Congress had a chance to get Trump’s tax returns. Republicans voted it down.

Laurel Raymond/Think Progress

Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee voted down a proposal on Tuesday that would have let Congress obtain President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) first advanced the proposal in a letter to the committee’s chair on February 1st. His request that the committee obtain Trump’s tax returns is based on an obscure tax law: Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code.

That law allows three congressional committees — House Ways and Means, Senate Finance, and the Joint Committee on Taxation — to request that the IRS disclose private tax information to the committee. The committee can then review it, and vote on whether to disclose it to the public. Both the review and disclosure must be in the public interest.

“This is the only way we ever see his tax returns.”

“In 1924, Congress put in place this statute, 6103, in our tax law, specifically to investigate conflicts of interest in the executive branch of government,” Pascrell said at the committee meeting, pointing out that the law was passed shortly after the Teapot Dome Scandal. “Following that scandal, Congress wanted a way to examine business ties in the Executive Branch of government. That is the law, Mr. Chairman.”

Unlike all but one Presidential nominee since Nixon, Trump has not released his tax returns to the public (Gerald Ford, the one nominee who didn’t, released a summary). Trump has also, unlike every other modern president, refused to divest from his business holdings.

According to the financial disclosures that he was required to file, however, Trump has a stake in or owns 564 businesses, corporations, limited partnerships, or limited liability companies (LLCs) around the world. Many of his businesses work in or with foreign countries. Those dealings almost certainly put Trump in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

Without his tax returns, however, the true extent of Trump’s financial entanglements is unknown.

“There is not one person on this committee who can say absolutely that there is no economic relationship between the President of the United States and investments in Russia. Not one. Because we don’t know,” Pascrell said in the committee meeting. “Let’s do our job. This is checks and balances, Mr. Chairman.”

Despite being rebuffed on Tuesday, Pascrell said he’s not going to drop his quest for Trump’s tax returns.

“This is going to come up over and over and over again. I’m good at that,” he told his fellow lawmakers.

He told reporters that he intended to continue submitting documents backing up his legal argument to the committee, and that he is “actively recruiting” Republican lawmakers to support his push for Trump’s tax returns.

“Nothing has resonated more with the American people” he said. “This is the only way we ever see his tax returns.”

Republicans Reject Obamacare ‘Fix’ Because It Includes Too Many Consumer Protections

BY IGOR VOLSKY/Think Progress

Republicans used a technicality on Friday to prevent the House of Representatives from considering a measure that would have extended additional consumer protections to beneficiaries who remain in their existing individual health care plans.

Democrats offered their “motion to recommit” as an alternative to a proposal introduced by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) that allows insurers to maintain their existing policies and permits issuers to offer these plans to new customers. The Democrats’ version only extends grandfather status to current policyholders who have received cancellation notices and includes consumer protections missing from the Upton bill. For instance, the measure mandates that insurers notify policyholders of exchange options and consumer protections. It also explicitly clarifies that existing rate review authorities apply to renewed plans.

But after Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) introduced the Democrats’ proposal, Upton stood up and objected to the consumer protections contained within it, arguing that they went beyond the scope of his own bill. The chair, Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS), then read off the offending provisions and ruled that the proposal was not germane, preventing the House from even considering it:

The amendment proposed in the motion to recommit in pertinent part requires state insurance commissioners to examine notices of health insurance cancellations or conversions. It also addresses the regulation of health insurance rates, specifically the amendment delineates what would constitute inadequate notice of cancellation or conversions of health insurance coverage and directs state insurance commissioners to investigate such cases of inadequate notice. Additionally, it permits the Secretary of Health and Human Services or the relevant state insurance regulator to take corrective actions if health insurance rates are determined to be excessive, unjustified, or discriminatory….The chair therefore finds that the amendment proposed in the motion to recommit goes beyond the subject matter of the underlying bill. The point of order is it is therefore not germane.

Watch it:

Andrews sought to defend his measure ahead of the ruling, arguing that while the Democrats’ proposal includes additional safeguards, it “does not rise to a difference in germaneness.” Although he appealed the chair’s decision, the GOP-controlled House voted against him.

