The whole art of government consists in being honest.
-Thomas Jefferson, from Works, VI, 1786
Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
-Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
The government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to H.D. Tiffin, February 2, 1807
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Wisdom Of The Founding Fathers
Your affectionate mother requests that I would address to you, as a namesake, something which might have a favorable influence on the course of the life you have to run. Few words are necessary with good dispositions on your part. Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself; and your country more than life. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of providence and the life into which you have entered will be passage to one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under regard.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Jefferson Grotjan, January 10, 1824
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Jefferson Grotjan, January 10, 1824
'Common Sense Tax' Could Boost the Economy
A new tax proposal that two economists call "simple, transparent, and fair" could spark new investment and job creation in the United States, they say.
Our current tax system is "unfair, distortionary, wasteful, and a user's nightmare," according to John Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Laurence Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University. "Most important, it's limiting our country's economic potential.
"But can we have a far simpler tax system that generates at least as much revenue and is more progressive? Yes, it's called the Common Sense Tax (CST). It's designed to be revenue-neutral and to kick-start the economy." The plan includes just two taxes. One is a payroll tax at a flat 13 percent rate.
Today's FICA tax is highly regressive, since it levies a 15.3 percent tax on wages up to $113,700, half payable by the employee and half by the employer.
To assure that middle- and low-wage workers benefit immediately, the CST levies the payroll tax only on employers.
The second tax is a personal income tax with a 25 percent rate on income over $100,000 for married households and $50,000 for individuals. That would immediately end income taxation for two-thirds of American households.
The CST is revenue-neutral because it taxes all income above the thresholds and eliminates all deductions and tax breaks except the charitable deduction, Child Tax Credit, and Earned Income Tax Credit, Goodman and Kotlikoff maintain in an article for The Fiscal Times.
Another provision of the CST would tax corporate income at the personal rather than the business level — corporate shareholders above the threshold would pay taxes on income earned on their behalf by the corporation as it is accrued.
The United States currently has the world's highest statutory corporate tax rate. But with the CST, there would be no explicit corporate tax, which "would make the United States the world's most business-friendly country," the authors assert.
They conclude: "This would stimulate substantial new investment and job creation in the U.S., leading to higher wages for U.S. workers.
"In addition to being simple, transparent, and fair, the Common Sense Tax would improve incentives to work and save, eliminate an entire army of corporate and personal tax accountants and lawyers, and make April 15 just another day for most Americans. Most important, it would help grow the economy."
The Fiscal Times calls the CST a "tax reform plan that both parties can like."
Healthcare Industry Already Cutting Jobs
More than 41,000 healthcare workers have been laid off so far this year, and much of the blame goes to Obamacare.
The cuts have affected mostly hospital staffing in response to reduced reimbursement rates for Medicare patients under the sequester, and cuts for some providers under the Affordable Care Act, according to an article by Kevin D. Williamson for National Review Online.
Private insurers are also reducing payments.
The sequester will probably be repealed at some point, but the effects of Obamacare will likely remain, Williamson warns.
The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is required by the healthcare reform act to reduce the growth of Medicare spending. The bill also bars the IPAB from raising Medicare premiums or rationing care, so most of any savings will come from reduced Medicare payments to providers.
Also, the aging of the U.S. population means that a larger share of healthcare will be paid at Medicare rates in future years. That will put financial strain on hospitals, so hospitals have begun cutting back.
Some hospitals will reportedly be forced to close due to the reduced Medicare payments.
The job cuts will pose problems for the economy as well as healthcare. The number of jobs in healthcare — including not just doctors and nurses but clerical staff, billing specialists, and others — grew by 63 percent from 1990 to 2008, accounting for one out of every four jobs created during that period.
Also, healthcare is a sector that has enjoyed relatively strong growth in inflation-adjusted wages in recent decades.
"Losing that means losing a big piece of the employment picture, not just in total jobs but in real income," observes Williamson, author of the new book "The End Is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome."
"Which puts us in a difficult position: Cutting Medicare and Medicaid spending will have ill effects on the job market, but not cutting Medicare and Medicaid spending will bankrupt the country."
Demand No Special Treatment For Congress
FreedomWorks, do they think we're stupid?
Congress passed ObamaCare against the will of the American people. As a result, health care premiums are skyrocketing.
But Congress doesn't have to pay the price. Obama gave Congress a special deal to protect them from ObamaCare’s astronomical costs. And YOU have to pay for it.
That isn’t fair, it's not right, and it’s time we put a stop to special deals like these.
Senator David Vitter and Representative Ron DeSantis have both introduced legislation to take away Congress’ special protections from ObamaCare. If Congress passed the law, they should have to live with it.
Our demand is simple: equality under the law. No exceptions.
The left loves to talk about fairness, yet they are perfectly willing to protect themselves from ObamaCare while forcing you to pick up the tab.
We know this isn’t fair. Now Congress needs to get the message.
In Liberty,
Matt Kibbe
President and CEO, FreedomWorks
President and CEO, FreedomWorks
Monday, October 28, 2013
Business, GOP establishment: Tea party is over
Personally I hope not. I truly believe that the Tea Party is what this country needs right now. Someone who will listen and represent the people who put them in office and will stand up to the special interest groups that control things right now. I believe if they all were not so greedy and were looking out for only their selves then we would not be in the mess we are now. It always seems to be what THEY want and not want WE want. Why do they continue to do what they want to do and not what they people that put them in office say they want. I understand that not everything can be done, but they do not listen to the people any more, but always tell them what they want. When will it stop?
WASHINGTON (AP) — A slice of corporate America thinks tea partyers have overstayed their welcome in Washington and should be shown the door in next year's congressional elections.
In what could be a sign of challenges to come across the country, two U.S. House races in Michigan mark a turnabout from several years of widely heralded contests in which right-flank candidates have tried — sometimes successfully — to unseat Republican incumbents they perceive as not being conservative enough.
In the Michigan races, longtime Republican businessmen are taking on two House incumbents — hardline conservative Reps. Justin Amash and Kerry Bentivolio — in GOP primaries. The 16-day partial government shutdown and the threatened national default are bringing to a head a lot of pent-up frustration over GOP insurgents roughing up the business community's agenda.
Democrats hope to use this rift within the GOP to their advantage. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House committee to elect Democrats, insists there's been "buyer's remorse with House Republicans who have been willing to put the economy at risk," and that it is opening the political map for Democrats in 2014.
That's what the Democrats would be expected to say. But there's also Defending Main Street, a new GOP-leaning group that's halfway to its goal of raising $8 million. It plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works — and their preferred, typically tea party candidates.
In one race, the group plans to help Idaho eight-term Rep. Mike Simpson, who faces a Club for Growth-backed challenger in a GOP primary.
"These conservative groups have had it all their own way," said former Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, head of the new group. "They basically come in with millions of dollars and big-foot a Republican primary and you wind up with these Manchurian candidates who are not interested in governing."
LaTourette said that for the past three years, some "40, 42 House members have effectively denied the Republican Party the power of the majority" that it won in the 2010 election by blocking the GOP agenda.
Defending Main Street is meeting Nov. 5 in New York with wealthy potential donors.
Call it the wrath of establishment Republicans and corporate America, always considered the best of friends. Since the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, they've watched the GOP insurgents slow a transportation bill and reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, block a treaty governing the high seas and stand in the way of comprehensive immigration legislation.
The final straw was the bitter budget standoff that partly shuttered the government, precipitated by Republicans like Amash and Bentivolio who enlisted early in the campaign demanding that President Barack Obama dismantle his health care law in exchange for keeping the government operating.
Even after 16 days of a shutdown, falling poll numbers for the GOP and a threatened economy-jarring default, the two broke with their House Republican leaders and voted against the final deal to reopen the government.
Long before the shutdown, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has spent tens of millions boosting mainly Republicans in congressional races, urged the GOP to fund the government and prevent a default, then double back and try and work out changes to the health care law later.
A significant number of House Republicans have given a cold-shoulder to the Chamber's agenda. Rob Engstrom, the group's political director, said the Chamber will see how races develop before deciding on its involvement next year.
The latest political dynamic promises to affect the midterm elections — but how? Republicans hope the widespread animosity generated by the shutdown dissipates by next November and they can hold their House majority. Currently, Republicans control 231 seats and Democrats 200. Democrats are widely expected to win the special House election in Massachusetts for the seat of Sen. Ed Markey and would need to gain 17 seats next year to seize control.
"As long as we stay focused on the priorities of the American people, I think we're going to be fine," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week when asked about whether the GOP can hold onto the House.
What about the Michigan races?
In the state's 11th Congressional District, just northwest of Detroit, David Trott, a businessman involved in real estate finance and a member of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce Board of Trustees, is challenging Bentivolio.
In the 3rd Congressional District in the southwest part of the state, Brian Ellis is a 53-year-old Grand Rapids businessman who owns an investment advisory firm and serves on the school board. He describes himself as the true conservative Republican in the race, criticizing Amash's votes against Rep. Paul Ryan's budget that cut nearly $5 trillion and a measure reducing taxes for small businesses.
