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Hoyer: Republicans Can’t Take Yes For An Answer

Robert Romano — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:36:41 +0000

GOP Calls for Tax Cuts While Voting Against Hundreds of Billions in Cuts

“[F]ederal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president…. According to the JCT, last year’s $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced federal taxes by almost $100 billion in 2009 and another $222 billion this year.” – Bruce Bartlett, Domestic Policy Advisor under President Reagan and Treasury Department economist under President George H.W. Bush, 3/19/2010

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was one of the first pieces of legislation signed into law in the 111th Congress. It included tax cuts for 95% of working Americans and resulted in a 10 percent increase in the average tax refund this year. Republicans voted in opposition against that bill and those tax cuts. And they didn’t stop there. Throughout the 111th Congress, Republicans have stood against numerous tax cuts that will benefit millions of American families and businesses this tax season and beyond. Republicans say we need to cut taxes? Democrats have. Republicans just can’t take yes for an answer.

BILL	TAX CUTS & CREDITS	REPUBLICAN VOTE
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Signed into law)	Tax cuts for families including the Making Work Pay tax credit to 95% of working Americans; expansion of the child tax credit; the first-time homebuyer tax credit; and the college tax credit. Tax incentives for businesses to create jobs by increasing bonus depreciation; allowing small businesses to immediately write-off new equipment purchases; and providing a 5-year carryback for net operating losses.	NO
Health Reform (Signed into law)	Tax credits to help families pay for health coverage. Tax credits for small businesses to help them offer coverage to employees.	NO
Hiring Incentives To Restore Employment (HIRE) Act (Signed into law)	Payroll tax holiday for businesses that hire unemployed workers and retain them.	NO
Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Act (Passed by the House)	Tax incentives to help spur investments in small businesses.	NO
Permanent Estate Tax Relief (Passed by the House)	Ensures that nearly all estates (99.8%) are exempt from taxes.	NO

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Hoyer: Experts Call Out GOP on Hypocrisy, GOP Owns Up To Legitimacy of Rule

Robert Romano — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:36:58 +0000

With final passage of health insurance reform quickly approaching, Republicans are making another desperate attempt to distract from the substance of the health care debate. The GOP is hypocritically crying foul on a legislative process that they used more than 200 times under the last two Republican Speakers. Republicans clearly are trying to distract from the unfair insurance process that they support continuing:

• Process that allows insurance companies to cancel coverage when a person gets sick
• Process that allows insurance companies to filibuster consumers’ claims to fair coverage
• Process that makes Americans fight for their health insurance even as they are fighting for their lives.

If Republicans are so sensitive to fair process, they should oppose those unfair insurance procedures and support passage of health insurance reform. And if they don’t do that, then their record on using the same House rules to pass major legislation should be enough to end the legislative process debate.

Republicans Use Self-Executing Rules to Pass Major Legislation

When Republicans complain about process – whether on reconciliation or self-executing rules – they conveniently ignore their own record on using the same procedures to pass major legislation. In fact, according to Don Wolfensberger, former staff director under a Republican House Rules Committee, Republicans have used self-executing rules hundreds of times in recent history:

• 104th & 105th Congresses: Under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Republicans used 90 self-executing rules.
• 106th, 107th & 108th Congresses: Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Republicans used 112 self-executing rules.
• 109th Congress: Under Speaker Hastert and Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA), Republicans used self-executing rules more than 35 times. [Norm Ornstein, 3/16/10]

Republican, Experts Acknowledge Legitimacy of Rule

“[D]espite Republican claims that such parliamentary gymnastics as reconciliation and self-executing rules are somehow in violation of House rules or rare, neither is the case, says congressional scholar Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution. ‘On the self-executing rule, Republicans in their last Congress that they controlled, the 109th, used it 36 times; the Democrats, in the next Congress they controlled, used it 49 times,’ Mann said. And in many cases, Mann says, they were on some pretty major bills. ‘The reauthorization of the Patriot Act, the Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, the Deficit Control Conference Report; all kinds of major measures have been approved through self-executing rules, which means the House votes indirectly rather than separately on these measures.’” [NPR, 3/17/10]

“The ‘deeming’ procedure that the Democrats may use was in fact routinely used by House Republicans to conduct business when they were in the majority…” [Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, Law Professor at the Washington and Lee University, 3/16/10]

“The rules of the House allow for this deeming provision. It’s called a self-executing provision, which means that once the bill, the rule for the next bill passes, the Senate bill automatically is deemed as having passed.” – Republican Whip Eric Cantor, 3/17/10

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Hoyer: GOP Hypocrisy — Watch What I Say, Not What I Do

Robert Romano — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:26:56 +0000

“Republicans have used [the deeming] process before.”

