Eric Cantor won’t bring Immigration Reform to the floor for a vote because Healthcare.gov has technical issues

By Anomaly/Freak Out Nation

On Friday afternoon, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) gave one of the most mind boggling reasons for the House not voting on the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill that was passed in June because — wait for it — he didn’t want to “repeat the mistakes” of Obamacare. Whatever that means.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) argued that a vote on immigration reform should occur by the end of the year, because it can garner 218 votes.

Think Progress reports, “Cantor responded that Senate Democrats and White House officials have been unwilling to talk and instead insist on a “my way or the highway kind of mode of operation.”

That sounds so familiar. In fact, in August, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — one of the most hardline immigration opponents — called reform “a waste of time,” and said that the House should focus its attention on Benghazi instead.

Transcript via Think Progress:

HOYER: Bring it to the floor and see if the House thinks it’s a bad bill. See if the House believes that it’s a bill that is not worthy to be considered and passed as a fixing of a broken immigration system … He has the power to bring that bill to the floor.
CANTOR: We don’t want a repeat of what’s going on now with Obamacare. That bill, constructed as it is by the Senate, last-minute-ditch effort to get it across the finish line … let’s be mindful, Madam Speaker, of what happens when you put together a bill like Obamacare and the real consequences to millions of Americans right now, scared that they’re not going to even have health care insurance that they have today come January 1.
[...] I’d say to the gentleman again. The track record of this administration and the majority in the Senate has indicated an unwillingness to sit down and talk. They’ve not done so, certainly the White House has not done so on the immigration issue, did not do so on the health care issue, and again it doesn’t help the American people for their insistence on a “my way or the highway” kind of mode of operation.

After an insane amount of attempts to repeal Obamacare, what Cantor is saying is that he will block any measure Obama supports because he lost the fight to destroy Affordable Health Care.

And also because today ends in a Y.

Cantor refuses to do more than one thing at a time, and the only thing he has tried to accomplish has taken years, and he’s failed over and over again. It also cost this economy a lot of money. A lot.

8 Reasons Why Cantor’s Rebranded GOP Looks Just Like The Old GOP

By Igor Volsky and Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

On Tuesday afternoon, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) delivered a speech that sought to “rebrand” the GOP as a party that can advance legislation that would improve the lives of the “most vulnerable” Americans. “Our solutions will be based on the conservative principles of self reliance, faith in the individual, trust in the family, and accountability in government,” Cantor said in an address titled “Making Life Work.” “Our goal: To ensure every American have a fair shot at earning their success and achieving their dreams.”

But a closer look behind Cantor’s policy proposals reveals that House Republicans are still more interested in sounding compassionate than ensuring economic advancement for middle and lower income voters. Here is why:

1. SCHOOL FUNDING: “Imagine if we were to try and move in this direction with federal funding. Allow the money we currently spend to actually follow individual children. Students, including those without a lot of money or those with special needs, would be able to access the best available school, not just the failing school they are assigned to.” This is a redux of Mitt Romney’s school funding plan, which while a decent idea in theory, wouldn’t be possible alongside the House GOP budget’s call for $2.7 billion in cuts to spending for disadvantaged students. As The Nation’s Dana Goldstein explained, this plan calls for shuffling funding “without guaranteeing the federal funding or regulatory support necessary to ensure quality.”

2. HIGHER EDUCATION: “Over the course of this Congress, we will also work to reform our student aid process to give students a financial incentive to finish their studies sooner. We will encourage entrepreneurship in higher education, including for-profit schools.” The House Republican budget would eliminate Pell Grants for more than one million students. Many for-profit schools, meanwhile, take huge amounts of taxpayer money while leaving students burdened with debt and facing bleak job prospects. Their focus is corporate profitability, not education, and they use aggressive marketing tactics to target vulnerable students.