Ellis makes it clear that he would have sided with Boehner on the House GOP's last-ditch plan to avoid default. He says it never would have reached that point if Republicans hadn't embraced the tactic of linking the health care law to government funding.
"I certainly agree that Obamacare is an 'Obama-onation,'" Ellis said in an interview. "But I think the tactic, especially threatening to default on our debt, that is very reckless and not a good way to run our country. I'm in the financial world and I know that would have some far-reaching consequences that would not be good."
In seizing on the rift, Israel and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's national finance chairman, sent a letter to more than 1,000 business leaders reminding them that Democrats voted unanimously to end the shutdown and avoid default while House Republicans "turned their backs on business in favor of the radical demands of the tea party."
Republicans dismiss this Democratic outreach to the business community as wishful thinking.
"I don't think Democrats will be successful because the biggest headwinds we face in the economy right now are of their making, from regulation to the Affordable Care Act to this obsession with higher taxes," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. "Certainly the uncertainty of the last month has not been helpful, but that's on top of a heap of other uncertainty."
Even if the business community isn't ready to embrace Democrats, Israel insists that the recent budget stalemate has helped his candidate recruitment while boosting the campaign committee's fundraising. At the end of September, the committee had $21.6 million on hand to $15.7 million for the National Republican Campaign Committee.
Potential recruits who Israel jokingly said had put his number on the "do-not-call-list" have suddenly been announcing their candidacies, including Democrat Pete Festersen, the president of the Omaha City Council, who is running against eight-term Rep. Lee Terry, and attorney Bill Hughes Jr., who is looking to unseat 10-term Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A slice of corporate America thinks tea partyers have overstayed their welcome in Washington and should be shown the door in next year's congressional elections.
In what could be a sign of challenges to come across the country, two U.S. House races in Michigan mark a turnabout from several years of widely heralded contests in which right-flank candidates have tried — sometimes successfully — to unseat Republican incumbents they perceive as not being conservative enough.
In the Michigan races, longtime Republican businessmen are taking on two House incumbents — hardline conservative Reps. Justin Amash and Kerry Bentivolio — in GOP primaries. The 16-day partial government shutdown and the threatened national default are bringing to a head a lot of pent-up frustration over GOP insurgents roughing up the business community's agenda.
Democrats hope to use this rift within the GOP to their advantage. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the House committee to elect Democrats, insists there's been "buyer's remorse with House Republicans who have been willing to put the economy at risk," and that it is opening the political map for Democrats in 2014.
That's what the Democrats would be expected to say. But there's also Defending Main Street, a new GOP-leaning group that's halfway to its goal of raising $8 million. It plans to spend that money on center-right Republicans who face a triumvirate of deep-pocketed conservative groups — Heritage Action, Club for Growth and Freedom Works — and their preferred, typically tea party candidates.
In one race, the group plans to help Idaho eight-term Rep. Mike Simpson, who faces a Club for Growth-backed challenger in a GOP primary.
"These conservative groups have had it all their own way," said former Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, head of the new group. "They basically come in with millions of dollars and big-foot a Republican primary and you wind up with these Manchurian candidates who are not interested in governing."
LaTourette said that for the past three years, some "40, 42 House members have effectively denied the Republican Party the power of the majority" that it won in the 2010 election by blocking the GOP agenda.
Defending Main Street is meeting Nov. 5 in New York with wealthy potential donors.
Call it the wrath of establishment Republicans and corporate America, always considered the best of friends. Since the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, they've watched the GOP insurgents slow a transportation bill and reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, block a treaty governing the high seas and stand in the way of comprehensive immigration legislation.
The final straw was the bitter budget standoff that partly shuttered the government, precipitated by Republicans like Amash and Bentivolio who enlisted early in the campaign demanding that President Barack Obama dismantle his health care law in exchange for keeping the government operating.
Even after 16 days of a shutdown, falling poll numbers for the GOP and a threatened economy-jarring default, the two broke with their House Republican leaders and voted against the final deal to reopen the government.
Long before the shutdown, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has spent tens of millions boosting mainly Republicans in congressional races, urged the GOP to fund the government and prevent a default, then double back and try and work out changes to the health care law later.
A significant number of House Republicans have given a cold-shoulder to the Chamber's agenda. Rob Engstrom, the group's political director, said the Chamber will see how races develop before deciding on its involvement next year.
The latest political dynamic promises to affect the midterm elections — but how? Republicans hope the widespread animosity generated by the shutdown dissipates by next November and they can hold their House majority. Currently, Republicans control 231 seats and Democrats 200. Democrats are widely expected to win the special House election in Massachusetts for the seat of Sen. Ed Markey and would need to gain 17 seats next year to seize control.
"As long as we stay focused on the priorities of the American people, I think we're going to be fine," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week when asked about whether the GOP can hold onto the House.
What about the Michigan races?
In the state's 11th Congressional District, just northwest of Detroit, David Trott, a businessman involved in real estate finance and a member of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce Board of Trustees, is challenging Bentivolio.
In the 3rd Congressional District in the southwest part of the state, Brian Ellis is a 53-year-old Grand Rapids businessman who owns an investment advisory firm and serves on the school board. He describes himself as the true conservative Republican in the race, criticizing Amash's votes against Rep. Paul Ryan's budget that cut nearly $5 trillion and a measure reducing taxes for small businesses.
Ellis makes it clear that he would have sided with Boehner on the House GOP's last-ditch plan to avoid default. He says it never would have reached that point if Republicans hadn't embraced the tactic of linking the health care law to government funding.
"I certainly agree that Obamacare is an 'Obama-onation,'" Ellis said in an interview. "But I think the tactic, especially threatening to default on our debt, that is very reckless and not a good way to run our country. I'm in the financial world and I know that would have some far-reaching consequences that would not be good."
In seizing on the rift, Israel and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's national finance chairman, sent a letter to more than 1,000 business leaders reminding them that Democrats voted unanimously to end the shutdown and avoid default while House Republicans "turned their backs on business in favor of the radical demands of the tea party."
Republicans dismiss this Democratic outreach to the business community as wishful thinking.
"I don't think Democrats will be successful because the biggest headwinds we face in the economy right now are of their making, from regulation to the Affordable Care Act to this obsession with higher taxes," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. "Certainly the uncertainty of the last month has not been helpful, but that's on top of a heap of other uncertainty."
Even if the business community isn't ready to embrace Democrats, Israel insists that the recent budget stalemate has helped his candidate recruitment while boosting the campaign committee's fundraising. At the end of September, the committee had $21.6 million on hand to $15.7 million for the National Republican Campaign Committee.
Potential recruits who Israel jokingly said had put his number on the "do-not-call-list" have suddenly been announcing their candidacies, including Democrat Pete Festersen, the president of the Omaha City Council, who is running against eight-term Rep. Lee Terry, and attorney Bill Hughes Jr., who is looking to unseat 10-term Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J.
Is Ted Cruz a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as president?
Good question. But it did not stop Obama from getting the nomination or even the Presidency, even though there were many questions and still questions on his citizenship. Read the article and decide for yourself. Please let me know if you think yes or no, it would be interesting to know what people think.
Sarah Helene Duggin from the Catholic University of America looks at potential foreign-born presidential candidates like Ted Cruz and a possible emerging consensus among scholars about their eligibility for the White House.
The 2016 presidential election is more than three years away, but potential candidates and their supporters are already contemplating the next campaign. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas—now well-known for his role in the recent federal shutdown—and California’s celebrity former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are among those whose names are circulating. But neither Cruz nor Schwarzenegger was born in the United States, and the Constitution provides that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen, or a Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
For Cruz, Schwarzenegger, and a number of other potential candidates, the Natural Born Citizenship Clause raises a critical question: Is anyone born outside the United States constitutionally eligible to serve as president?
Senator John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, faced the same question with respect to his natural-born citizenship status in his 2008 presidential bid, and purported concerns about President Obama’s constitutional qualifications led “birthers” to file lawsuits challenging his natural-born credentials on the basis of a variety of far-fetched theories during the last several years. A new natural-born citizenship debate is already simmering, and it seems likely to heat up a great deal before the 2016 election takes place.
The Constitution does not define the term natural born citizen. Even so, Governor Schwarzenegger is clearly out of the running. Given that he was born in Austria to Austrian parents, there is no basis for arguing that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States.
For Senator Cruz—who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American mother and a Cuban father—the question is more complicated. There is a strong argument that anyone who acquires United States citizenship at birth, whether by virtue of the 14th Amendment or by operation of federal statute, qualifies as natural born. The Supreme Court, however, has never ruled on the meaning of the natural-born citizenship requirement. In the absence of a definitive Supreme Court ruling—or a constitutional amendment—the parameters of the clause remain uncertain.
The origins of the Natural Born Citizenship Clause date back to a letter John Jay (who later authored several of the Federalist Papers and served as our first chief justice) wrote to George Washington, then president of the Constitutional Convention, on July 25, 1787. At the time, as Justice Joseph Story later explained in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution, many of the framers worried about “ambitious foreigners who might otherwise be intriguing for the office.”
“Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen,” Jay wrote.
Washington thanked Jay for his hints in a reply dated September 2, 1787. Shortly thereafter, the natural-born citizenship language appeared in the draft Constitution the Committee of Eleven presented to the Convention. There is no record of any debate on the clause.
While it is possible to trace the origins of the Natural Born Citizenship Clause, it is harder to determine its intended scope—who did the framers mean to exclude from the presidency by this language? The Naturalization Act of 1790 probably constitutes the most significant evidence available. Congress enacted this legislation just three years after the drafting of the Constitution, and many of those who voted on it had participated in the Constitutional Convention. The act provided that “children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.”
There is no record of discussion of the term natural born citizen, but it is reasonable to conclude that the drafters believed that foreign-born children of American parents who acquired citizenship at birth could and should be deemed natural born citizens.
Although subsequent naturalization acts dropped the natural born language, members of later Congresses proposed many bills and resolutions designed to clarify, limit, or eliminate the Natural Born Citizenship Clause; none succeeded. In April 2008, however, amid challenges to Senator McCain’s eligibility to serve as president, the Senate passed a resolution declaring that “John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘natural born Citizen” under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.”
The resolution—co-sponsored by a number of McCain’s Senate colleagues, including rival presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—undoubtedly offered Senator McCain some comfort, but it had no real constitutional significance.
Challenges to presidential qualifications are not new. In 1964, for example, questions arose as to the natural-born credentials of Republican nominee Senator Barry Goldwater, because he was born in Arizona prior to statehood. In 1968, legal actions were threatened against former Michigan Governor George Romney, who was born to American parents in Mexico, when he sought the Republican nomination.
Despite the shadow that lawsuits may cast over a presidential bid, the obstacles to successful litigation of natural-born citizenship challenges are formidable. These matters raise a wide array of justiciability concerns. Standing issues led to the dismissal of lawsuits filed in federal courts in New Hampshire and California challenging Senator McCain’s natural-born status in 2008 (Hollander v. McCain, Robinson v. Bowen), as well as to the dismissal of claims brought by a Guyana-born naturalized citizen who argued that the Fifth and 14th Amendments effectively repealed the natural born citizenship clause (Hassan v. Federal Election Committee).
Standing is not the only obstacle to adjudication of natural-born citizenship issues. Claims that a candidate lacks the requisite natural-born citizenship credentials are unlikely to ripen until a nominee is chosen, or perhaps even elected, and federal courts may be reluctant to delve into the merits of challenges to a candidate’s natural-born citizenship status on political question grounds.
What can we expect if Senator Cruz or another similarly situated candidate runs for president in 2016? Undoubtedly, the controversy will continue with passionate advocates on both sides of the issue. A scholarly consensus is emerging, however, that anyone who acquires citizenship at birth is natural born for purposes of Article II.
This consensus rests on firm foundations. First, given Jay’s letter and the language of the 1790 naturalization act, it seems evident that the framers were worried about foreign princes, not children born to American citizens living abroad. Second, the 14-year residency requirement Article II also imposes as a presidential prerequisite ensures that, regardless of their place of birth, would-be presidents must spend a significant time living in the United States before they can run for office.
Finally, the natural born citizenship clause is both an anomaly and an anachronism. The way in which the clause differentiates among United States citizens is contrary to the overall spirit of the Constitution; the risk that foreign nobility will infiltrate our government is long past; and place of birth is a poor surrogate for loyalty to one’s homeland in our increasingly mobile society and our ever more interconnected world. The best solution would be to amend the Constitution, as many legislators on both sides of the aisle have proposed over the years. In the absence of an amendment, the clause should be narrowly interpreted.
Sarah Helene Duggin from the Catholic University of America looks at potential foreign-born presidential candidates like Ted Cruz and a possible emerging consensus among scholars about their eligibility for the White House.
The 2016 presidential election is more than three years away, but potential candidates and their supporters are already contemplating the next campaign. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas—now well-known for his role in the recent federal shutdown—and California’s celebrity former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are among those whose names are circulating. But neither Cruz nor Schwarzenegger was born in the United States, and the Constitution provides that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen, or a Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
For Cruz, Schwarzenegger, and a number of other potential candidates, the Natural Born Citizenship Clause raises a critical question: Is anyone born outside the United States constitutionally eligible to serve as president?
Senator John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, faced the same question with respect to his natural-born citizenship status in his 2008 presidential bid, and purported concerns about President Obama’s constitutional qualifications led “birthers” to file lawsuits challenging his natural-born credentials on the basis of a variety of far-fetched theories during the last several years. A new natural-born citizenship debate is already simmering, and it seems likely to heat up a great deal before the 2016 election takes place.
The Constitution does not define the term natural born citizen. Even so, Governor Schwarzenegger is clearly out of the running. Given that he was born in Austria to Austrian parents, there is no basis for arguing that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States.
For Senator Cruz—who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to an American mother and a Cuban father—the question is more complicated. There is a strong argument that anyone who acquires United States citizenship at birth, whether by virtue of the 14th Amendment or by operation of federal statute, qualifies as natural born. The Supreme Court, however, has never ruled on the meaning of the natural-born citizenship requirement. In the absence of a definitive Supreme Court ruling—or a constitutional amendment—the parameters of the clause remain uncertain.
The origins of the Natural Born Citizenship Clause date back to a letter John Jay (who later authored several of the Federalist Papers and served as our first chief justice) wrote to George Washington, then president of the Constitutional Convention, on July 25, 1787. At the time, as Justice Joseph Story later explained in his influential Commentaries on the Constitution, many of the framers worried about “ambitious foreigners who might otherwise be intriguing for the office.”
“Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen,” Jay wrote.
Washington thanked Jay for his hints in a reply dated September 2, 1787. Shortly thereafter, the natural-born citizenship language appeared in the draft Constitution the Committee of Eleven presented to the Convention. There is no record of any debate on the clause.
While it is possible to trace the origins of the Natural Born Citizenship Clause, it is harder to determine its intended scope—who did the framers mean to exclude from the presidency by this language? The Naturalization Act of 1790 probably constitutes the most significant evidence available. Congress enacted this legislation just three years after the drafting of the Constitution, and many of those who voted on it had participated in the Constitutional Convention. The act provided that “children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens.”
There is no record of discussion of the term natural born citizen, but it is reasonable to conclude that the drafters believed that foreign-born children of American parents who acquired citizenship at birth could and should be deemed natural born citizens.
Although subsequent naturalization acts dropped the natural born language, members of later Congresses proposed many bills and resolutions designed to clarify, limit, or eliminate the Natural Born Citizenship Clause; none succeeded. In April 2008, however, amid challenges to Senator McCain’s eligibility to serve as president, the Senate passed a resolution declaring that “John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘natural born Citizen” under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.”
The resolution—co-sponsored by a number of McCain’s Senate colleagues, including rival presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—undoubtedly offered Senator McCain some comfort, but it had no real constitutional significance.
Challenges to presidential qualifications are not new. In 1964, for example, questions arose as to the natural-born credentials of Republican nominee Senator Barry Goldwater, because he was born in Arizona prior to statehood. In 1968, legal actions were threatened against former Michigan Governor George Romney, who was born to American parents in Mexico, when he sought the Republican nomination.
Despite the shadow that lawsuits may cast over a presidential bid, the obstacles to successful litigation of natural-born citizenship challenges are formidable. These matters raise a wide array of justiciability concerns. Standing issues led to the dismissal of lawsuits filed in federal courts in New Hampshire and California challenging Senator McCain’s natural-born status in 2008 (Hollander v. McCain, Robinson v. Bowen), as well as to the dismissal of claims brought by a Guyana-born naturalized citizen who argued that the Fifth and 14th Amendments effectively repealed the natural born citizenship clause (Hassan v. Federal Election Committee).
Standing is not the only obstacle to adjudication of natural-born citizenship issues. Claims that a candidate lacks the requisite natural-born citizenship credentials are unlikely to ripen until a nominee is chosen, or perhaps even elected, and federal courts may be reluctant to delve into the merits of challenges to a candidate’s natural-born citizenship status on political question grounds.
What can we expect if Senator Cruz or another similarly situated candidate runs for president in 2016? Undoubtedly, the controversy will continue with passionate advocates on both sides of the issue. A scholarly consensus is emerging, however, that anyone who acquires citizenship at birth is natural born for purposes of Article II.
This consensus rests on firm foundations. First, given Jay’s letter and the language of the 1790 naturalization act, it seems evident that the framers were worried about foreign princes, not children born to American citizens living abroad. Second, the 14-year residency requirement Article II also imposes as a presidential prerequisite ensures that, regardless of their place of birth, would-be presidents must spend a significant time living in the United States before they can run for office.
