Senate GOP worries tax standoff could cost them chance at upper chamber

Senate Republicans are worried the standoff over extending the payroll tax holiday could hurt their chances of winning the upper chamber next year.
 
Senior Republican aides have made clear in private conversations that their bosses are not happy with how House Republicans have handled a bipartisan Senate compromise to extend tax relief for two months.


“It’s not helping,” a veteran Senate Republican strategist said of the House GOP fight against the Senate package. “Senate Republicans are tired of paying the price for the lack of legislative thoughtfulness in the House.”
 
The political operative said incumbents such as Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) could pay the price. 


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What is Mitt Romney Hiding?

Common Cause/NY’s Mapping Democracy Project has drawn the only statewide reform maps for both houses of the state legislature and Congress

Common Cause/NY’s Mapping Democracy Project has drawn the only statewide reform maps for both houses of the state legislature and Congress. Working with a Citizens’ Advisory Committee including academics, headed by CC/NY board member Sean Coffey, we started with a blank state without reference to existing district lines or incumbents, and, relying on demographic data, applied reform criteria to draw maps that provide an example of what can and should be done to achieve fair, non-politicized districts.

If you feel that the Common Cause Reform Maps do not appropriately reflect the communities of interests and neighborhoods you are familiar with, you can access the Common Cause Reform Maps on Newsday’s U Map NY website and modify them. You can save the maps that you drawn and share them with us, with friends or with elected officials.

Common Cause Reform Map for Congress
District by District Explanation of Common Cause Reform Map for Congress
Common Cause Reform Map for State Senate
District by District Explanation of Common Cause Reform Map for State Senate
Common Cause Reform Map for State Assembly
Region by Region Explanation of Common Cause Reform Map for State Assembly
U Map NY – Common Cause Reform Maps in Interactive Format
Explanation of Procedure and Criteria Used to Draw Common Cause Reform Maps

New York State Legislative Session Calendar January — June 2012

2012 New York State Legislative Session Calendar REVISED

Congressional net worth more than doubles since 1984

One day after his shift at the steel mill, Gary Myers drove home in his 10-year-old Pontiac and told his wife he was going to run for Congress.


The odds were long. At 34, ­Myers was the shift foreman at the “hot mill” of the Armco plant here. He had no political experience and little or no money, and he was a Republican in a district that tilted Democratic.

But standing in the dining room, still in his work clothes, he said he felt voters deserved a better choice.

Three years later, he won.

When Myers entered Congress, in 1975, it wasn’t nearly so unusual for a person with few assets besides a home to win and serve in Congress. Though lawmakers on Capitol Hill have long been more prosperous than other Americans, others of that time included a barber, a pipe fitter and a house painter. A handful had even organized into what was called the “Blue Collar Caucus.”

But the financial gap between Americans and their representatives in Congress has widened considerably since then, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by The Washington Post.

Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home ­equity.

Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.

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The President and First Lady Thank our Troops for their Service as we Celebrate the Holiday Season

Mitt for X-Mas

Merry Christmas

Tea Party and the GOP

Paul Krugman Blasts Romney Campaign: 'Utterly Fraudulent'

Suppose that President Obama were to say the following: “Mitt Romney believes that corporations are people, and he believes that only corporations and the wealthy should have any rights. He wants to reduce middle-class Americans to serfs, forced to accept whatever wages corporations choose to pay, no matter how low.”

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

How would this statement be received? I believe, and hope, that it would be almost universally condemned, by liberals as well as conservatives. Mr. Romney did once say that corporations are people, but he didn’t mean it literally; he supports policies that would be good for corporations and the wealthy and bad for the middle class, but that’s a long way from saying that he wants to introduce feudalism.

But now consider what Mr. Romney actually said on Tuesday: “President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others.”
And in an interview the same day, Mr. Romney declared that the president “is going to put free enterprise on trial.”

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Harry Reid Payroll Tax Win Is Second Victory Over Tea Party

You can forgive Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) if he's feeling like a Tea Party slayer. He not only led a stinging rebuke to the conservative wing of the Republican Party by pushing the House to accept the short-term payroll tax cut Friday, but he earned the chance to do so by defeating Tea Party darling Sharron Angle little more than a year ago to keep his job.

Angle rode her Tea Party support to a Nevada primary victory over more mainstream Republicans, only to lose to Reid by six points, even though his own ratings were not good.

Jon Summers, who helped Reid orchestrate that win, said it's because whatever anyone thinks about the ex-boxer, he understands people and politics in a way that true believers of the Tea Party do not.