UPDATE

The House approved Upton’s bill in a vote of 261 to 157. 39 Democrats voted for it, 4 Republicans opposed it.

IMF Chief Calls Out Republican Debt Ceiling Truthers

BY REBECCA LEBER/Think Progress

As the U.S. nears the final date to raise the debt ceiling, a chorus of Republicanshave downplayed the hard deadline and insisted the Treasury can “prioritize” its commitments to debt interest payments and to critical programs. But on Meet the Press with David Gregory, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde debunked the claim that “creative accounting” would solve anything.

Lagarde likened the consequences to the financial market crash in 2008, warning that failure to increase the ceiling by October 17 would send the U.S. economy into a tailspin. “That lack of certainty, that lack of trust in the U.S. signature, it would mean massive disruption the world over and we would be tipped again into massive rupture,” she said.

GREGORY: You know, there are some figures in our government and congress, Senator Rand Paul, others who say, you know, this is overstated. The treasury can do things and that the concept of default is hyperbole.

LAGARDE: But creative accounting is not the solution. And markets know that. The counterparts to the United States know that. And when you are the largest economy in the world, when you are the safe haven in all circumstances, as has been the case, you can’t go into that creating accounting business. You have to honor your signature, you have to give certainty to the rest of the world, and you have to make sure that your own economy is consolidating that welcome recovery that we have seen in the last few days because it impacts the entire economy.

Thirteen days of the government shutdown have already cost the economy more than $1.6 billion. But playing games with the debt ceiling stalemate threatens to contract the American economy even further and cost taxpayershundreds of billions of dollars.

Rep. Rangel: Worse-than-terrorists tea partiers are ‘same white crackers’ who opposed civil rights

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) said on Friday that the conservatives who make up the tea party are the “same white crackers” who fought the U.S. civil rights movement. In an interview with David Freedlander at the Daily Beast, the congressman issued a scathing indictment of the far right.

On the Republicans in the House of Representatives who are blocking any and all Democratic attempts to govern, Rangel said, “What is happening is sabotage. Terrorists couldn’t do a better job than the Republicans are doing.”

And he was equally blunt in his assessment of the tea party caucus and its adherents. “It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police. They didn’t care about how they looked. It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough.”

He lamented that those in the tea party are turning on any Republican who does not toe the tea party line. “And now my friend Peter King is on their hit list. Peter King, a Republican, is considered a goddamn communist.”

“It has to do with whether or not in God we trust,” Rangel said with regards to the tea party’s desire to cut all social programs and destroy the social safety net. “I don’t know how much God played a role in the country, but it is everywhere…And I used to be an altar boy so that I can say, if you are talking about Jews and Christians and probably Muslims and Mormons, [there’s] the whole idea that…we are supposed to help the aged and provide health care and give kids a break and do all of these good things.”

“What are we Democrats fighting for?” he asked. “We are not fighting for salvation and going to heaven. But we are fighting for Medicaid, Medicare, health care, education, jobs, helping old folks. And I’ll be damned, besides same-sex marriage, I don’t hear the voice of the church. As a matter of fact, the pope is talking he can’t judge gays. Well, damn it to hell, ask for another message from God. Here we were born. I mean, why is there a silence on old folks and a silence on poverty and a silence on kids?”

Poll: Blame the Republicans

By TAL KOPAN/Politico 

More voters blame Republicans in Congress for Washington’s dysfunction than President Barack Obama, a new poll finds.

Asked why there is gridlock, 51 percent of voters surveyed said it was because Republicans are determined to block Obama, while 35 percent said it was because the president lacks the skills to persuade congressional leaders to work together, a Quinnipiac poll out Friday morning found.

In a similar question, 53 percent of those surveyed said Obama was doing “too little” to compromise with members of Congress, while 68 percent said Republican leaders were doing too little to compromise with the president.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed blamed both parties equally for the mess on the Hill, however. Sixty-four percent of respondents said the parties shared the blame, 23 percent said it was Republicans’ fault and 10 percent singled out the Democrats.