Finally, the natural born citizenship clause is both an anomaly and an anachronism. The way in which the clause differentiates among United States citizens is contrary to the overall spirit of the Constitution; the risk that foreign nobility will infiltrate our government is long past; and place of birth is a poor surrogate for loyalty to one’s homeland in our increasingly mobile society and our ever more interconnected world. The best solution would be to amend the Constitution, as many legislators on both sides of the aisle have proposed over the years. In the absence of an amendment, the clause should be narrowly interpreted.
Sarah Helene Duggin is Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Public Policy Program for the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America. She has authored several academic articles on the natural-born citizenship proviso.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Quotes on Freedom and Rights
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right ... and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
-John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.
-Benjamin Franklin, Maxims and Morals from Dr. Franklin, 1807
-John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.
-Benjamin Franklin, Maxims and Morals from Dr. Franklin, 1807
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
The Peoples Party - Who is it?
Since I have been old enough to vote, I have always heard that the Democrats were the party of the people. I just have not understood this. During this time frame it is always the Democrats that have raised taxes and tried to force programs onto people. How is this "Of the People". I would think a party of the people would be trying to make things better for the people and not make things harder. And then you have the Republicans. Are they any better, I am not sure. We you have a small group of them that tries to do the right thing for the people and listens to the people they get slammed by members of their own party. It has the appearance of that the majority of the Members of the Government are only concerned about their selves and their little nest eggs.
So who is the party of the people? At this time it does not appear to be either party. Each party, with a few exceptions, seems to be a party for them selves. When will these officials wake up and see that it is the people of this country that put them in an office of responsibility to "The People". We need to get more involved in the happenings of Government, instead of sitting in the background. We need to let our elected officials know when they do something we do not agree with and let them know when we do not agree and if they do not listen to us then we make them listen by voting them out of office.
So who is the party of the people? At this time it does not appear to be either party. Each party, with a few exceptions, seems to be a party for them selves. When will these officials wake up and see that it is the people of this country that put them in an office of responsibility to "The People". We need to get more involved in the happenings of Government, instead of sitting in the background. We need to let our elected officials know when they do something we do not agree with and let them know when we do not agree and if they do not listen to us then we make them listen by voting them out of office.
Rand Paul constitutional amendment on Congress: Does it miss its mark?
Sen. Rand Paul (R) wants a constitutional amendment to prevent Congress from exempting themselves, and other top US officials, from laws that apply to ordinary Americans. He may be thinking about Obamacare here, but his idea is getting trounced from left and right.
By Peter Grier
Why is he doing this? It seems clear he’s aiming at Obamacare provisions that some Republicans say give preferential status to members of Congress and their staffs. There was a lot of talk about that during the recent unpleasantness of the government shutdown and debt-ceiling struggle, if you remember.
The amendment’s language, released Monday on Senator Paul’s official website, seems straightforward. Its first section says, “Congress shall make no law applicable to a citizen of the United States that is not equally applicable to Congress.”
Further sections say similarly that laws have to be equally applicable to the president, vice president, ambassadors, other public US officials, the US Supreme Court, the chief justice, and other federal judges.
That’s about it. Simple, right?
That’s why it has drawn some harsh criticism from both ends of the political spectrum.
“It is a shoddy and sloppy piece of work, as if written on the back of a napkin,” writes right-leaning Washington Post pundit Jennifer Rubin.
Some laws exclude lawmakers for good reason, according to Ms. Rubin. Paul’s language would appear to make them vulnerable to lawsuits or criminal prosecution for their votes, for example.
“The problem ... is that it makes no distinction between laws that give special privileges to members of Congress and laws that exclude them from federal benefits for entirely legitimate reasons,” adds Ian Millhiser at the left-leaning "Think Progress" website.
Taken literally, the amendment might mean that every member of Congress is eligible for, say, Medicare, even if they’re not yet 65, according to Mr. Millhiser. To rule otherwise would entail judging a law to be not equally applicable to lawmakers, he says.
As to Obamacare, the situation is this: The insurance exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act are intended for the use of the self-employed or people who work for a small business that doesn’t offer health coverage and of others who buy individual or family insurance on the open market. They’re not supposed to be used by the employees of large entities.
But during the debate over Obamacare, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa offered an amendment that requires members of Congress and their staffs to buy Affordable Care Act coverage. He thought Democrats would reject this, leaving them open to a charge of hypocrisy. Instead, they embraced it, and it passed.
That means members of Congress and their aides now must buy health insurance through Obamacare exchanges, instead of the existing government Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. In that sense, they are not “exempt” from Obamacare at all, as some Republicans charge.
However, the Office of Personnel Management has ruled that the federal government can continue to pay a portion of the health-care premiums for lawmakers and their staffers. Virtually all big employers engage in this cost-sharing. Some in the GOP, most notably Sen. David Vitter (R) of Louisiana, have pushed to end these contributions, arguing that they amount to Washington’s true Obamacare exemption.
That’s why conservative Republicans tried, and failed, to attach the “Vitter amendment” eliminating these subsidies to the government-funding bill that finally passed last week.
The problem here with Paul’s proposed amendment is that Congress in essence applied special treatment to itself by voting to put members and staffers in the small-business-oriented section of the Obamacare exchanges in the first place. Workers of other large US employers are prohibited from participating in the program.
“So taking all this together, as to members and employees of Congress, the net result of Senator Paul’s proposed amendment would probably mean that Congress would revert back to the employer-provided insurance system in place before the [Affordable Care Act],” writes Steven Schwinn, an associate professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, on the "Constitutional Law Prof Blog."
This is all theoretical, of course, because it is highly unlikely the amendment will be added to the US Constitution. It would first have to pass by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate. Then 38 of the 50 state legislatures would have to vote to approve it as well.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Chinese Agency Downgrades US Debt
Michael Reagan
A Chinese ratings agency downgraded its U.S. sovereign credit rating Thursday despite Washington's resolution of the debt ceiling deadlock, warning that fundamentals for a potential default remained "unchanged". Dagong lowered its ratings for U.S. local and foreign currency credit from A to A-, maintaining a negative outlook, according to AFP. Meanwhile, Daily Caller is reporting there's no actual debt ceiling right now. The fiscal deal passed by Congress on Wednesday evening to re-open the government and get around the $16.4 trillion limit on borrowing doesn't actually increase the debt limit. It simply temporarily suspends enforcement of it. That means Americans have no idea how much debt their government will incur between now and Feb. 7, when the limits are supposed to go back into place and will have to be raised. Finally, buried inside the new stopgap spending bill are several goodies including a death gratuity paid to Sen. Lautenberg's widow - a multi-millionaire, reports the Washington Times.
Archie Bunker on Democrats
Archie has always been good for a laugh, but some of the things he says in here have some wisdom to them. Enjoy and hope it makes you stop and think about the ways things are now.
Shutdown showdown widened GOP-tea party rift
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republicans' clear defeat in the budget-debt brawl has widened the rift between the Grand Old Party and the blossoming tea party movement that helped revive it.
Implored by House Speaker John Boehner to unite and "fight another day" against President Barack Obama and Democrats, Republicans instead intensified attacks on one another, an ominous sign in advance of more difficult policy fights and the 2014 midterm elections.
The tea party movement spawned by the passage of Obama's health care overhaul three years ago put the GOP back in charge of the House and in hot pursuit of the law's repeal. The effort hit a wall this month in the budget and debt fight, but tea partyers promised to keep up the effort.
Whatever the future of the law, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell vowed he would not permit another government shutdown.
"I think we have now fully acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is," McConnell said in an interview with The Hill newspaper.
Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told ABC News he wouldn't rule out using the tactic again, when the same budget and debt questions come up next year.
"I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare," Cruz said.
That divide defined the warring Republican factions ahead of the midterm elections, when 35 seats in the Democratic-controlled Senate and all 435 seats in the Republican-dominated House will be on the ballot. In the nearer term, difficult debates over immigration and farm policy loom, along with another round of budget and debt talks.
The animosity only intensified as lawmakers fled Washington this week for a few days' rest.
The Twitterverse crackled with threats, insults and the names of the 27 GOP senators and 87 GOP House members who voted for the leadership's agreement that reopened the government and raised the nation's borrowing limit. Republicans got none of their demands, keeping only the spending cuts they had won in 2011.
Within hours, TeaParty.net tweeted a link to the 114 lawmakers, tagging each as a Republican in name only who should be turned out of office: "Your 2014 #RINO hunting list!"
"We shouldn't have to put up with fake conservatives like Mitch McConnell," read a fundraising letter Thursday from the Tea Party Victory Fund Inc.
Another group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, announced it was endorsing McConnell's GOP opponent, Louisville, Ky., businessman Matt Bevin.
"Mitch McConnell has the support of the entire Washington establishment and he will do anything to hold on to power," the group, which raised nearly $2 million for tea party candidates in last year's elections, announced. "But if people in Kentucky and all across the country rise up and demand something better, we're confident Matt Bevin can win this race."
The same group pivoted to the Mississippi Senate race, where Republican Thad Cochran is weighing whether to seek a seventh term. Cochran voted for the McConnell-Reid deal, so the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed a primary opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a private attorney the group says "will fight to stop Obamacare," ''is not part of the Washington establishment" and "has the courage to stand up to the big spenders in both parties."
