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Economy

How Two Republican Senators Are Using A Bait-And-Switch To Scuttle Democrats’ Revenue Goals

By Travis Waldron on Mar 21, 2013 at 4:15 pm

Sens. Roy Blunt (center) and John Thune (left)

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and John Thune (R-SD) this afternoon offered an amendment to the Senate Democratic budget that they claim will protect the charitable tax deduction from elimination or restriction under the tax reform sought by Democrats. In reality, though, the amendment is a simple bait-and-switch attempt to reduce the budget’s overall revenue levels and would have no bearing on the charitable deduction.

The Democratic budget, authored by Washington Sen. Patty Murray (D), includes $975 billion in new revenues over the next decade to be gained through the closure of tax loopholes and elimination of tax expenditures that benefit the wealthy and corporations. The charitable deduction is among the most popular expenditures on both sides of the partisan spectrum, making it the perfect candidate for Blunt and Thune’s ploy.

The purpose statement at the top of the amendment reads:

To protect charitable organizations from being used as a source of revenue to pay for more spending by protecting the deduction for charitable giving from being capped, limited, or eliminated to pay for new spending as part of any tax increase.

Aside from that totally meaningless sentence that has no legislative significance, the amendment does not mention the charitable deduction. Instead, it simply cuts revenue levels for each year between 2014 and 2023. In total, the amendment would cut the amount the revenue originally sought by the Democratic budget roughly in half. It would have no impact on the charitable deduction, one way or the other, and would not in any way protect the tax break for charitable giving. The amendment, despite what Thune and Blunt would have people believe, is nothing more than a massive reduction in the budget’s revenue goals masked as protection of a popular tax deduction.

Justice

The 10 NRA-Funded Senators Hoping To Block Gun Regulations

By Josh Israel on Feb 11, 2013 at 1:50 pm

The National Rifle Association’s NRA Political Victory Fund PAC has distributed more than $1 million in career donations to current members of the United States Senate. And, like their House counterparts, the Senators who have received the most are also among the most vocal opponents of any new gun violence prevention legislation advanced in the aftermath of the school shooting at Newton, Connecticut.

A ThinkProgress analysis of data from Political MoneyLine reveals that the top 10 Senate beneficiaries of NRA money are all Republicans. Each has already indicated his opposition to President Obama’s gun violence proposals and each has received an “A” or “A+” rating from the NRA. They are:

SEN. JIM INHOFE (R-OK) — AT LEAST $64,900


Inhofe said last month, “I will continue to strongly oppose any effort to undermine the Second Amendment and an individual citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. … The text of the Constitution clearly confers upon an individual the right to bear arms – and not just for the purposes of hunting as many liberals will claim. Our Founders believed that the people’s right to own guns was an important check on the powers of the government and ‘necessary to the security of a free State.’ I couldn’t agree more and I stand firm in my support of this right.”

SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO) — AT LEAST $60,550


Blunt said last month, “Unfortunately, the president’s proposals today fundamentally fail to address ways that we can prevent tragic events like Sandy Hook, and instead, he’s attempting to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.” Last week, he expressed doubt that the Senate would even expand background checks.

SEN. SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA) — AT LEAST $56,950


Chambliss said last month, “While I am certain that the president’s proposal is well-intentioned, it is Congress’ responsibility to make sure that Americans’ constitutional rights are protected.”

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD) — AT LEAST $48,605


Thune said last month, “There is a lot of emotion driving this debate. We need to prevent this in the future, and make the schools and our kids safer. And frankly, I don’t think it has to do with restrictions on the Second Amendment.”

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC) — AT LEAST $46,600


Graham said last month, “One bullet in the hands of a homicidal maniac is one too many. But in the case of a young mother defending her children against a home invader — a real-life event which recently occurred near Atlanta — six bullets may not be enough. Criminals aren’t going to follow legislation limiting magazine capacity. However, a limit could put law-abiding citizens at a distinct disadvantage when confronting a criminal. As for reinstating the assault weapons ban, it has already been tried and failed.”