The public was also pessimistic about what Congress could accomplish through the gridlock: 69 percent of voters said they did not believe immigration reform would pass this year. Only 27 percent thought Democrats and Republicans could work together to pass it.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 2,014 registered voters from June 28 to July 8 by phone and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points
.

GOP Rams Farm Bill Without Food Stamps Through The House

By Alan Pyke and Andrew Breiner/Think Progress

With Thursday’s vote to sever food stamps funding from the federal spending that guarantees the agricultural industry a baseline income, conservatives in the U.S. House achieved a longstanding goal. The GOP has pressed to undermine or outright end food stamps (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) for years, as the ThinkProgress timeline below shows.

But Republicans appeared to realize that their long-awaited policy triumph invited Democratic criticism before the C-SPAN cameras.

Rep. Rob Woodall (R-GA) used a parliamentary tactic to silence Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) after the Democrat said “Shame on the Republicans” in her remarks. Brown was baffled when the acting chairman told her to sit down, and her colleagues noted the Republican proclivity for attacking Democrats by name. After several minutes Woodall dropped his objection. (His office confirmed he had objected but declined to comment on his reasoning.) Brown finished her remarks with a reference to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, saying “you-all do not care about the 47 percent.”

UPDATE

Watch the Woodall-Brown episode:

A senior Democratic leadership aide told ThinkProgress that the majority enforced unusually strict rules throughout the day on how Democrats could voice their arguments on the floor.

Eventually, the House voted 216-208 to approve the food stamps-free farm bill, in a culmination of years of work to constrict and undermine the program. From President Bush’s veto of a food aid funding increase in mid-2008 to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budgets that would cut the program by more than a hundred billion dollars, the GOP has sought to curb food stamps for years:

SNAP kept 4.7 million families out of poverty in 2011 alone. It has one of the lowest fraud rates of any federal program, and with a return of nearly $2 for every dollar spent it is one of the most efficient ways the government can spend money to help people. Experts say severing the program from the farm bill exposes it to being neglected or gutted.

Meanwhile, the farm bill conservatives approved Thursday guarantees that farm owners – most of them large corporations rather than family farmers – receive federal payments in any year the price of their produce falls below certain thresholds. In many cases the thresholds are near or even above 100 percent of the previous year’s prices. In effect, the House bill guarantees it will always be profitable to grow sushi rice, while leaving poor Americans’ access to food assistance unprotected.

GOP Push To Split Farm Bill Leaves Food Stamps Vulnerable To Severe Cuts

By Alan Pyke/Think Progress

A House Republican scheme to strip food stamp funding out of the farm bill would lead to the program being weakened or even outright dismantled, according to poverty experts. Reports indicate that GOP leaders are having trouble finding the votes to support a split farm bill so far, but the tens of millions of Americans who rely on food stamps would be at risk should the political winds shift.

“Splitting the farm bill is the wrong approach,” according to Dottie Rosenbaum, a Senior Policy Analyst specializing in food assistance at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It would not only end the long-standing, bipartisan practice of bringing together supporters of agriculture and food assistance programs to produce more sound policy,” she told ThinkProgress, “but it has the potential to force cuts to food assistance even deeper and more harmful than those already rejected by the House.”

Those cuts – $20.5 billion over a decade, largely from changes to eligibility rules that would kick 2 million poor Americans off the food aid rolls – meant the House’s original farm bill faced a narrow path to passage. Many Democrats were reportedly ready to hold their noses on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts and support the full package. ButRepublican leaders killed the bill by endorsing a last-minute amendment they knew Democrats couldn’t tolerate. After the bill failed, with dozens of Republicans who’d voted for the amendment that chased Democrats away still opposing the final vote, House leaders opted not to return to a version of the bill that could pass. Instead, they began exploring splitting the bill up.

“Splitting the Farm Bill is an act of political gamesmanship that leaves SNAP vulnerable to attack or outright neglect from Congress,” said Joy Moses, Senior Policy Analyst for the Center for American Progress’ Poverty and Prosperity Program. An action alert sent Tuesday night from the Food Research and Action Center, the national anti-hunger advocacy group that sponsors the “SNAP Challenge,” agreed that the plan “seems to be one more attempt to harm SNAP.”