There were more tea party targets: Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee also are seeking re-election.
To her Facebook friends, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin posted: "We're going to shake things up in 2014. Rest well tonight, for soon we must focus on important House and Senate races. Let's start with Kentucky — which happens to be awfully close to South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi."
Opponents of the tea party strategy to make "Obamacare" the centerpiece of the budget fight seethed over what they said was an exercise in self destruction. Many clamored for Boehner and McConnell, the nation's highest-ranking Republicans, to impose some discipline, pointing to polls that showed public approval of Congress plummeting to historic lows and that most Americans blamed Republicans for the government shutdown.
A Pew Research Center poll released this week showed public favorability for the Tea Party dropped to its lowest level since driving the Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 elections. An AP-Gfk poll showed that 70 percent now hold unfavorable views of the Tea Party.
And yet, House Republican leaders tried again and again to resolve the standoff the tea party's way — by demanding limits on Obamacare in exchange for reopening the government — until they ran of options and accepted the bipartisan deal.
"When your strategy doesn't work, or your tactic doesn't work, you lose credibility in your conference," said Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., referring to the tea partyers' tactics. "Clearly the leadership followed certain members' tactics, certain members' strategies, and they proved not to be all that successful. So I would hope that we learn from the past."
"I do believe the outside groups have really put us in this position," said Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., referring to the Heritage Foundation's political campaign arm and other organizations demanding fealty to their ideology. Those groups "have worked in conjunction with members of Congress and with Tea Party groups pushing a strategy that was never going to work."
Tea partyers hold a contrary view. Boehner, they say, solidified his standing as the GOP's leader by holding the line against compromise as long as he did. And the standoff, they add, has increased their movement's clout.
"I think it builds credibility, because I think Democrats did not think that we would press this," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. "And now they know that we will, and that we might do it again."
Unless this group can unify in some way they are going to continue to lose. The constant fighting among themselves will only give the Democrats more leverage. The old saying "United we stand, Divided we fall applies here." They can agree to disagree, but there needs to be some sort of unity. If they do not get there act together then the Democrats will take the White House again which will not be a good thing. They just need to stick to the facts and let the PEOPLE decide on who they want in office. This event has brought some things to light and with people being as tired of the government establishment as they are there will be changes, but let's hope and PRAY that it does not swing to the Democrats. When elections come do your research and Pray that God directs you to vote for who He wants in office.
Implored by House Speaker John Boehner to unite and "fight another day" against President Barack Obama and Democrats, Republicans instead intensified attacks on one another, an ominous sign in advance of more difficult policy fights and the 2014 midterm elections.
The tea party movement spawned by the passage of Obama's health care overhaul three years ago put the GOP back in charge of the House and in hot pursuit of the law's repeal. The effort hit a wall this month in the budget and debt fight, but tea partyers promised to keep up the effort.
Whatever the future of the law, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell vowed he would not permit another government shutdown.
"I think we have now fully acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is," McConnell said in an interview with The Hill newspaper.
Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told ABC News he wouldn't rule out using the tactic again, when the same budget and debt questions come up next year.
"I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare," Cruz said.
That divide defined the warring Republican factions ahead of the midterm elections, when 35 seats in the Democratic-controlled Senate and all 435 seats in the Republican-dominated House will be on the ballot. In the nearer term, difficult debates over immigration and farm policy loom, along with another round of budget and debt talks.
The animosity only intensified as lawmakers fled Washington this week for a few days' rest.
The Twitterverse crackled with threats, insults and the names of the 27 GOP senators and 87 GOP House members who voted for the leadership's agreement that reopened the government and raised the nation's borrowing limit. Republicans got none of their demands, keeping only the spending cuts they had won in 2011.
Within hours, TeaParty.net tweeted a link to the 114 lawmakers, tagging each as a Republican in name only who should be turned out of office: "Your 2014 #RINO hunting list!"
"We shouldn't have to put up with fake conservatives like Mitch McConnell," read a fundraising letter Thursday from the Tea Party Victory Fund Inc.
Another group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, announced it was endorsing McConnell's GOP opponent, Louisville, Ky., businessman Matt Bevin.
"Mitch McConnell has the support of the entire Washington establishment and he will do anything to hold on to power," the group, which raised nearly $2 million for tea party candidates in last year's elections, announced. "But if people in Kentucky and all across the country rise up and demand something better, we're confident Matt Bevin can win this race."
The same group pivoted to the Mississippi Senate race, where Republican Thad Cochran is weighing whether to seek a seventh term. Cochran voted for the McConnell-Reid deal, so the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed a primary opponent, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a private attorney the group says "will fight to stop Obamacare," ''is not part of the Washington establishment" and "has the courage to stand up to the big spenders in both parties."
There were more tea party targets: Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and Lamar Alexander in Tennessee also are seeking re-election.
To her Facebook friends, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin posted: "We're going to shake things up in 2014. Rest well tonight, for soon we must focus on important House and Senate races. Let's start with Kentucky — which happens to be awfully close to South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi."
Opponents of the tea party strategy to make "Obamacare" the centerpiece of the budget fight seethed over what they said was an exercise in self destruction. Many clamored for Boehner and McConnell, the nation's highest-ranking Republicans, to impose some discipline, pointing to polls that showed public approval of Congress plummeting to historic lows and that most Americans blamed Republicans for the government shutdown.
A Pew Research Center poll released this week showed public favorability for the Tea Party dropped to its lowest level since driving the Republican takeover of the House in the 2010 elections. An AP-Gfk poll showed that 70 percent now hold unfavorable views of the Tea Party.
And yet, House Republican leaders tried again and again to resolve the standoff the tea party's way — by demanding limits on Obamacare in exchange for reopening the government — until they ran of options and accepted the bipartisan deal.
"When your strategy doesn't work, or your tactic doesn't work, you lose credibility in your conference," said Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., referring to the tea partyers' tactics. "Clearly the leadership followed certain members' tactics, certain members' strategies, and they proved not to be all that successful. So I would hope that we learn from the past."
"I do believe the outside groups have really put us in this position," said Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., referring to the Heritage Foundation's political campaign arm and other organizations demanding fealty to their ideology. Those groups "have worked in conjunction with members of Congress and with Tea Party groups pushing a strategy that was never going to work."
Tea partyers hold a contrary view. Boehner, they say, solidified his standing as the GOP's leader by holding the line against compromise as long as he did. And the standoff, they add, has increased their movement's clout.
"I think it builds credibility, because I think Democrats did not think that we would press this," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La. "And now they know that we will, and that we might do it again."
Unless this group can unify in some way they are going to continue to lose. The constant fighting among themselves will only give the Democrats more leverage. The old saying "United we stand, Divided we fall applies here." They can agree to disagree, but there needs to be some sort of unity. If they do not get there act together then the Democrats will take the White House again which will not be a good thing. They just need to stick to the facts and let the PEOPLE decide on who they want in office. This event has brought some things to light and with people being as tired of the government establishment as they are there will be changes, but let's hope and PRAY that it does not swing to the Democrats. When elections come do your research and Pray that God directs you to vote for who He wants in office.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Senate and House pass bill to re-open the government, raise the debt ceiling
At the end of the 16th day of the government shutdown, the Senate and House passed a bill that would reopen the government and avert a potentially cataclysmic default on U.S. debt payments by raising the federal government's debt limit.
The Senate voted 81-18 to pass the measure, and the House voted 285-144.
The final package, unveiled by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor earlier in the day, would fund the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt ceiling through Feb. 7.
The bill would also strengthen income verification requirements for those who sign up for insurance under Obamacare, and it would provide time for both parties to appoint lawmakers to a conference committee to reconcile a broad budget resolution. The panel would be led by Budget Committee heads Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, and it would be required to announce the result of its negotiations by Dec. 13.
President Barack Obama said Wednesday evening soon after the Senate vote that he would “immediately” sign the legislation.
“Once this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately, we’ll begin reopening our government immediately, and we can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty and unease from our businesses and from the American people,” Obama said in the White House briefing room.
When Obama signs the bill, it will end the nation's first government shutdown in 17 years, and give lawmakers more time to negotiate a broader package of spending reforms.
Earlier on Wednesday, there was concern that Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who staged a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor to protest the federal health care law, would use a procedural tactic to block a vote on the deal. But after the deal was announced, Cruz told reporters that he would not move to deter the bill's progress through the chamber.
"I have no objections to the timing, and the reason is simple. There's nothing to be gained from delaying this vote one day or two days," Cruz, who voted against the bill, said. "The outcome will be the same. Every senator, every member of the House is going to have to make a decision where he or she stands, but there's no benefit. I've never had any intention of delaying the timing of this vote."
On Wall Street, the announcement and passage of a deal was welcome news: The S&P 500 index jumped more than 20 points, and other market indicators showed signs of continued confidence in the federal government's ability to pay its bills on time.
The Treasury Department says the U.S. government is close to running out of borrowing authority, which it says will take place at midnight Thursday into Friday.