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL) — AT LEAST $43,755


Shelby said on his Congressional website, “We all mourn the victims of shocking tragedies that have resulted from senseless acts of violence perpetrated by seriously disturbed individuals. However, such tragedies should not be viewed as an indictment of America’s precious Second Amendment rights. Thus, we should not react in a manner that would unnecessarily and improperly infringe upon the rights of tens of millions of law-abiding American gun owners. Unfortunately, it seems that some zealous gun rights opponents are seeking to leverage tragedies to further their long-held agenda of unduly restricting Americans’ Second Amendment rights.”

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID) — AT LEAST $43,700


Crapo said last month, “The President’s proposal on gun control is very disappointing. Any discussion about restricting the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans deserves, at minimum, a full and public debate in Congress. Burdening law-abiding citizens of this country with additional gun restrictions is not the answer to safeguarding the public from further attacks.”

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R-UT) — AT LEAST $41,750


Hatch said last month that even passage of universal background checks would be “the way reductions in liberty occur.” He added, “When you start saying people all have to sign up for something, and they have a database where they know exactly who’s who, and where government can persecute people because of the database, that alarms a lot of people in our country, and it flies in the face of liberty,” noting that gun rights are “an express provision in the Constitution, unlike the penumbras and other conjured-up provisions that aren’t there that the court has come up with over the years. This is express, and many people are very, very concerned about any infringement on it, and I’m one of them.”

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA) — AT LEAST $41,200


Grassley said last month, “The Second Amendment is more than just words on paper. It’s a fundamental right that ensures citizens the ability to protect themselves against the government. Unfortunately, the President seems to think that the Second Amendment can be tossed aside. Using executive action to attempt to poke holes in the Second Amendment is a power grab along the same pattern we’ve seen of contempt for the elected representatives of the American people. Some of these directives clearly run afoul of limitations Congress has placed on federal spending bringing the President’s actions in direct conflict with federal law. More importantly, it’s hard to see how any of these executive actions would have prevented the tragedies that precipitated this effort.”

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS) — AT LEAST $36,750


Wicker said last month, “The President’s proposals would violate the Constitution and have been proven not to be effective in preventing gun violence, I will be part of a bipartisan coalition opposing this legislation and looking for real solutions such as school safety guards, mental health care, and addressing the culture of violence in the media. The Second Amendment rights of Americans must be preserved.”

The 10 have received more than $480,000 combined in career NRA PAC money.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights subcommittee will hold a hearing Tuesday to examine proposals to reduce gun violence. The four Republicans on the nine-person panel are Graham, Hatch, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). Cruz (at least $9900) has blasted the President for “trying to exploit the tragic murder of children as an excuse to push his own extreme anti-gun agenda,” and Cornyn ($17,850) has said we must enforce existing gun laws before we consider any new ones.

Economy

Top GOP Senator Concedes That Republicans Will Support Higher Taxes In Fiscal Cliff Deal

By Igor Volsky on Nov 29, 2012 at 10:12 am

Sen. John Thune (R-SD)

A prominent Republican senator admitted on Thursday that President Obama and the Democrats will likely convince enough Republicans to vote for a deficit reduction plan that increases taxes in order to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Republicans have publicly resisted supporting raising tax rates, but have promised to support higher revenues by closing loopholes and eliminating tax deductions so long as those changes are paired with spending cuts.

During an appearance on Fox News on Thursday, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the Republican Conference Chairman, said that while he wouldn’t personally support a measure that raises taxes, “there may be enough Republicans who would vote for something like that”:

MARTHA MAcCALLUM (HOST): What I’m asking you is are Republicans willing to hold the line, to say to the President, I am sorry, we will never agree to a deal that involves an increase in taxes? Are they?

THUNE: I think any deal that passes up here that raises taxes and raises taxes as I mentioned earlier on small businesses, Martha, is not going to enjoy Republican support. Now, there may be enough Republicans who would vote for something like that to pass it in the House of Representatives, they need to get to 218 votes.

MAcCALLUM: Then it would be done, right?

THUNE: We’ll see about that. We don’t know what that. We don’t know what the contours of a final deal might look at this point. Everybody right now is sort of in their corners and doing the posturing.