3. WORKING MOTHERS: “Federal laws dating back to the 1930s make it harder for parents who hold hourly jobs to balance the demands of work and home. An hourly employee cannot convert previous overtime into future comp-time or flex-time…Imagine if we simply chose to give all employees and employers this option. A working mom could work overtime this month and use it as time off next month without having to worry about whether she’ll be able to take home enough money to pay the rent.” Cantor’s proposal would do far less good than simply ensuring that all workers have access to paid sick leave and paid maternity leave. The U.S. is currently the only developed country with no paid sick leave policy and one of just threewithout required paid maternity leave.

4. TAX REFORM: “Loopholes and gimmicks benefitting those who’ve come to know how to work the system in Washington, are no more defensible than the path of wasteful and irresponsible spending we’ve been on for decades. Working families should come first. Everyone agrees a fairer, simpler tax code would give us all more time.” Republicans pay lots of lip service to tax reform, but want to raise no new revenues through the closing of loopholes and deductions, despite the fact that the deficit reduction implemented since 2011 has come overwhelmingly via spending cuts.

5. IMMIGRATION: “It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home…. I’m pleased that many of my colleagues in both chambers of Congress on both sides of the aisle have begun work in good faith to address these issues.” Republicans have embraced immigration reform after losing the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election. In 2010, Cantor and 160 other Republicans voted against the DREAM Act, a measure that “would offer a pathway to citizenship for undocumented young people who attend college or serve in the military.”

6. OBAMACARE: “The new medical device tax in ObamaCare makes it harder for researchers to develop these innovative devices in the U.S….ObamaCare has unnecessarily raised the costs of our health care. “ A tax on the medical devise industry — which will benefit from health care reform — will help fund coverage expansion, without undermining innovation. As the Center For Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) points out the tax “does not apply to eyeglasses, contact lenses, hearing aids, or any other medical device that the public generally buys at retail for individual use.” It would also have minimal impact on innovation since “tax rate is just one of the many factors affecting financial incentives.” The Affordable Care Act has had a very small effect on current premiums.

7. MEDICARE: “We should begin by ending the arbitrary division between Part A, the hospital program, and Part B, the doctor services. We can create reasonable and predictable levels of out-of-pocket expenses without forcing seniors to rely on Medigap plans…. “ President Obama has included many of these efficiency reforms in his budgets — but the GOP’s proposal move far beyond increasing program efficiency. Cantor and almost all Republicans support transforming Medicare into a voucher or premium-support program that will shift health costs to seniors without reducing overall health care spending.

8. MEDICAID: “We can provide states more flexibility with respect to Medicaid that will allow them to provide better care for low-income families in a way that ultimately lowers costs….And we must make it faster and simpler for states to gain approval of federal waivers to modify their Medicaid programs.” Democrats support increasing state flexibility in the Medicaid program, though Republicans — and Cantor himself — have voted to slash federal funding for Medicaid by 1/3 and shift some of the burden of Medicaid’s growing costs to the states. As a result, states could reduce enrollment by more than 14 million people, or almost 20 percent—even if they are were able to slow the growth in health care costs substantially.

Republican Leader Finally Admits That Federal Spending Cuts Kill Jobs

By Rebecca Leber/Think Progress

It’s an article of faith amongst Republicans that government can’t create jobs, and that cutting government spending will lead to job growth. Republicans even pushed the nation to the brink of a debt default in order to secure cuts in federal spending in 2010.

But with the consequences of that debt ceiling deal due to hit in January — at which point the so-called “sequester” will cut into both military and non-defense discretionary spending — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is seemingly having a change of heart. On Thursday he tweeted that the sequester would hurt federal spending in key areas, and thus kill jobs:

Earlier this week, Cantor was unable to name a single deal Republicans would be willing to make to prevent the slew of cuts — cuts that Cantor himself voted for. Plus, as the Bipartisan Policy Center reports, the House Republican budget that Cantor supported cuts “more than double the amount” of the sequester. This budget would sink domestic spending to its lowest level in 50 years. Meanwhile it prevents cuts to military spending already endorsed by military leaders.