Because the cash-strapped U.S. government needs to borrow cash to pay for existing programs, failure to raise the debt limit would have meant that not long after Thursday the government will not be able to pay all of its bills.
That would have raised the prospect of a default on America’s public debt as well as on other obligations such as Social Security payments, and send a shock wave through the
The Senate voted 81-18 to pass the measure, and the House voted 285-144.
The final package, unveiled by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor earlier in the day, would fund the government through Jan. 15 and raise the debt ceiling through Feb. 7.
The bill would also strengthen income verification requirements for those who sign up for insurance under Obamacare, and it would provide time for both parties to appoint lawmakers to a conference committee to reconcile a broad budget resolution. The panel would be led by Budget Committee heads Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, and it would be required to announce the result of its negotiations by Dec. 13.
President Barack Obama said Wednesday evening soon after the Senate vote that he would “immediately” sign the legislation.
When Obama signs the bill, it will end the nation's first government shutdown in 17 years, and give lawmakers more time to negotiate a broader package of spending reforms.
Earlier on Wednesday, there was concern that Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who staged a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor to protest the federal health care law, would use a procedural tactic to block a vote on the deal. But after the deal was announced, Cruz told reporters that he would not move to deter the bill's progress through the chamber.
"I have no objections to the timing, and the reason is simple. There's nothing to be gained from delaying this vote one day or two days," Cruz, who voted against the bill, said. "The outcome will be the same. Every senator, every member of the House is going to have to make a decision where he or she stands, but there's no benefit. I've never had any intention of delaying the timing of this vote."
On Wall Street, the announcement and passage of a deal was welcome news: The S&P 500 index jumped more than 20 points, and other market indicators showed signs of continued confidence in the federal government's ability to pay its bills on time.
The Treasury Department says the U.S. government is close to running out of borrowing authority, which it says will take place at midnight Thursday into Friday.
Because the cash-strapped U.S. government needs to borrow cash to pay for existing programs, failure to raise the debt limit would have meant that not long after Thursday the government will not be able to pay all of its bills.
That would have raised the prospect of a default on America’s public debt as well as on other obligations such as Social Security payments, and send a shock wave through the
IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF 'SETTLED LAW' IS
No major legislation has ever been passed like Obamacare -- and I'm using the word "passed" pretty loosely.
It became law without both houses ever voting on the same bill. (Say, is the Constitution considered "settled law"?) Not one Republican voted for it -- and a lot of Democrats immediately wished they hadn't.
Historically, big laws have been enacted with large, bipartisan majorities. In 1935, President Roosevelt enacted Social Security with a 372-33 vote in the House and 77-6 in the Senate.
In 1965, Medicare passed in the Senate 70-24 and the House 307-116, with the vast majority of Democrats supporting this Ponzi scheme and Republicans roughly split.
Reagan's magnificent tax cuts in 1981 -- which Democrats now denounce as if they'd been appalled at the time -- passed with a vote of 89-11 in the Senate and even 323-107 in the hostile Democratic House.
Even Bill Clinton's signature legislative achievement -- Midnight Basketball for the Homeless -- received more bipartisan support than Obamacare.
No law, certainly not one that fundamentally alters the role of the government, has ever been passed like this.
But now, this greased-through, irregular law is relentlessly defended as "settled law" and "the law of the land"! (At least the parts that Obama hasn't unconstitutionally waived -- again, anybody know if the Constitution is "settled law"?)
Wow -- Obamacare sounds fantastic! Not only does Congress refuse to live under it, but its proponents' strongest argument is that it's "settled law!"The most hilarious part of the "settled law" argument is that it's coming from the left, for whom nothing is ever "settled" until they get their way -- as described in my new book, "Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 -- Especially a Republican."Liberals seem to believe our founding fathers sought to create a country where the pushiest always win. (That's why they're the party of trial lawyers.) They want the nation's policies to be determined by a never-ending co-op board meeting dominated by the most obnoxious shareholders.
As New Yorkers are about to discover if they elect Bill de Blasio mayor, for example, liberals will never abandon their plans to hamstring cops and spring criminals. For 30 years, New York City tried the Democrats' approach to crime. The result was an explosion of murders, rapes, permanent disfigurements, robberies, car thefts and burglaries.
Then Rudy Giuliani came in and saved the city. The dramatic decrease in crime effected by Giuliani's crime policies made commerce, tourism -- life! -- possible again in New York.
But liberals have been biding their time, waiting for people to forget, itching to get their hands on the levers of power so they can start releasing criminals again. (Or as Democrats refer to them, "our base.")
Wasn't "stop and frisk" "settled law"? Why yes, it was, upheld in 1996 by a New York appeals court in People v. Batista. But that settled law was recently overturned by a liberal judge in a case funded by George Soros.
Hey, does anyone know if the Second Amendment is "settled law"?
And how many dozens of states have expressly voted against gay marriage? Are we up to three dozen yet? But liberals consider repeated votes of the people merely an invitation to run to the courts to get the people's will overturned.
California voters said "no" to gay marriage in a statewide initiative to amend their constitution. State courts upheld the amendment prohibiting gay marriage. You might say the No-Gay-Marriage amendment was -- what's the expression? -- "settled law, upheld by the courts."Liberal groups appealed to the federal courts, where an activist judge, who happened to be gay, issued a PC ruling overturning the will of the people. His work done, the judge then resigned from the bench.
Oh -- and how has the left treated "settled law" on race preferences? The fight against racial discrimination goes back to the Civil War, Reconstruction and a slew of Republican amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
But Democrats refuse to give up discriminating on the basis of race. (They just switched which race gets screwed.) The triumph of a color-blind political system lasted for about six minutes before Democrats were at it again.
In 1996, the people of California voted to amend the state constitution to prohibit race discrimination by the state. Liberals sued and sued and sued to overturn a majority vote of the people that merely affirmed constitutional rights won by the Civil War nearly a century and a half ago.
They lost. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the amendment and the Supreme Court refused to review that ruling, making the anti-race discrimination amendment ... the "law of the land"!
But liberals won't stop.
Michigan voters approved a similar amendment to their state constitution in 2006. Guess what "settled law" is on its way to the Supreme Court? Again. Right now.
It's been 17 years! (One-hundred and forty-eight years, if we're counting from the end of the Civil War.)
Liberals will fight until they get their way -- and, as soon as they do, they announce their one victory is "settled law."That's what happened with Obamacare. Weren't Americans reasonably clear about not wanting a hostile takeover of our health care system the last time Democrats tried it?
Hillarycare was so widely reviled that the majority Democratic Congress never held an up-or-down vote on it. In the very next election, the public punished Democrats for even thinking about nationalizing health care by voting in a Republican Congress for the first time in almost half a century.
Obamacare wasn't passed because the nation changed its mind. We got Obamacare because, at a brief moment in time, the Democrats happened to have aberrationally large majorities in the House and Senate, as well as the presidency. It was quickly and unconstitutionally enacted on a strictly party-line vote.
In the very next election, the American people elected 63 new Republicans to the House of Representatives -- the largest sweep of Congress for any party since 1948. Even liberal Massachusetts elected a Republican senator solely because of his vow to vote against Obamacare.
This is why the duly elected Republican majority in the House keeps funding the entire federal government -- except Obamacare. Or except Congress' exemption from Obamacare. Or except the individual mandate that Obama has already waived for his big-business friends.
"Settled law" has nothing to do with it. When Republicans won't give up on an issue, it is because they are defending the will of the people, not pushing some harebrained scheme cooked up by a small group of zealots and imposed on the nation by an activist judge or freak Congress.
When Democrats refuse to give up on an issue, it's against the will of the people with one party laughing, "Ha ha! We have 60 votes!"COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER
It became law without both houses ever voting on the same bill. (Say, is the Constitution considered "settled law"?) Not one Republican voted for it -- and a lot of Democrats immediately wished they hadn't.
Historically, big laws have been enacted with large, bipartisan majorities. In 1935, President Roosevelt enacted Social Security with a 372-33 vote in the House and 77-6 in the Senate.
In 1965, Medicare passed in the Senate 70-24 and the House 307-116, with the vast majority of Democrats supporting this Ponzi scheme and Republicans roughly split.
Reagan's magnificent tax cuts in 1981 -- which Democrats now denounce as if they'd been appalled at the time -- passed with a vote of 89-11 in the Senate and even 323-107 in the hostile Democratic House.
Even Bill Clinton's signature legislative achievement -- Midnight Basketball for the Homeless -- received more bipartisan support than Obamacare.
No law, certainly not one that fundamentally alters the role of the government, has ever been passed like this.
But now, this greased-through, irregular law is relentlessly defended as "settled law" and "the law of the land"! (At least the parts that Obama hasn't unconstitutionally waived -- again, anybody know if the Constitution is "settled law"?)
Wow -- Obamacare sounds fantastic! Not only does Congress refuse to live under it, but its proponents' strongest argument is that it's "settled law!"The most hilarious part of the "settled law" argument is that it's coming from the left, for whom nothing is ever "settled" until they get their way -- as described in my new book, "Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 -- Especially a Republican."Liberals seem to believe our founding fathers sought to create a country where the pushiest always win. (That's why they're the party of trial lawyers.) They want the nation's policies to be determined by a never-ending co-op board meeting dominated by the most obnoxious shareholders.