Watch it:

A growing number of Republicans have rhetorically backed away from a pledge to never raise taxes, though it remains to be seen how many would support a measure that raises marginal rates on the richest Americans, as President Obama has proposed.

Politico reported today that the framework for a final deal would like include $1.2 trillion in tax revenue — including higher taxes on the top 2 percent of income earners — and reductions in entitlement spending.

Health

Republican Senator Agrees Americans Are ‘Dying’ Under The ‘Burdens’ Of Obamacare

By Igor Volsky on Jul 4, 2012 at 11:42 am

During an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Tuesday, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) pledged that Republicans would kickstart the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act shortly after the November elections and predicted that the party would be able to undo the law through the budget process “by sometime in the spring.”

Unimpressed by the timeline, Hewitt pressed Republicans to move faster. He compared the urgency of repeal to Congressional action in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and argued that people are already “dying” from the law. Thune seemed to agree with the sentiment:

HEWITT: Yeah, the reason I balk a little bit is only because I know people are out there dying under the burdens of this thing.

THUNE: Yeah.

HEWITT: And they expect, you know, the light speed for Congress is like molasses for the rest of the real world.

THUNE: Yeah.

HEWITT: And so it just seems to me that after 9/11, you guys moved fast, and I would hope it would happen again.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if Republicans eliminated Obamacare in its entirety, more than 30 million Americans would go without coverage, “people would end up paying more for health insurance,” “the average insurance policy in this market would cover a smaller share of enrollees’ costs,” “premiums for employment-based coverage obtained through large employers would be slightly higher,” and the deficit would grow by $230 billion.

Politics

Sen. Thune Says There Is ‘No’ Merit To Idea That Multimillionaire Romney Is Of The 1 Percent

By Scott Keyes on Jan 3, 2012 at 1:15 pm

Protesters interrupted a Mitt Romney campaign stop outside Des Moines, Iowa last night, chanting that the former Massachusetts governor is “of the corporate one percent” and admonishing him to “stop the war on the poor.” The protestors were quickly shouted down by Romney supporters.

ThinkProgress spoke with Sen. John Thune (R-SD), a prominent Romney endorser, after the event to get his take on the dust-up. Thune disagreed with the protesters, saying there is “no” merit to the idea that Romney, whose net worth is estimated at $250 million, is part of the corporate 1 percent.

KEYES: Do you think there is any merit, they’re charging that he’s of the corporate 1 percent?

THUNE: No. I think that this is somebody, if I’m somebody in this country who is worried about my job or is looking for a job, I want somebody out there who knows how to create jobs. [...] Obviously tonight these are people who are going to protest, that’s fine. That’s a democracy, we welcome that. I thought he handled it well.

KEYES: The charges are off-base though?

THUNE: They are. I think it’s all what you’d expect from a campaign like this. The other side’s got their people out there. I’m very happy with where his campaign is, with how he’s addressing the issues, and what I think he can do to get people back to work.

Listen to it:

The cut-off to be in the top 1 percent of the American income spectrum, according to the New York Times, is an income of $506,553 per year. If Romney were to put his entire $250 million fortune in a typical Nationwide Bank savings account, for instance, at a 0.95 percent rate, the interest alone would put him in the top 0.1 percentile with $2,375,000 per year. Meanwhile, his retirement package from Bain Capital is likely taxed at a far lower rate than what average Americans pay on their salaries, but Romney has thus far stonewalled on releasing his tax returns.

Romney’s wealth came in large part from Bain, a private equity firm he founded in the 1980s. Bain made enormous amounts of money by, as the Los Angeles Times noted, “firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits.”

Though his 1 percent credentials are beyond reproach, it is also worth noting that Romney has built his campaign relying on the support of Wall Street bankers and billionaires. In fact, 10 percent of all the billionaires in America have donated to Romney, and the candidate himself has called for allowing them to give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns, including his own. Romney’s economic agenda, in turn, is tailor-made for the wealthiest 1 percent.