Moses added that while “we recognize that the needs of food insecure Americans should stand alone in being critically important, the blending together of multiple interests has led to positive outcomes in the past.” Indeed, the decades-long linkage of the farm bill’s anti-poverty components and agricultural subsidy programs has helped protect SNAP from some of the “reform” efforts that have damaged other anti-poverty programs. The amendment that killed the bill in June was designed to replicate some of those failed reforms in the SNAP program. If food assistance is sliced out of the legislation, it would become even more vulnerable to such ill-advised changes.

Conservatives say SNAP is a troubled program in need of some tough love. But in fact it has one of the lowest fraud rates of any federal program, despite being among the largest. The agricultural subsidies component of the farm bill actually has a higher rate of erroneous payments than does SNAP. Furthermore, the vast majority of food stamp recipients who are able to work do so.

The program kept 4.7 million families out of poverty in 2011 alone, thereby juicing economic growth for the nation as a whole. The food charities conservatives expect to pick up the slack from food stamp cuts say they lack the resources to do so.

House Republicans Do Their Part to Elect Hillary Clinton in 2016 By Passing Abortion Ban

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

House Republicans continued to blaze a path for their party to lose the 2016 election by passing a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.

Republicans tried to soften Rep. Trent Franks’ bill by quietly adding an exception in case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother, but this bill was clearly designed as a play to their anti-choice base. The bill really is a self inflicted wound, and a thumb in the eye the millions of women who supported President Obama in 2012.

The final vote was 228-196 with 6 Republicans voting no, and 6 Democrats voting yes.

Instead of reaching out to pro-choice women voters, House Republicans chose to antagonize them. So far, Republicans have ignored the advice of their own rebrand by voting to raise interest rates on student loans, threatening to kill immigration reform, and passing a federal abortion ban. In three simple steps, House Republicans have managed to alienate key parts of the constituency that has powered Barack Obama to two presidential election victories.

These votes are also paving the path for Hillary Clinton to win the White House in 2016. Republicans keep blaming the candidate at the top of the ticket, when the real problem is that the right wing zealots in the House are destroying the party’s brand. House Republicans have placed their party on a path to hand the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton.

By continuing to be anti-young person, anti-immigrant, and anti-women, the GOP is setting up a scenario where all Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat will have to do is hold the Obama coalition together, and they will win. The great irony is that the glue that’s binding these people together is the actions of the Republican Party.

The House Republicans delivered the message to women that in their America, conservative men control their bodies. This message always plays well with the GOP rank and file, but it is absolute political suicide for future elections.

Today’s vote was an obvious political move to fire up the Republican base ahead of 2014, but that motivation could cut both ways. For men and women who truly care about liberty, and don’t want big government conservatism making our medical decisions for us, this vote should serve as motivation to get to the polls in 2014. House Republicans are setting the table for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but the message can be sent in 2014 that this sort of blatant contempt for women will not go unpunished.

Congressman slams Republicans for pushing bill based on discredited 2012 campaign attack

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) mocked House Republicans on Wednesday for pushing legislation based on the widely discredited claim that President Barack Obama was scrapping a welfare work rule.

“There is no greater misuse of time than re-fighting the last election,” he said on the House floor. “The last election is just that, the last election. It’s over. Gov. Romney’s pollster said at the time, ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers’ after it was pointed out there were so many mistakes and miscalculations in their proposal. Well, they might not have cared about the facts, but today I do.”

House Republicans proposed the Preserving the Welfare Work Requirement and TANF Extension Act of 2013, which prohibits the Obama Administration from waiving the work requirements in the the Temporary Assistant for Needy Families (TANF) program. Eighteen Democrats joined 228 Republicans to approve the bill on Wednesday.

The bill is based on the false claim that the Department of Health and Human Services intended to allow states to opt-out of the work requirements. The issue first emerged in 2012 and was used repeatedly by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, though fact-checkers and even some Republicanssaid the claims were untrue.