– Republican Whip Eric Cantor, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” 3/17/10

“Hypocrisy: A Parliamentary Procedure”

As Republicans ramp up efforts to once again distract from the substance of health insurance reform, experts weigh in on the hypocritical nature of the GOP’s “outrage” over procedural tactics they repeatedly used:

“Any veteran observer of Congress is used to the rampant hypocrisy over the use of parliamentary procedures that shifts totally from one side to the other as a majority moves to minority status, and vice versa. But I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of ‘deem and pass.’ That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the ‘regular order’—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?” [Norman J. Ornstein, 3/16/10]

“The speaker is considering the use of a self-executing rule to create for her Democratic members an opportunity to indicate that their support of the Senate-passed bill is coupled with the set of amendments to it that will be considered in a separate package under the reconciliation bill. Such a rule was used 36 times by the House Republican leadership in 2005-6 and 49 times by the Democratic leadership in 2007-8… It is a new twist (like the use of reconciliation to approve changes to the underlying bill negotiated by House and Senate leaders) to an old and perfectly legitimate parliamentary tool…” [Thomas E. Mann, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, 3/16/10]

“Republicans who now complain about tactics have very little to stand on given this history… This is a legitimate mechanism and Democrats have the right to use it. They also have precedent, including what Republicans did when they were in power, on their side…” [Julian E. Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs, Princeton University, 3/16/10]

In 2006, the former Republican Rules Committee’s own staff director called-out Republicans’ record-breaking use of “self-executing rules”:

“When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively). Thus far in the 109th Congress, self-executing rules make up about 16 percent of all rules.” [Don Wolfensberger, former Republican staff director of the House Rules Committee, 6/19/06]

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Hoyer: The Price of Inaction; American Families and Workers Will Pay the Price

Robert Romano — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:25:15 +0000

“[T]he new survey is a reminder that even people who are satisfied with their insurance plans cannot count on a continuation of the status quo.”

– Washington Post, 3/15/2010

Recent research and surveys of experts support what President Obama and Democrats have repeatedly stated throughout the debate on health insurance reform: America’s health care costs are not sustainable. A recent analysis from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that without health insurance reform, health care costs would cripple America’s businesses and families:

• FAMILIES’ HEALTH CARE COSTS: Individual and family spending on premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs would increase from $315 billion in 2010 to $564 billion in 2020.
• MIDDLE- AND HIGH-INCOME: The share of the uninsured from middle- and higher-income families would rise from 44% to 56% in 2020, with middle class families being hit the hardest.
• PREMIUMS: Both single and family policies would more than double by 2020, increasing from $4,800 to $10,300 for single policies and from $12,100 to $25,600 for family policies.
• SMALL BUSINESSES: Small business workers would see offers of health insurance almost cut in half, dropping from 41% to 23% in 2020. Overall, the rate of employer sponsored insurance coverage would fall from 56% in 2010 to 48% of nonelderly Americans in 2020.
• INSURANCE FOR CHILDREN: Enrollment in Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would increase from 45.4 million in 2010 to 58.2 million in 2020, an increase of 12.8 million nonelderly Americans. Medicaid and CHIP spending for the nonelderly would increase from $278 billion in 2010 to $576 billion in 2020, an increase of 108%.
• PREMIUM COSTS: Employer premium spending would increase from $430 billion in 2010 to $851 billion in 2020, a 98% increase.
• UNCOMPENSATED CARE COSTS: Would increase from $64 billion in 2010 to $140 billion in 2020. Together with increased spending on Medicaid and CHIP, this would mean higher federal, state, and local taxes even without reform. Americans already pay a “hidden tax” of $1100 added onto the average family premium to pay for uncompensated care every year.
• UNINSURED: The number of uninsured Americans would increase from 49.4 million in 2010 to 59.7 million in 2015 and 67.6 million in 2020.

Another related survey by the National Business Group on Health/Towers Watson shows that beginning next year, employers will continue to shift an even larger share of health care costs to their workers:

• 56% of employers plan to hold employees responsible for a larger share of the costs next year
• 28% of employers plan to use spousal surcharges next year, up from 21% this year
• 12% of employers plan to offer only high-deductible coverage next year, which carry lower premiums but leave workers responsible for higher out-of-pocket expenses
• 6% to 7% of employers are considering declaring that only employees who meet specified targets for blood pressure, weight and cholesterol can enroll in “preferred” health-care plans, up from 1% today

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Hoyer Statement on the Obama Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act Blueprint

Robert Romano — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:45:16 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today on the Obama Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Blueprint:

“The Obama Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Blueprint is a significant step toward ensuring that all American children can receive a world-class education. Our nation’s prosperity and economic strength is directly linked to our ability to prepare students to compete in today’s global workforce; we will do that by creating strong state-developed standards and accountability systems. It is important to recognize and reward schools that make real progress in raising student achievement, just as it is important to focus our assistance and attention to effectively turn around the lowest-performing schools. We must, however, remain vigilant to ensure that all schools are working to close the pernicious achievement gap.

“I am pleased that the Administration’s blueprint emphasizes the full-service community school model that I have long supported as an effective way to provide comprehensive services to students and families so that children can reach their full potential. I look forward to working with Secretary Arne Duncan and Chairman George Miller as we move to reauthorize the ESEA.”

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