Still, despite his enormous personal wealth, billionaire-backing, and one-percent economic agenda, Romney has tried to reach out to average people by pointing out that, like many Americans, he’s “also unemployed.“

Justice

14 GOP Senators Slam Senate GOP’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Filibuster*

By Ian Millhiser on Dec 7, 2011 at 11:00 am

Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Discuss Their Understanding Of The Constitution

Yesterday, Senate Republicans voted nearly unanimously to block Caitlan Halligan’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) broke party lines to join the 54-45 vote to allow Halligan to move forward — leaving Halligan six votes short of what she needed to break the GOP filibuster.

The Senate GOP’s decision to filibuster Halligan earned wide rebukes from Senate Republicans*, many of whom slammed this decision to filibuster a judicial nominee as unconstitutional:

  • Lamar Alexander (R-TN): “I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.”
  • Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA): “Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution requires it.”
  • Tom Coburn (R-OK): “If you look at the Constitution, it says the president is to nominate these people, and the Senate is to advise and consent. That means you got to have a vote if they come out of committee. And that happened for 200 years.”
  • John Cornyn (R-TX): “We have a Democratic leader defeated, in part, as I said, because I believe he was identified with this obstructionist practice, this unconstitutional use of the filibuster to deny the president his judicial nominations.
  • Mike Crapo (R-ID): “Until this Congress, not one of the President’s nominees has been successfully filibustered in the Senate of the United States because of the understanding of the fact that the Constitution gives the President the right to a vote.”
  • Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “I think filibustering judges will destroy the judiciary over time. I think it’s unconstitutional”
  • Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “It would be a real constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to 60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were going to filibuster.”
  • Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX): “[T]he Constitution envisions a 51-vote majority for judgeships…. [Filibustering judges] amend[s] the Constitution without going through the proper processes…. We have a majority rule that is the tradition of the Senate with judges. It is the constitutional requirement.”
  • Jon Kyl (R-AZ): “The President was elected fair and square. He has the right to submit judicial nominees and it is the Senate’s obligation under the Constitution to act on those nominees.”
  • Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “The Constitution of the United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to require a supermajority for confirmation.”
  • Jeff Sessions (R- AL): “[The Constitution] says the Senate shall advise and consent on treaties by a two-thirds vote, and simply ‘shall advise and consent’ on nominations…. I think there is no doubt the Founders understood that to mean … confirmation of a judicial nomination requires only a simple majority vote.”
  • Richard Shelby (R-AL): “Why not allow the President to do his job of selecting judicial nominees and let us do our job in confirming or denying them? Principles of fairness call for it and the Constitution requires it.”
  • John Thune (SD): Filibustering judicial nominees “is contrary to our Constitution …. It was the Founders’ intention that the Senate dispose of them with a simple majority vote.”

*All quotes are taken from when George W. Bush was president. But, of course, that doesn’t matter because — in the words of Cornyn — “we need to treat all nominees exactly the same, regardless of whether they’re nominated by a Democrat or a Republican president.”**

**Cornyn’s statement was also made when George W. Bush was president.

Health

Rockefeller Stops CLASS Repeal, Says ‘Gloating’ Republicans ‘Have No Answers’ For Long-Term Care Crisis

By Igor Volsky on Nov 3, 2011 at 10:32 am

Last night, Sen. John Thune (R-SD) — the sponsor of the Senate bill to repeal the CLASS Act — offered a unanimous consent request to advance a measure that would eliminate the long-term care program to the Senate floor, but was met with an objection from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). The West Virginian insisted that the country needs a more sustainable long-term care system and argued that it could be “amended through the legislative process to make it sustainable over the long term”:

ROCKEFELLER: Always our friends on the other side of the aisle appeal something. You can lead people to the same sense of suffering as we found during the pepper commission where people prostrate themselves in order to qualify for medicaid, in which they haven’t a chance at getting some long-term care. [...] Those who are gloating today about the administration’s decision not to carry forward with the class act are not the fiscal heroes they make themselves out to be. They have no answers. They have no answers. They have no alternative.