Neal noted the false claims were based on waivers requested by Republican governors.

The Department of Health and Human Services has offered to waive some federal regulations if states can prove it helps those enrolled in the welfare program obtain employment.

“The President is not dropping welfare work requires, he’s allowing the states to experiment,” Neil continued. “You would think our Republican friends would be entirely in favor of letting governor’s experiment on getting people back to work fairly quickly.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:

House Republicans Strip Protections From LGBT Victims In New Violence Against Women Act

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

The Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of 2012 after House Republicans refused to accept the Senate bill’s protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims. Though the Senatepassed another bipartisan VAWA reauthorization over a week ago, House Republicans may derail passage once again. On Friday, House GOP leaders released their own VAWA bill, stripping protections for LGBT individuals and adding a loophole for Native American victims.

Where the Senate bill granted access to federal grants for LGBT victims, the House bill is silent, removing all mention of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” As a result of this omission, LGBT-inclusive crisis centers could be shut out from essential grant programs:

The House GOP bill entirely leaves out provisions aimed at helping LGBT victims of domestic violence. Specifically, the bill removes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from the list of underserved populations who face barriers to accessing victim services, thereby disqualifying LGBT victims from a related grant program. The bill also eliminates a requirement in the Senate bill that programs that receive funding under VAWA provide services regardless of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The House bill also gives states some wiggle room by shifting greater authority to state government to decide which victimized groups are “underserved” and therefore deserve funding.

The Senate bill’s protections for Native American victims were also protested as“unconstitutional” and received vocal opposition from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). Though the House bill does grant tribal courts the authority to prosecute non-native perpetrators of domestic abuse, these abusers can only receive a maximum sentence of 1 year. The bill states, “A participating tribe may exercise this special domestic violence jurisdiction over only domestic or dating violence offenses punishable by up to one year committed in Indian country against a tribal member or non-tribal member Indian who resides in Indian country.” The House also adds a provision allowing the accused to take their case to federal court if they feel their rights are being violated. Currently, Native American victims with non-native partners are caught in a limbo where tribal courts cannot touch perpetrators but federal law enforcement does not have jurisdiction.

Since its inception in 1994, VAWA has been instrumental in driving down the number of partner homicides and establishing community programs to help women in abusive situations.

UPDATE

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a chief advocate for VAWA in the Senate, blasted the House bill as a “non-starter” and called for moderate Republicans to take action: “It’s not a compromise, it’s an unfortunate effort to exclude specific groups of women from receiving basic protections under the law… The protections included in the Senate for new communities of women are not bargaining chips that can be played with in order to appease the far right in their party. These are badly needed new tools to give women an escape from a life stunted by abuse…It’s time for moderate Republicans in the House to step up and finally force their leadership to stop ignoring the calls of women across the country.”

Setting the stage for another debt ceiling battle

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House GOP blocks Violence Against Women Act

By Steve Benen/The Maddow Blog

 

Congress had a lengthy to-do list as the end of the year approached, with a series of measures that needed action before 2013 began. Some of the items passed (a fiscal agreement, a temporary farm bill), while others didn't (relief funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy).

And then there's the Violence Against Women Act, which was supposed to be one of the year's easy ones. It wasn't.

Back in April, the Senate approvedVAWA reauthorization fairly easily, with a 68 to 31 vote. The bill was co-written by a liberal Democrat (Vermont's Pat Leahy) and a conservative Republican (Idaho's Mike Crapo), and seemed on track to be reauthorized without much of a fuss, just as it was in 2000 and 2005.

But House Republicans insisted the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans -- and they'd rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal. Vice President Biden, who helped write the original law, tried to persuade House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to keep the law alive, but the efforts didn't go anywhere.

And so, for the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act is no more. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democratic point person on VAWA, said in a statement:

"The House Republican leadership's failure to take up and pass the Senate's bipartisan and inclusive VAWA bill is inexcusable. This is a bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate and that extends the bill's protections to 30 million more women. But this seems to be how House Republican leadership operates. No matter how broad the bipartisan support, no matter who gets hurt in the process, the politics of the right wing of their party always comes first."