"Harry Reid gets regular people," said Summers. "They're mostly middle of the road. And if you ask people who are already having a hard time scraping by whether it's rational to raise their [payroll] taxes $1,000, they would look at you with bewilderment."

Voters' reaction was at the heart of why Reid and his team on the Democratic side were able to trump the House GOP, even after the Tea Party-aligned members rebelled: No one wanted to explain that Republicans had rejected a Senate bill that preserved a tax cut for ordinary Americans.

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GOP CAVES

WASHINGTON -- Ending a dramatic political stand-off, House Republican leaders agreed on Thursday to pass a Senate-endorsed short-term extension of the payroll tax cut in return for House-Senate negotiations on a year-long package.

The House could vote on the bill as soon as Friday at 10 a.m., a House GOP aide confirmed. The bill would come up under unanimous consent, which means it could pass on a voice vote without requiring members to be present. Under that scenario, the Senate could take up the bill and pass it as soon as Friday as well.

The agreement ensures that a 2 percent tax break for about 160 million people will not expire on Jan. 1, and that Medicare payments will not be slashed for doctors. Emergency unemployment benefits also will continue.

House GOP leaders had been adamant that they had to have a year-long extension, arguing that a two-month version would create economic uncertainty. They reaffirmed that position as recently as Tuesday morning.

But pressure to secure the break kept rising, with everyone from Senate Republicans to the Wall Street Journal editorial page warning that their holdout was damaging the party's image. On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) became the latest to try and nudge House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) into backing down, urging him to take the two-month deal in exchange for a guarantee from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he would appoint conferees to hash out a longer package.

"I think the general mood was that this was bungled from early on," a GOP source said. "After what the Wall Street Journal and [Karl] Rove said, it became clear that Obama had the upper hand.

"When people are living from paycheck to paycheck, it's tough to take the longview talking about trillion-dollar deficits," the source added. "The leadership simply didn't understand that."

House GOP leaders called a conference call with members for around 5 p.m. Thursday to lay out the agreement, a source said.

While the final deal represents a fairly stunning defeat for House GOP leadership, on strict policy terms, the Republican Party was able to secure major concessions. Democrats had initially wanted a surtax on income above a million dollars as a means for paying for the measure. That was scrapped. The president had also insisted that he would oppose any payroll tax extension that forced his administration to build the Keystone pipeline -- which would carry crude oil from Canada through the United States. The final bill doesn't force construction but it does require that a decision be made within 60 days. Those victories ended up obscured by the fumbled effort, on the part of the House GOP leadership, to get even more concessions (which they hoped to do by holding out for a year-long bill, to which they could attach even more spending cuts).

While broad outlines of the deal were emerging, its passage was not necessarily a sure thing. Republicans in the Senate had been confident that their agreement reached last Saturday would be approved. Instead, House GOP rank and file rebelled when Boehner presented it in a conference call.

Still, with the Republican Party recovering from a week-long pummeling for rejecting the extension of the tax holiday, this agreement seemed more likely to stick -- especially after several House Republicans had already begun to publicly call on their fellow lawmakers to accept the Senate bill.

Critical for the deal was the resolution of a highly technical payroll administration matter. The final agreement will eliminate a Senate provision that had irked the National Payroll Reporting Consortium. In order to prevent high earners from taking undue advantage of a reduced rate that might last just two months, the Senate bill would have required employers to pay at the full 6.2 percent rate on income above $18,350 during that time.

Workers pay Social Security taxes only on their first $110,000 worth of annual income. If someone earned more than one-sixth of that amount in January and February and the payroll tax cut expired in March, the thinking went, high earners could fulfill their yearly obligation to Social Security at a lower rate than everybody else, and get a break worth some $2,000 in only two months.

Citing the consortium's letter, Republicans had called the bill totally unworkable, though consortium president Pete Isberg told HuffPost it would have been difficult but not impossible for employers to implement the new wage cap.

"It's not impossible, it's just it would be very disruptive and costly for lots and lots of businesses," Isberg said.

Senate GOP to GOP in Congress..Pass the Bill!!

Moments after House Republican leaders dug in their heels on blocking a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered his colleagues a path out of the politically damaging position.

Last week the Senate overwhelmingly passed a two-month extension of the 2 percent break, which expires New Year's Day. But House GOP leaders rejected that deal, saying they would only accept a yearlong extension, even though many in their own party have been highly critical of the opposition.

So McConnell (R-Ky.), who negotiated the Senate deal, offered a new idea Thursday, suggesting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appoint members to a conference committee to work out a longer deal between the two chambers in return for the House passing the two-month stopgap now.