As New Yorkers are about to discover if they elect Bill de Blasio mayor, for example, liberals will never abandon their plans to hamstring cops and spring criminals. For 30 years, New York City tried the Democrats' approach to crime. The result was an explosion of murders, rapes, permanent disfigurements, robberies, car thefts and burglaries.
Then Rudy Giuliani came in and saved the city. The dramatic decrease in crime effected by Giuliani's crime policies made commerce, tourism -- life! -- possible again in New York.
But liberals have been biding their time, waiting for people to forget, itching to get their hands on the levers of power so they can start releasing criminals again. (Or as Democrats refer to them, "our base.")
Wasn't "stop and frisk" "settled law"? Why yes, it was, upheld in 1996 by a New York appeals court in People v. Batista. But that settled law was recently overturned by a liberal judge in a case funded by George Soros.
Hey, does anyone know if the Second Amendment is "settled law"?
And how many dozens of states have expressly voted against gay marriage? Are we up to three dozen yet? But liberals consider repeated votes of the people merely an invitation to run to the courts to get the people's will overturned.
California voters said "no" to gay marriage in a statewide initiative to amend their constitution. State courts upheld the amendment prohibiting gay marriage. You might say the No-Gay-Marriage amendment was -- what's the expression? -- "settled law, upheld by the courts."Liberal groups appealed to the federal courts, where an activist judge, who happened to be gay, issued a PC ruling overturning the will of the people. His work done, the judge then resigned from the bench.
Oh -- and how has the left treated "settled law" on race preferences? The fight against racial discrimination goes back to the Civil War, Reconstruction and a slew of Republican amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
But Democrats refuse to give up discriminating on the basis of race. (They just switched which race gets screwed.) The triumph of a color-blind political system lasted for about six minutes before Democrats were at it again.
In 1996, the people of California voted to amend the state constitution to prohibit race discrimination by the state. Liberals sued and sued and sued to overturn a majority vote of the people that merely affirmed constitutional rights won by the Civil War nearly a century and a half ago.
They lost. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the amendment and the Supreme Court refused to review that ruling, making the anti-race discrimination amendment ... the "law of the land"!
But liberals won't stop.
Michigan voters approved a similar amendment to their state constitution in 2006. Guess what "settled law" is on its way to the Supreme Court? Again. Right now.
It's been 17 years! (One-hundred and forty-eight years, if we're counting from the end of the Civil War.)
Liberals will fight until they get their way -- and, as soon as they do, they announce their one victory is "settled law."That's what happened with Obamacare. Weren't Americans reasonably clear about not wanting a hostile takeover of our health care system the last time Democrats tried it?
Hillarycare was so widely reviled that the majority Democratic Congress never held an up-or-down vote on it. In the very next election, the public punished Democrats for even thinking about nationalizing health care by voting in a Republican Congress for the first time in almost half a century.
Obamacare wasn't passed because the nation changed its mind. We got Obamacare because, at a brief moment in time, the Democrats happened to have aberrationally large majorities in the House and Senate, as well as the presidency. It was quickly and unconstitutionally enacted on a strictly party-line vote.
In the very next election, the American people elected 63 new Republicans to the House of Representatives -- the largest sweep of Congress for any party since 1948. Even liberal Massachusetts elected a Republican senator solely because of his vow to vote against Obamacare.
This is why the duly elected Republican majority in the House keeps funding the entire federal government -- except Obamacare. Or except Congress' exemption from Obamacare. Or except the individual mandate that Obama has already waived for his big-business friends.
"Settled law" has nothing to do with it. When Republicans won't give up on an issue, it is because they are defending the will of the people, not pushing some harebrained scheme cooked up by a small group of zealots and imposed on the nation by an activist judge or freak Congress.
When Democrats refuse to give up on an issue, it's against the will of the people with one party laughing, "Ha ha! We have 60 votes!"COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER
Mitch McConnell gets nearly $3 billion for Kentucky dam project in congressional deal
Most experts agree that there were no real winners in the government shutdown debate. And many political forecasters say the brunt of fallout from the debate over the shutdown and the debt ceiling is likely to hurt Republican lawmakers.
However, the nation’s leading Republican senator came out of the deal far from empty handed. That’s because it’s been reported that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell secured language in the new government funding bill that includes nearly $3 billion for a dam project in his home state of Kentucky.
According to reports, a provision in the funding bill includes $2.918 billion in funding to the Army Corps of Engineers to install locks as part of the Olmsted Dam and Lock Authority Project on the Ohio River.
A recent investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that the project has run millions of dollars over budget and should have been completed “years ago.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the project will not be fully complete until 2024.
McConnell’s spokesman dodged a question about the funding provision when asked by local radio affiliate WFPL.
“Senators (Diane) Feinstein and (Lamar) Alexander, the chair and ranking member of the energy and water subcommittee, worked on the issue and can help you," spokesman Robert Steurer told the station.
The Wall Street Journal says the funding is a substantial increase from the $755 million in funding initially designated for the project. They said the provision was the largest included in the government funding bill agreement reached on Wednesday, along with funding for a roads project in Colorado.
For his part, Alexander said he supported the provision, noting the House and Senate had already approved it earlier this year.
“According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 160 million taxpayer dollars will be wasted because of canceled contracts if this language is not included. Sen. [Diane] Feinstein and I, as chairman and ranking member of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, requested this provision,” Alexander said in a statement to BuzzFeed.
Alexander’s home state of Tennessee is also expected to benefit from the Olmsted dam project, along with Illinois.
The provision is not technically an earmark, the now barred forms of special project funding that for years was added to larger spending bills in order to win the support of lawmakers.
However, that didn’t stop the conservative watchdog site Senate Conservatives Fund from going after McConnell.
“Well now U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has an Obamacare earmark of his own,” the site said in a post on Wednesday, comparing the provision to a funding provision won over by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson in 2009 in exchange for his vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act.
“This is an insult to all the Kentucky families who don't want to pay for Obamacare and don't want to shoulder any more debt,” the site says.
McConnell faces a Republican primary challenge in his 2014 re-election race from Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin. Recent polls McConnell facing a potentially tight race against his likely Democratic opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes.
This is one reason this country is in so much debt is because of projects like this. I am not saying the project does not need to be done, but it has already run over budget by "millions of dollars" and should have been completed years ago. So millions of dollars have already been wasted and we are going to throw almost 3 million more dollars into it with no guarantee it will be completed with this money. This is a disgrace to the people of this country and to the country itself. What happened to the "millions" of dollars that went into the project? How much was wasted? How much was abused? Why do we the people continue to put up with this? Are we able to run our homes like they run the government? I know I can't. How about you? If you can please let me know and let me know how you can do it, because I am seriously interested in how it can be done on a continuous basis.
However, the nation’s leading Republican senator came out of the deal far from empty handed. That’s because it’s been reported that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell secured language in the new government funding bill that includes nearly $3 billion for a dam project in his home state of Kentucky.
According to reports, a provision in the funding bill includes $2.918 billion in funding to the Army Corps of Engineers to install locks as part of the Olmsted Dam and Lock Authority Project on the Ohio River.
A recent investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that the project has run millions of dollars over budget and should have been completed “years ago.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the project will not be fully complete until 2024.
McConnell’s spokesman dodged a question about the funding provision when asked by local radio affiliate WFPL.
“Senators (Diane) Feinstein and (Lamar) Alexander, the chair and ranking member of the energy and water subcommittee, worked on the issue and can help you," spokesman Robert Steurer told the station.
The Wall Street Journal says the funding is a substantial increase from the $755 million in funding initially designated for the project. They said the provision was the largest included in the government funding bill agreement reached on Wednesday, along with funding for a roads project in Colorado.
For his part, Alexander said he supported the provision, noting the House and Senate had already approved it earlier this year.
“According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 160 million taxpayer dollars will be wasted because of canceled contracts if this language is not included. Sen. [Diane] Feinstein and I, as chairman and ranking member of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, requested this provision,” Alexander said in a statement to BuzzFeed.
Alexander’s home state of Tennessee is also expected to benefit from the Olmsted dam project, along with Illinois.
The provision is not technically an earmark, the now barred forms of special project funding that for years was added to larger spending bills in order to win the support of lawmakers.
However, that didn’t stop the conservative watchdog site Senate Conservatives Fund from going after McConnell.
“Well now U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has an Obamacare earmark of his own,” the site said in a post on Wednesday, comparing the provision to a funding provision won over by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson in 2009 in exchange for his vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act.
“This is an insult to all the Kentucky families who don't want to pay for Obamacare and don't want to shoulder any more debt,” the site says.
McConnell faces a Republican primary challenge in his 2014 re-election race from Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin. Recent polls McConnell facing a potentially tight race against his likely Democratic opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes.