This chart shows that the House Republican’s budget cuts non-defense spending dramatically. The “BCA+sequester” line is the path of non-defense discretionary spending under both the debt ceiling deal (the Budget Control Act and its sequester), while the light blue line is the Republican budget:

GOP approves Cantor's small business plan

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Cantor Suggests Raising Taxes On The Poor: ‘You’ve Got To Discuss That Issue’

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) revived one of the GOP’s favorite talking points this morning, telling attendees at a Politico-sponsored breakfast event that it was imperative that Congress address the “problem” that “more than 45 percent” of Americans aren’t paying income taxes.

The GOP has repeatedly made the claim that the poorest Americans need more “skin in the game.” Today, response to a question by ABC’s Jon Karl, Cantor made it clear that Republicans are interested in raising taxes on the poor while lowering tax rates for everyone else as part of any comprehensive tax reform plan:

CANTOR: We also know that over 45 percent of the people in this country don’t pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that’s fair. And should we broaden the base in a way that we can lower the rates for everybody that pays taxes. [...]

KARL: Just wondering, what do you do about that? Are you saying we need to have a tax increase on the 45 percent who right now pay no federal income tax?

CANTOR: I’m saying that, just in a macro way of looking at it, you’ve got to discuss that issue. … How do you deal with a shrinking pie and number of people and entities that support the operations of government, and how do you go about continuing to milk them more, if that’s what some want to do, but preserve their ability to provide the growth engine? … I’ve never believed that you go raise taxes on those that have been successful that are paying in, taking away from them, so that you just hand out and give to someone else.

Watch Cantor’s full answer here:

ThinkProgress has repeatedly explained why many Americans don’t pay income taxes — most either don’t make enough money or are college students or seniors with no yearly incomes. And those Americans are subject to various other forms of taxation, including the federal payroll tax.

The richest Americans, meanwhile, have seen their tax rates fall even as their incomes skyrocketed, contributing to rising inequality and exploding federal deficits. As Cantor made plain today, though, none of that matters. In addition to making the poor and middle classshoulder the burden of draconian budget cuts, Republicans want to raise their taxes too.

Cantor’s ‘Small Business’ Jobs Bill Gives Millionaires An Average Tax Cut Of $45,000

Seth Hanlon/guest blogger for Think Progress

Earlier today ThinkProgress reported that the House Ways and Means Committee is expected to approve a proposal by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) that is misleadingly entitled the Small Business Tax Cut Act.

People who have read the bill and not just its title, however, have noted that it is extremely poorly targeted at small businesses. It is, in fact, just another tax cut for rich people. Among the biggest beneficiaries would be the owners of extremely profitable businesses like Oprah Winfrey’s production company and professional sports teams like theSuper Bowl champion New York Giants, as well as highly paid professionals like lawyers, lobbyists, doctors, and consultants.

The Tax Policy Center has now estimated who benefits from Cantor’s bill. Among TPC’sfindings:

– The top 1 percent would receive an average tax cut that is 1000 times bigger than the average tax cut for people in the middle quintile ($23 vs. $23,000). The top 0.1 percent would receive an average tax cut of more than $130,000.

– Half of the tax benefits would go to millionaires, who comprise less than one-half of one percent of all taxpayers and only 4 percent of actual small business owners according to a recent Treasury study. Millionaires, on average, would get a tax cut of $45,000 — almost as much as median household income in 2010.

– Business owners with annual income of $200,000 or less — who comprise more than 75 percent of small business owners — would receive only 16 percent of the benefit from Cantor’s bill.

The Cantor bill would cost $46 billion and is not paid for. More debt-financed tax cuts for the rich: haven’t we tried that before?

Cantor Can’t Explain Why Americans Oppose GOP Agenda

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday this morning, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) couldn’t explain why the public rejects large parts of the Republican legislative agenda and instead blamed Democrats for opposing it.

Asked why a recent New York Times/CBS News pollshowed that 67 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on millionaires to reduce the deficit, and that 80 percent oppose cutting Medicare, Cantor could only say, “It is unfair that these individuals who want a better life and want more jobs and higher pay are not getting it.”