"House Republicans sensibly want greater certainty about the duration of these provisions, while Senate Democrats want more time to negotiate the terms," McConnell said in a statement. "These goals are not mutually exclusive. We can and should do both."

"Leader Reid should appoint conferees on the long-term bill and the House should pass an extension that locks in the thousands of Keystone XL pipeline jobs, prevents any disruption in the payroll tax holiday or other expiring provisions, and allows Congress to work on a solution for the longer extensions," McConnell continued.

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How the Speaker Stole Christmas

GOP Literally Walk Out On Payroll Tax Cut

While Republican leaders gathered in Speaker John Boehner’s Capitol office Wednesday morning for a photo op with reporters — hectoring Democrats and making the case that they’re on the right side of the payroll tax fight — an unusual scene played out on the House floor.

In an attempt to illustrate just who’s at fault for the payroll tax stalemate Minority Whip Steny Hoyer showed up to ask for a vote on the Senate’s compromise bill. Republicans could have simply objected and given Hoyer his talking point. Instead they gave him so much more.

Republicans just ignored Hoyer and refused to hear his unanimous consent request. The fill-in Speaker simply walked away.

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent that we bring up the bill to extend the tax cut to 160 million Americans, as you walk off the floor Mr. Speaker, you’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class tax payers, the unemployed, and very frankly as well from those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors — 48 million senior citizens.”

The Speaker Pro Temp, Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), was just following orders. But the optics for Republicans — who were, again, just down the hall for a media spray — were terrible.

Wall Street Journal' Editorial Rips Boehner, McConnell

GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

House Republicans yesterday voted down the Senate's two-month extension of the two-percentage-point payroll tax holiday to 4.2% from 6.2%. They say the short extension makes no economic sense, but then neither does a one-year extension. No employer is going to hire a worker based on such a small and temporary decrease in employment costs, as this year's tax holiday has demonstrated. The entire exercise is political, but Republicans have thoroughly botched the politics.

Senate Republicans say Mr. Boehner had signed off on the two-month extension, but House Members revolted over the weekend and so the Speaker flipped within 24 hours. Mr. Boehner is now demanding that Mr. Reid name conferees for a House-Senate conference on the payroll tax bills. But Mr. Reid and the White House are having too much fun blaming Republicans for "raising taxes on the middle class" as of January 1. Don't be surprised if they stretch this out to the State of the Union, when Mr. Obama will have a national audience to capture the tax issue.

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'Fox News Viewers Are The Most Uninformed' (VIDEO)

Ed Schultz broke out a new weapon to counter Rush Limbaugh's charges against Democratic voters: a recent study from Fairleigh Dickinson University that found people who watch Fox News are less informed than people who don't watch any news at all.

On Monday, Limbaugh alleged that "ignorant and uninformed voters" put President Obama into office, and that Democrats were trying to dumb down students in school.

In his Psychotalk segment on Monday, Schultz hammered Limbaugh with the study. He appeared to relish the results, which showed that Fox News viewers did worse on questions about world events than people who don't watch news. 

"Misinformation is the cornerstone of the Republican election strategy," Schultz alleged. He replayed clips of Megyn Kelly calling pepper spray "a food product," Sean Hannity referring to "death panels" as part of health care reform, and Gretchen Carlson discussing a theory that aliens could attack the earth to stop global warming.

"So Fox News viewers are the most uninformed and most Fox News viewers are Republicans," Schultz concluded, citing another poll. Watch the segment in the clip above.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Owens Blasts Partisanship, Urges Immediate Action on Payroll Tax Cut

Washington, Dec 20 - Congressman Owens urged Republican House Leadership today to provide immediate tax relief for the American middle-class by passing an extension of the payroll tax cut, which recently passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support, 89-10.  The two-month extension provides the House and Senate enough time to work on a year-long deal.

“If Republican House leadership is serious about solving this problem, we will pass the Senate bill today and immediately begin work on a long-term extension,” said Owens.“Senate Republicans have joined House Democrats in the call to pass this bipartisan agreement and extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans.

“If the House fails to act on the Senate bill, taxes will go up – bottom line. The Senate negotiated a bipartisan deal that House Republican leadership expressed support for over the weekend before their extreme right flank began to revolt.  It was clear last night the Senate bill would likely pass the House with support of Democrats and moderate Republicans.  The fact that House Republican leadership is bending to the will of an extreme minority and refusing to allow an up or down vote on this bill showcases Washington at its worst.