This is one reason this country is in so much debt is because of projects like this. I am not saying the project does not need to be done, but it has already run over budget by "millions of dollars" and should have been completed years ago. So millions of dollars have already been wasted and we are going to throw almost 3 million more dollars into it with no guarantee it will be completed with this money. This is a disgrace to the people of this country and to the country itself. What happened to the "millions" of dollars that went into the project? How much was wasted? How much was abused? Why do we the people continue to put up with this? Are we able to run our homes like they run the government? I know I can't. How about you? If you can please let me know and let me know how you can do it, because I am seriously interested in how it can be done on a continuous basis.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Senators closing in on deal to reopen government
Senate leaders nearing agreement to fully reopen government, avoid threat of default
By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate leaders are closing in on an agreement to reopen the government and forestall an economy-rattling default on U.S. obligations. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky could seal an agreement on Tuesday, just two days before the Treasury Department says it will run out of borrowing capacity. The emerging pact would reopen the government through Jan. 15 and permit the Treasury to borrow normally until early to mid-February, easing dual crises that have sapped confidence in the economy and taken a sledgehammer to the GOP's poll numbers. "The general framework is there" between Reid and McConnell, said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. He said conversations with the House were continuing and he thought it would be midday Tuesday at the earliest before a plan was finalized. President Barack Obama telephoned McConnell on Monday to talk about the emerging deal, a McConnell aide said. Congressional leaders had been scheduled to meet with Obama at the White House on Monday, but the meeting was postponed to allow more time for negotiations. On Wall Street, futures were mixed early Tuesday, with investors somewhat optimistic over a potential deal. Sen. Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat who was part of the bipartisan group known as the Gang of 12 which labored over the weekend to end the stalemate, said Tuesday he was "pretty confident" the Senate leadership and the White House would announce an agreement some time later in the day. Speaking of the House, Pryor told CNN that "some Republicans are, quite honestly, they're acting childish about this. They almost want a shutdown. They almost want to see us break the debt ceiling." Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also a part of the Gang of 12, told "CBS This Morning" she believes an agreement is near that "doesn't contain a lot of the partisan pills" that sank earlier proposals. She said it's urgent that national leaders find solutions to vexing issues so that the country doesn't "lurch from one financial crisis to another." Many House conservatives were unhappy about the emerging framework, though it remained to be seen whether they would seek to change it. "One of the things we want to test is just basic fairness," Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, an influential group of House conservatives, said on CNN Tuesday. He was asked how conservatives would respond to the plan taking shape in the Senate. "One of the things we don't want to see is just another patch," he said. "We're willing to get the government open. We want to get the government open," Scalise said. "Hopefully they get something done that addresses the spending issue." The developing plan is a far cry from the assault on "Obamacare" that tea party Republicans originally demanded as a condition for a short-term funding bill to keep the government fully operational. It lacks the budget cuts demanded by Republicans in exchange for increasing the government's $16.7 trillion borrowing cap. Nor does the framework contain any of a secondary set of House GOP demands, like a one-year delay in the health law's mandate that individuals buy insurance. Instead, it appeared likely to tighten income verification requirements for individuals who qualify for Obamacare subsidies and may repeal a $63 fee that companies must pay for each person they cover under the big health care overhaul beginning in 2014. Democratic and Republican aides described the outlines of the potential agreement on condition of anonymity because the discussions were ongoing. But with GOP poll numbers plummeting and the country growing weary of a shutdown entering its third week, Senate Republicans in particular were eager to end the shutdown — and avoid an even greater crisis if the government were to default later this month. Any legislation backed by both Reid and McConnell can be expected to sail through the Senate, though any individual senators could delay it. But it's another story in the House, where it wasn't winning a lot of fans among conservatives. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, signaled that conservative members of the House were deeply skeptical. He said any bill had to have serious spending cuts for him to vote to raise the debt ceiling and said he thought Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had more flexibility than they had said publicly. "No deal is better than a bad deal," Barton said. Asked whether the emerging package contained any victories for Republicans, Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., a member of the House GOP leadership, said, "Not that I've seen so far, no." McConnell briefed House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Monday on the status of the Senate talks. Both House and Senate GOP leaders scheduled closed-door meetings of their respective memberships for Tuesday. In addition to approving legislation to fund the government until late this year and avert a possible debt crisis later this week or month, the potential pact would set up broader budget negotiations between the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate. One goal of those talks would be to ease automatic spending cuts that began in March and could deepen in January, when about $20 billion in further cuts are set to slam the Pentagon. Democrats were standing against a GOP-backed proposal to suspend a medical device tax that was enacted as part of the health care law. Democrats also were seeking to preserve the Treasury Department's ability to use extraordinary accounting measures to buy additional time after the government reaches any extended debt ceiling. Such measures have permitted Treasury to avert a default for almost five months since the government officially hit the debt limit in mid-May, but wouldn't buy anywhere near that kind of time next year, experts said. Some lawmakers are frustrated that defusing the immediate standoff simply sets up another fight next year. "It's punting because no one, Democrats, Republicans wants to face up — and the American people — to the tough reality that we're in," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. "It's all a temporary fix."
'Prayer pressure’: The Senate chaplain’s crusade to bring Congress to its knees
By
John Donvan, Richard Coolidge and Jordyn Phelps
In the course of the Senate’s ordinary business, the chaplain is a somewhat anonymous figure. After delivering a prayer when the Senate convenes each day, he fades from the public view and into the background of the daily debate.
But since the government shutdown began two weeks ago, business in the U.S. Senate has been anything but ordinary as have the prayers from Chaplain Barry Black.
"Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable," Black appealed in one of his recent morning prayers that have been doled out like daily scoldings to the deadlocked Congress.
Black sat down with “Power Players” to discuss the critical tone of his recent prayers, explaining that he sees it as his job “to be gadfly of sorts” – spurring his congregation of senators to action.
“I'm not judging and I'm not scolding, actually,” Black said. “My responsibility as a pastor is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I need to be a gadfly of sorts. … I think that I should reflect the challenges of the environment that I'm working in.”
And, he adds, his prayers are not only for the lawmakers’ ears, but for God’s.
“I also believe that my prayers make a difference because God answers prayers,” Black said.
Despite the fact that Black is criticizing the congregation of senators whom he serves, he says he has received positive feedback.
“I've had senators say to me frequently, ‘Keep the prayer pressure on’,” Black said. “One senator come to me and said, ‘Chaplain, I hope our lawmakers are listening, because I've been following your prayers very, very closely … and they are really making a difference in my reflections’."
If you think the Senate isn’t a very prayerful place, Black says think again: “You'd better believe it.”
“I think there is something about the challenge of doing this job that strengthens your prayer life,” Black said. “People who are used to getting things done, former governors and mayors, find themselves in perpetual check. And that can be very exasperating and make you call on the transcendent.”
For more of the interview with Black, including why he says he’s not too worried about the fact that he is one of the many government employees whose pay has been frozen since the shutdown began, check out this episode of “Power Players.”
ABC’s Gary Westphalen, Alexandra Dukakis, Mark Stoddard, Wayne Boyd, Mary Quinn, and Pat Glass contributed to this episode.
John Donvan, Richard Coolidge and Jordyn Phelps
In the course of the Senate’s ordinary business, the chaplain is a somewhat anonymous figure. After delivering a prayer when the Senate convenes each day, he fades from the public view and into the background of the daily debate.
But since the government shutdown began two weeks ago, business in the U.S. Senate has been anything but ordinary as have the prayers from Chaplain Barry Black.
"Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable," Black appealed in one of his recent morning prayers that have been doled out like daily scoldings to the deadlocked Congress.
Black sat down with “Power Players” to discuss the critical tone of his recent prayers, explaining that he sees it as his job “to be gadfly of sorts” – spurring his congregation of senators to action.
“I'm not judging and I'm not scolding, actually,” Black said. “My responsibility as a pastor is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. I need to be a gadfly of sorts. … I think that I should reflect the challenges of the environment that I'm working in.”
And, he adds, his prayers are not only for the lawmakers’ ears, but for God’s.
“I also believe that my prayers make a difference because God answers prayers,” Black said.
Despite the fact that Black is criticizing the congregation of senators whom he serves, he says he has received positive feedback.
“I've had senators say to me frequently, ‘Keep the prayer pressure on’,” Black said. “One senator come to me and said, ‘Chaplain, I hope our lawmakers are listening, because I've been following your prayers very, very closely … and they are really making a difference in my reflections’."
If you think the Senate isn’t a very prayerful place, Black says think again: “You'd better believe it.”
“I think there is something about the challenge of doing this job that strengthens your prayer life,” Black said. “People who are used to getting things done, former governors and mayors, find themselves in perpetual check. And that can be very exasperating and make you call on the transcendent.”
For more of the interview with Black, including why he says he’s not too worried about the fact that he is one of the many government employees whose pay has been frozen since the shutdown began, check out this episode of “Power Players.”
ABC’s Gary Westphalen, Alexandra Dukakis, Mark Stoddard, Wayne Boyd, Mary Quinn, and Pat Glass contributed to this episode.
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