“What is not fair is that we are holding back the economy to grow because you are having Barack Obama working with the Democrats in the Senate, Reid and others, who are saying no to every time we want to grow the economy,” he added, without ever actually addressing the question. Watch it:

Cantor refuses to admit Reagan raised taxes

By Andrew Jones/Raw Story

Appearing on the CBS News program 60 Minutes on Sunday night, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) experienced an awkward moment when he was challenged to admit that his hero, President Ronald Reagan, did in fact raise taxes.

Cantor was speaking with interviewer Lesley Stahl, who asked if he was ready to start compromising with Democrats on taxes. Cantor said he was indeed “ready to cooperate,” but then hedged his response.

“But what’s the difference between compromise and cooperate?” Stahl asked.

“I would say cooperate is ‘Let’s look to where we can move things forward to where we agree,” Cantor said. “Compromising principles, you don’t want to ask anybody to do that. That’s who they are as their core being.”

Stahl then mentioned to Cantor how his “idol” Reagan compromised his principles by raising taxes during his presidency. Cantor tried to deflect the focus by mentioning that Reagan cut taxes, but Stahl reiterated her point.

Upset at the reporter, Cantor’s press secretary yelled off camera, “That’s not true, and I don’t want to let that stand.”

No matter if Cantor, his staff or conservatives at-large want to deny that Reagan raised taxes, what Stahl said is completely true.

After his huge tax cut in 1981 slashed all tax rates to 23 percent, sparking a budget crisis, Reagan realized he’d also have to raise taxes in the years that followed. He raised taxes four times between 1982 to 1984, increasing the payroll tax, broadening the base of Social Security payees, applying the income tax to higher earners and rolling back corporate and individual tax breaks.

Reagan’s historic tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, whose rate went from 70 percent to 28 percent during his administration, ultimately forced the president to raise taxes on more people than any other U.S. president during a time of peace, according to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

In total, Reagan raised taxes 12 times during his two terms in office.

WATCH: Video from CBS, which was broadcast on January 1, 2012. (Selected mark starts at 10:27.)

PROTESTERS INTERRUPT CANTOR SPEECH IN MICHIGAN

From Think Progress

After canceling a speech on income inequality last week at the University of Pennsylvania after learning it would be open to the public, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) spoke today at the University of Michigan. It was clear why he had avoided the public previously, as 99 Percent Movement protesters stood silently during the speech while other audience members responded vocally to Cantor’s statements. Some photos via Steve Friess:

UPDATE

Video of today’s protest, via Elias Schewel, one of the organizers:

Cantor Rakes In Wall Street Donations While Calling Occupy Protesters A ‘Mob’

By Pat Garofalo/Think Progress

When the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations first gained some national prominence, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) derided the protesters as a “mob,” saying, “Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.”

Cantor eventually softened his rhetoric, and even scheduled a talk about income inequality (that heproceeded to cancel when he realized that the public would be allowed to attend). But Cantor has plenty of reasons to bash the protests because, as Roll Call noted today, Cantor’s top contributor this year is Wall Street:

Cantor’s personal political action committee has collected close to $2 million so far this year, placing it well ahead of any other leadership PAC in the House or Senate. In all of his fundraising efforts, top executives at banks, hedge funds and securities and investment firms play a starring role. Securities and investment industry donors have given close to $350,000 to both Cantor’s campaign and his leadership PAC this year, making them his top source of donations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

But Cantor has raised millions more than that for a lucrative operation known as the Cantor Victory Fund 2012…Ten major donors, many of them top executives with finance industry firms, have given $50,000 or more this year to the Cantor Victory Fund, which has collected $2.4 million, according to the most recent public disclosures.

Cantor has pushed several policies near and dear to Wall Street’s heart, including protecting tax loopholes for hedge fund managers, while managing to come up with no ideas for addressing income inequality. In fact, he believes we should just depend on the wealthy to bring down inequality through the goodness of their hearts. And so far, Wall Street has certainly shown its appreciation for Cantor’s positions.

House Republicans Seek Auto Industry Cuts To Cover For Disaster Relief Funds

By Tyler Kingkade/Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans rolled out their plan to fund disaster relief in Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) district, but at the cost of almost half of remaining loans set aside to help the American auto industry.