Proponents of the law hope to revive the law in the new Congress, starting from scratch, but in the meantime, there will be far fewer resources available for state and local governments to combat domestic violence.

As for electoral considerations, Republicans lost badly in the 2012 elections, thanks in large part to the largest gender gap in modern times, but if that changed GOP attitudes towards legislation affecting women, the party is hiding it well.

Update: Reader AG asks about the House version that was approved several months ago. AsI reported at the time, the House gutted the bipartisan Senate bill with a watered-down version, which was widely seen by everyone involved as a joke that undermined the interests of victims. It had no support in the Senate and drew a White House veto threat. House Republicans knew this, and instead of revisiting the issue and/or working with the Senate on a compromise, GOP leaders simply decided the law was not a priority. The result was this week's outcome. 

Thirty-Six Congressional Republicans (And Counting) Have Distanced Themselves From Norquist’s Pledge

Greg Noth/Guest blogger for Think Progress

Every day, more Republicans in Congress are backing away from Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquit’s anti-tax pledge. For more than 20 years, the pledge, which stipulates that those who sign will never — under any circumstance — vote to raise taxes while in Congress, has virtually been a requirement for Congressional Republicans.According to ATR, just 16 of the 234 House Republicans and 6 of the 45 Senate Republicans that comprise the 113th Congress did not sign the pledge.

However, the pledge may not have the staying power it once did. As of this writing, more than a dozen House Republicans — including Majority Leader Eric Cantor — and 10 GOP senators have distanced themselves from the pledge to one degree or another. Here are just a few examples or what members had to say:

— Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH): “The only pledge that keeps me up at night is the pledge I owe to the people of New Hampshire and our country to work as hard as I can to make sure America doesn’t go bankrupt.”

– Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge . . . I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.”

– Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN): “Well, I’m not obligated on the pledge. I made Tennesseans aware, I was just elected, that the only thing I’m honoring is the oath I take when I’m sworn in this January.”

– Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA): “When I go to the constituents, it’s not about that pledge. It’s about trying to solve problems.”

– Rep. Peter King (R-NY): “A pledge is good at the time you sign it . . . In 1941, I would have voted to declare war on Japan. But each Congress is a new Congress. And I don’t think you can have a rule that you’re never going to raise taxes or that you’re never going to lower taxes. I don’t want to rule anything out.”

– Rep. Timothy Johnson (R-IL): “I would never in a million years have considered this as some kind of a locked-in-granite pledge. Frankly, I didn’t even remember it. That shows you how obscure it was to me.”

Other Senators that have signed the pledge and distanced themselves from Norquist includeSen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). House Republicans also jumping ship include: Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY), Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA), Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA), Rep. Jon Runyan (R-NJ), Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE),Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), Rep. John Kline (R-MN), Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN), Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN),Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE), Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA), Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL), and Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA).

House Republicans Plan Two Month Vacation, Leaving Key Bills Awaiting Action

By Josh Israel/Think Progress

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced Friday that after next week, the House will stand in recess until November 13. His plan for a nearly two month vacation will undoubtedly allow more time for campaigning, but will leave several vital bills awaiting action.

Among the important legislation the House will likely not address before the November elections:

1. Violence Against Women Act re-authorization. Though a bipartisan Senate majority passed the a strong re-authorization bill in April, the Republican House leadership refused to allow a vote on the Senate version of the bill. The House passed a watered down version on a mostly-party lines vote, leaving victims to wait for House action.

2. The American Jobs Act. Republicans have been blocking President Obama’sjobs legislation for more than a year. Though House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) promised in 2010 that a GOP Congress would focus on job creation, he has blocked this bill’s immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers, and aid to state and local governments to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials.

3. Tax cuts for working families. In July, the Senate passed a bill extending tax-cuts for the first $250,000 in annual income. The Republican House leadership has refused to consider the bill, holding it hostage to their demands for a full extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires.