“I would have preferred the Democratic proposal I voted in favor of last week that would have offset a year-long extension of the payroll tax cut with a small surcharge on the wealthy. But that was not the bipartisan agreement reached over the weekend.  I am fully prepared to join Senate Republicans and approve this deal if House Republicans will allow it to the floor for a vote.

“Later today I plan to vote against the Motion to go to Conference because it is a motion to ‘disagree with’ the Senate bill and reopen negations on an issue that has already been settled by a majority in both parties.  The only reasonable path forward at this moment is a straightforward vote on the two-month extension the Senate passed Saturday.

“It’s time for the House to stop acting like children on the playground asking for a ‘do-over.’ Everyone must make concessions in a compromise, just as Republicans and Democrats in Albany did recently to cut taxes for the middle class.  There is no reason why Washington can’t follow that example.” 

# # #

Tempers grow short as hard-line conservatives remain opposed to a two-month extension that easily passed the Senate.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) called the House rejection of the Senate bill "irresponsible and wrong." Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said the Senate compromise was "best for the country." Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said there was no reason to hold up the short-term extension. "What is playing out in Washington, D.C., this week is about political leverage, not about what's good for the American people," he said.


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STOP THE MIDDLE CLASS TAX INCREASE Something remarkable happened this weekend -- Democrats and Senate Republicans worked together to stop a $1,000 payroll tax hike on 160 million middle class families. Sounds too good to be true? It is, if House Tea Party Republicans don’t do the right thing and support it. Thirty-nine Republicans in the Senate voted for a middle class tax cut compromise, but Tea Party Republicans are ready to scrap the bill and sock the middle class with a $1,000 tax hike on January 1st. That will cost Americans money when they can least afford it. The Tea Party is mugging the middle class with a tax increase because they don't think millionaires and corporations should pay their fair share. Sign our petition today and tell House Republicans to stand with the middle class, not the Tea Party, and support the $1,000 payroll tax cut compromise before it’s too late. Call House Republicans: (202) 224-3121

Flowers

Occupy D.C.

Blasting Boehner

12/18/11 4:13 PM

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer blasted House Speaker John Boehner for his statements today on the payroll-tax cut deal that passed the Senate on Saturday.

"The bipartisan compromise passed in the Senate yesterday received 89 votes, including 39 Republican votes, and Speaker Boehner himself just yesterday called it a “good deal” and a “victory.”  The near 90 percent approval by the Senate reflected the view by the overwhelming number of Senate Republicans – as well as Democrats – that the best way to achieve the President’s goal of ensuring that taxes were not increased on 160 million Americans as we enter the New Year was to support this bipartisan compromise.  If House Republicans refuse to pass this bipartisan bill to extend the payroll tax cut, there will be a significant tax increase on 160 million hardworking Americans in 13 days that would damage the economy and job growth.  After months of opposition, we are glad that Republicans were finally showing a willingness to not raise taxes on middle class families.  As the President said yesterday, it is inexcusable to do anything less than extend this tax cut for the entire year, and Congress must work on a one year deal.  But they should pass the two month extension now to avoid a devastating tax hike from hitting the middle class in just 13 days.  It’s time House Republicans stop playing politics and get the job done for the American people."

Horton Hears a Mitt ???

UPDATE - House Republicans are threatening to reject the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extension deal approved by the Senate, according to GOP sources. The House GOP convened a conference call Saturday afternoon, where rank-and-file members expressed open hostility to the bargain. Neither House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) or Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is interested in fighting for a deal cut by Senate Leaders Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with little of their input. GOP sources said that passage of the Senate bill was highly unlikely, and that House Republicans are more likely either to amend it and return it next week, or appoint conferees to find a compromise.

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Hearing impaired legislator-elect hopes to be an inspiration

Oswego County legislator-elect Dan Farfaglia is ready to take office at the first of the year. He overcame what he thought would be a tough battle to win the District 24 seat from incumbent Republican legislator Mark Fruce.

Just nine votes shy of winning by 200 votes, Farfaglia, a Democrat, said he was surprised.

“I was expecting those numbers but I thought they would be the other way around,” he said.

After celebrating his victory, Farfaglia began the task of overcoming his next challenge — to be able to hear in the legislature chambers.

Farfaglia is 80-percent deaf in his left ear and 60-percent deaf in his right ear.

He utilizes hearing aids and lip reading. “I can read lips but I can’t do it without sound,” he noted.

Farfaglia said he has met with County Administrator Phil Church to discuss accommodations so he does not miss any part of the meetings. He said he will turn to those speaking behind him to allow him to lip read and better listen.