Included in their plan for a continuing resolution to fund the government past Sept. 30 is a provision to cut $1.5 billion of the $3.4 billion in remaining funds for low-cost loans -- sometimes referred to as "Section 136 loans." The money would be reused to pay for aid to states as they clean up after recent natural disasters like Hurricane Irene and the rare east coast earthquake -- both of which greatly affected Cantor's Virginia district. The cost of disaster assistance is usually added to the budget deficit instead of offset with cuts.

Democrats and an auto industry expert warn the funds Cantor picked to pay for disaster aid is currently supporting a successful program that has pulled manufacturing jobs back from other countries and helped keep the industry alive around the eastern Midwest. Taking the money away would jeopardize that program.

"We absolutely need to fund disaster recovery assistance in Eric Cantor's district and all areas affected by Hurricane Irene and the recent earthquake, but that doesn't make it ok to kill American manufacturing jobs," Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said in a statement to The Huffington Post. "The Greater Detroit area that I represent has been hit the hardest by the recession and I strongly oppose the Republican plan to kill our jobs and delay our recovery.”

The loan program is part of a $25 billion initiative within the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which was a broad plan Democrats pushed to improve energy efficiency in everything from fuel standards to light bulbs.

Even as Republicans have sought to encourage "Made in America" products, experts say this is one of the programs that has achieved bringing manufacturing jobs to the U.S.

The loans for the auto industry were meant to help encourage new manufacturing plants in the U.S. and re-equip existing facilities, as well as drive the companies toward making more fuel-efficient vehicles.

It was adding some match-type money that would be dedicated to this and give the industry some additional incentive instead of having to wait until the consumer demand; sort of putting the horse out in front of the cart to pull it along," said Kim Hill, associate director of research at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

One of the direct results was that Ford quit manufacturing their Ford Focus in Mexico.

"All of the Focus production is now here in Michigan," Hill said. "Nissan is building their Leaf in Tennessee. I don't think that program would've happened in the United States if it weren't for this type of money."

Democrats told The Huffington Post the cut to the loan program would have an impact in manufacturing across the country, not just the auto industry in Michigan.

"If the $1.5 billion were cut it would mean that those with applications in the early stages of approval would not get funding," a Democratic Hill source said. "It would mean that thousands of jobs already in the pipeline would not be created. It is difficult to predict the kind of ripple effect this could have throughout the auto industry and other manufacturing sectors, but this will absolutely damage progression toward improving CAFE standards and limit the ability of American manufacturers to compete on a global playing field."

Hill said the idea of defunding the program to pay for disaster is shortsighted. "Where we sit here in Michigan -- that actually was disaster relief. This region of the country was going to fall apart if some of these companies failed," Hill said.

The program didn't simply help the auto industry, Hill said, but there's a number of other states, including many in Speaker John Boehner's home state of Ohio, who are the center of major parts suppliers. As Hill explains it, the auto makers don't create a car in a vacuum. In some cases, they are reaching out to 1,000 different suppliers.

The Government Accountability Office found this program is already understaffed and as such there has been a real problem distributing the funds leaving some companies barely hanging on. For instance, Chrysler Group, LLC., has been waiting on a $3 billion loan for three years now.

This is only one way Republicans are chipping away at legislation passed to improve energy standards in the U.S. The GOP has long been opposed to elements of the Energy Independence and Security Act.

House Republicans pursued the "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act" which would've repealed the phase-out of the old high energy-consuming light bulbs, in favor of energy efficient ones. Since that effort has stalled, some Republican-controlled states have tried to slide in their own legislation on light bulb "freedom."

The remaining money in the loan program could all be used if the $3.9 billion in pending requests are granted, Democrats said.

The Hill reported House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) indicated Thursday that Democrats would be widely opposed to cutting this funding from the loan program in the Department of Energy.

"What we are doing, in my view ... is undermining a specific item in the current scheme of things that is creating jobs," Hoyer said.

Cantor's office did not respond when asked for comment.

On Thursday the Senate passed their version to fund disaster relief without any offset by a vote of 62-37. If a resolution is not made by Sept. 30, FEMA would have to delay aid to disaster victims.