov­ern­ment fund­ing with Oba­macare “defund­ing.” They insist­ed that their tac­tics would keep the gov­ern­ment open while stop­ping the health law in its tracks, though nei­ther Sen­ate Democ­rats nor the Pres­i­dent seem inclined to go along. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Republicans Getting Deficit Reduction, But President Getting His Way

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The President and Speaker are headed for another budget confrontation. [Credit: Fox News]

The Pres­i­dent and Speak­er are head­ed for anoth­er bud­get con­fronta­tion. [Cred­it: Fox News]

Con­gress is on hol­i­day, rest­ing up for the next round of bud­get wars that will resume after Labor Day. The issues they will face when they return are famil­iar: the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is about to lose author­i­ty to do what it does best (or, at least, most nat­u­ral­ly) – bor­row and spend. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

NSA Surveillance: Insulting Our Intelligence?

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Michael Corleone warned his brother-in-law not to insult his intelligence. Does the government insult ours when it defends its snooping activities? [Credit: Rotten Tomatoes]

Michael Cor­leone warned his broth­er-in-law not to insult his intel­li­gence. Does the gov­ern­ment insult ours when it defends its snoop­ing activ­i­ties? [Cred­it: Rot­ten Tomatoes]

“Improp­er pay­ments” by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment totaled an esti­mat­ed $115.3 bil­lion in 2011, accord­ing to a report pre­pared by the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get (OMB), but the government’s own watch­dog agency doesn’t believe those esti­mates.  The Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office (GAO), which exam­ined the OMB analy­sis, thinks the num­ber of mis­spent fed­er­al dol­lars is much high­er. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Fed Up: Judge Strikes Down Federal Reserve on Swipe Fees

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The Fed holds all the cards when it sets a policy. Nobody bothered telling that to a federal judge, who last week struck down a Fed regulation on debit card swipe fees.

The Fed holds all the cards when it sets pol­i­cy. Nobody both­ered telling that to a fed­er­al judge, who last week struck down a Fed reg­u­la­tion on deb­it card swipe fees.

When it comes to bailouts, mon­e­tary pol­i­cy, and bank­ing reg­u­la­tion, the Fed­er­al Reserve has the last word. No one – not the Pres­i­dent, not Con­gress, not any­one – stops the Fed from doing what it has deter­mined to do. Until last week. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What Will The Poor Pay for Obamacare?

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Credit Huffington Post

Mil­lions of unin­sured Amer­i­cans with low incomes will find that cov­er­age under Oba­macare isn’t free. How they react to that brac­ing bit of news will help deter­mine whether the law suc­ceeds. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma promised change.  Oba­macare will bring it.  But one of its most far-reach­ing changes has noth­ing to do with health care.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Congress United … on Obamacare

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A famously fractious Congress has at last found common cause: getting out from under the Obamacare provision that would take away their health insurance subsidies. [Credit: sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com]
A famous­ly frac­tious Con­gress has at last found com­mon cause: get­ting out from under the Oba­macare pro­vi­sion that would take away their health insur­ance sub­si­dies. [Cred­it: sightsonpennsylvania.blogspot.com]

[NOTE: This post has been updat­ed to reflect recent devel­op­ments.]

Con­gress hasn’t been this unit­ed since the Ger­mans bombed Pearl Harbor.

Its 535 Mem­bers — com­pris­ing dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal par­ties, ide­olo­gies, races, gen­ders and geo­graph­ic inter­ests — and its thou­sands of aides are fix­at­ed on a sin­gle thing.

Immi­gra­tion reform? Unrest in Egypt? The loom­ing debt ceil­ing expi­ra­tion with its prospect of US gov­ern­ment default? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

John Feehery Guest Post: Leaders and Followers

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Photo of John Feehery


John Fee­hery is pres­i­dent of Quinn Gille­spie Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and spent 15 years work­ing in the House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship. He blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com

At my gym, they put lit­tle inspi­ra­tional quotes up on the wall to get you to work out hard­er (that’s the the­o­ry, at least).

“Lead, fol­low, or get out of the way,” was last Tuesday’s quote, attrib­uted to the Marine’s hand­book, which was a rev­e­la­tion to me. I always thought that Lee Iacoc­ca was the man who first said that mem­o­rable phrase when he was try­ing to fix Chrysler.

This quote must haunt Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans on both sides of the Capi­tol dome. Con­tin­ue read­ing →