Watch it:

Economy

Despite Saying ‘America’s Priorities Should Come First,’ Senate GOP Blocks Emergency Disaster Relief

By Tanya Somanader on Sep 13, 2011 at 11:55 am

Tornado damage in Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) home state of Alabama

The unprecedented number of natural disasters in 2011 have left already struggling states with $36 billion in damages. Hearing calls for aid, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) responded by bringing a $7 billion relief package before the Senate.

His Republicans colleagues, however, responded by obstructing it. Last night, GOP senators successfully blocked Reid from bringing up the bill for consideration. In need of 60 votes, Reid got 53 votes in favor and 33 votes against. Fourteen senators did not vote, but every single senator who voted against relief was Republican.

Even GOP senators representing states that suffered disaster damage — North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Alabama Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, and Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker — voted against aid for their constituents. Taking a page from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA), the Senate GOP refused because the relief was not offset with cuts elsewhere:

– SEN. RAND PAUL (KY): “I plan to insist my fellow senators take a long, hard look at where the funding comes from,” Paul said yesterday before the vote. “Will it be more borrowing on the backs of our children and grandchildren, or will it be from the coffers of our numerous nation-building programs overseas? America’s priorities should come first.”

– SEN. JOHN THUNE (SD): “These are different times. We have got to figure out how to pay for these things,” Thune told reporters last week.

– SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (AL): As ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sessions “believes the Senate should not provide the spending before getting expert advice on the precise need.” “We haven’t carefully examined every penny of it,” he added. Noting that he represents “a state that has suffered” from tornado damage, he still asked “how much more do we need” in aid?

Disaster relief — much like funding to rebuild Iraq — is traditionally not subject to offsets. But only Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins seemed to take note of that fact. She, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-MN), Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) were the only five to break with their party and vote in favor of the disaster aid.

They, however, will find support from numerous GOP governors who seek aid without offsets. Cantor’s home state Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) rebuked this kind of zero sum thinking. GOP favorite Gov. Chris Christie (NJ) characteristically did not mince words: “Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they [Congress].. can figure out budget cuts later.” For now, Christie — and the people’s needs — go unheeded.

Economy

Thune: Top Message I Got From Town Halls Is ‘Don’t Cut My Social Security And Medicare’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Aug 29, 2011 at 3:05 pm

As Republican lawmakers held constituent meetings in their home districts over the August recess, they were often confronted for taking hard-right positions on everything from taxes to entitlement reform, sending a message that at least Sen. John Thune (R-SD) seems to have noticed. Thune said the main things he heard from constitutes was frustration over Congress’ inability to work together and opposition to cuts to social safety net programs, the Argus Leader reports:

“Do something,” Thune said Wednesday after a town hall meeting at the Brandon Municipal Golf Course. “Why can’t you work together? There’s a high level of frustration with the inaction, and there’s a lack of confidence in the country and the economy. They want to see us get something done.”

That’s one of the major insights he’ll take back to Washington, D.C. after the August recess, he said.

It ranks behind “don’t cut my Social Security and Medicare. I’ve heard that quite a bit,” Thune said.

It’s not surprising that Americans are voicing their concern about cuts to Medicare and Social Security, considering that the programs are overwhelmingly popular and that Republicans have threatened to cut them, most notably with the House’s passage of Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare-replacement budget. Numerous polls show Americans oppose cutting these social safety net programs as means to rein in the deficit, while 63 percent say they want to see revenue raised through increased taxes on the wealthy or with a millionaires surtax. Meanwhile, Americans are frustrated with Republican lawmakers’ intransigence grinding Congress to halt, as Thune notes.

Thune’s comments are particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has made criticism of Social Security — which he has called unconstitutional — a central part of his campaign. (HT: Rachel Weiner)

NEWS FLASH

GOP Sen. Thune: Tweaked Reid Plan Probably Won’t Be Filibustered, Could Pass House | Appearing this afternoon on Fox News, Sen. John Thune (R-SC) said that if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings his debt ceiling plan up, it will get a vote in the Senate. In other words, enough Republicans would support Reid to prevent a filibuster. Thune also suggested that, if the Reid plan was “strengthened” it could collect 216 votes in the House, enough for passage. Watch it:

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jul 29, 2011 at 5:32 pm

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