4. Veterans Job Corps Act. The Senate is currently considering bipartisan legislation to help America’s veterans find jobs. The Air Force Times reports that the Republican House has “shown no interest” in the legislation to support those who served the country.

5. Sequestration. A spokesman for Boehner said earlier this week that stopping budget cuts he voted for last August “topped our July agenda and remains atop our agenda for September.” While House Republicans have complained about the imminent spending reductions and passed a bill that would require President Obama to find offsets for spending cuts they don’t like, Republican Leader Canter could not name a single compromise he was willing to make to get a deal.

6. Farm Bill. Despite strong support for a 5-year farm bill from even conservative groups like the Farm Bureau Association — the House leadershiphas not scheduled a vote on the bill. The current law expires September 30. Without passage, 90 percent of the work of the Department of Agriculture could be defunded.

7. Wind tax credit. The Senate may act next week to renew an expiring wind energy tax credit. Despite bipartisan support — including from original author Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Examiner notes that the House is unlikely to pass the renewal. Despite GOP calls for energy independence, the expiration has threatened the wind energy industry and already led to job cuts.

These, in addition to drought assistance, postal service reform, addressing the Estate Tax, cybersecurity legislation, fixes for Medicare reimbursement rates and the Alternative Minimum Tax, and all 12 of the FY 2013 Appropriations Bills remain unaddressed.

Four years ago, Republicans objected when then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) adjourned Congress for a five-week August recess without bringing up their energy legislation. Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) shouted “Madame Speaker, where art thou? Where oh where has Congress gone?” Now, they plan a two month vacation, even if it means allowing vital programs to expire and working families to suffer.

GOP’s So-Called Balanced Budget Amendment Will Hurt the Middle Class, Cut Necessary Programs

From Michigan Democratic Party

Lansing, MI – On Friday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will take the drastic step of trying to amend the United States Constitution with a so-called Balanced Budget Amendment. The proposed amendment is a flawed, partisan attempt to achieve something that leaders willing to compromise and make tough choices should be able to do on their own – and it mirrors a proposal from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“The Balanced Budget Amendment being considered by the House won’t fix the deficit, but it will severely impact the middle class – and even this extreme plan doesn’t go far enough for Mitt Romney,” said Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer. “While making it even easier for Congress to cut taxes for millionaires and corporations, the Romney plan means Social Security and Medicare will be cut, and the investments we’ve made in education and clean energy to create the jobs of the future will be wiped out. If they’re actually serious about fixing the deficit, Mitt Romney and Congressional Republicans should stop playing political games and work on a responsible plan where everyone plays by the same rules and pays their fair share.”

“The so-called Balanced Budget Amendment being pursued by Washington Republicans and candidates like Mitt Romney wouldn’t actually balance the budget, but it would lead to painful cuts for families here in Michigan,” saidMichigan State Representative Ellen Cogen Lipton. “Instead of giving our children better schools, this would cut nearly $1.7 billion from already strained school budgets in our state. It would force deep cuts to programs like Medicare and Social Security at a time when seniors are already having a hard time making ends meet.”

The Balanced Budget Amendment would lead to deep cuts for families here in Michigan, causing increased hardship for parents, seniors and working families already working to recover from the economic collapse. Specifically, it would result in a cut of $7.2 billion in Social Security benefits for Michigan senior citizens, $4.4 billion in cuts to Medicare reimbursements, $2.4 billion in reduced health care benefits for children, and nearly a $1.7 billion loss in education funding for Michigan schools.

Along with the Balanced Budget Amendment, Mitt Romney’s economic proposals closely mirror other Republican plans that would lead to deep cuts in Social Security, privatize Medicare, cut Pell grants that make college affordable for families, and severely reduce education, nutrition and health programs for at-risk children.

By embracing the same extreme policies that caused the economic crisis and moving to the right of those, Romney would only give unnecessary and unaffordable corporate subsidies and tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while leaving the middle class and seniors out to dry.

More information about the effects of Romney and the Republicans’ Balanced Budget Amendment can be found here:http://www.barackobama.com/news/balancing-the-budget-on-the-backs-of-the-middle-class1