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Weekly Address: Honoring Those Who Served in Iraq

President Obama expresses gratitude for the historic achievements of the brave men and women who have served in the war in Iraq -- and welcomes our troops home as we mark the official end to the war.

GOP lawsuit on prison gerrymandering is tossed

State Supreme Court Judge Eugene Devine has dismissed the lawsuit brought by several GOP senators — including Queensbury’s Betty Little — against the state law requiring that state prisoners must be counted for purposes of reapportionment in their pre-incarceration addresses, and not in the prisons where they currently lay their heads. Democrats and Republicans have argued for years over the fairness of the old system, which tended to boost rural, upstate, Republican districts with convicts from largely urban and Democratic regions.

The suit had complicated the work of LATFOR, the legislative panel charged with drawing new legislative lines. GOP sources say the plaintiffs plan to appeal.

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Legislator-elect from Parish owes county thousands in back taxes

Oswego County Legislator-elect David Holst owes $8,127 in delinquent property taxes, according to county property tax records.

Holst, according to the Oswego County Treasurer’s office, is in arrears $7,344.55 and $782.52, going back to 2008.

The records also show that the county had twice foreclosed on Holst’s property and he redeemed it prior to the property tax auction dates.

According to documents filed with the Oswego County Clerk’s office, Holst’s property was taken by the county March 15, 2000 and he bought it back Oct. 2, 2000.

While there appears to be no state law to prevent Holst from taking office, he will have to disclose his arrears to the county’s ethics board when he submits a mandatory financial disclosure statement should his delinquent taxes not be paid.

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MITT ROMNEY: Simply out of touch - Ten Thousand Times Over

Super Committee GOP 'Put America Second and the Politics First'

In a National Journal/United Technologies live policy briefing on Tuesday morning, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said that Republican members of the super committee refused every step of the way to meet Democrats halfway on a deficit-reduction deal.

Kerry said that Democrats unanimously pushed for a near-$4 trillion deal at the expense of many "sacred cows" of Democratic entitlement policies, but Republicans would not compromise.

Cuomo, Skelos and Silver: We Have A Deal

Legislative leaders and Gov. Andrew Cuomo this afternoon announced they had tentatively forged a massive deal on restructuring the state’s tax code, reduce the MTA payroll tax and provide $50 million in storm aid.

Under the new code, the top tax rate is set at $2 million and cuts nearly $700 million in taxes, but also is able to close nearly half of a $3.5 billion deficit.

The agreement, aimed at reviving the state’s stagnate economy, is unusual in both its broad scope and end-of-the-year timing.

The $690 million tax cut affects about 4.4 million and expires in December 2014, the end of Cuomo’s first term.

As we reported earlier, the reshaping of the tax structure will generate $1.9 billion in new revenue for the state — reflecting that the move is not “revenue neutral” as some fiscal conservatives had hoped for.

The proposal also includes a $50 million flood reovery program, a $25 million tax credit program for inner-city youth hiring and a reduced manufacturing tax rate.

Officials also agreed to a $1 billion infrastructure fund which will leverage $10 billion in direct capital investment.

The statement notes that the proposal is within the state’s bond cap. Leaders added they had verbal agreements on design-build legislation (aimed, it seems, at reconstructing the Tappan Zee Bridge downstate as quickly as possible), as well as an agreement to push for an expansion of casino-stlye gaming in New York.

It’s important to note that everyone seemingly gets everything in this deal. Taxes are being cut at nearly every level, but the super wealthy who make above $2 million aren’t getting as big a cut as they were in line to receive at the end of the year if the PIT surcharge of 2009 was allowed to expire.

The package also takes some pressure off of Cuomo next year as all 212 seats are up for re-election in what is expected to be an especially contentious redistricting year. Post

Extending and Expanding the Payroll Tax Cut

President Obama calls on Congress to extend and expand the payroll tax cut -- to protect middle class families and ensure that the economy continues to grow.

Unemployment Fell in November, Hitting Lowest Level in Two and a Half Years

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest level since March 2009, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

The economy added 120,000 new jobs in November, in line with economists’ expectations of an increase of 122,000, according to Reuters. That’s just shy of the 125,000 most economists say the labor market needs to gain to keep the unemployment rate steady. Bringing the rate down a percentage point over a year would take closer to 200,000 new jobs each month.

The Labor Department revised upward the number of jobs added in September and October to 210,000 and 100,000, respectively. The October unemployment rate was 9.0 percent.

Futures were up after the jobs number was released.