Thursday, December 27, 2012
If Congress fails to pass an extension of the Bush era tax cuts by midnight Monday, American paychecks will get smaller. You can use the fiscal cliff calculator to see the impact on your paycheck.
With leaders of Congress becoming more and more skeptical a deal will be reached before midnight Monday to avoid the fiscal cliff, it becomes more likely American paychecks will get smaller Tuesday, according to a story in today’s New York Times. “I have to be very honest,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in the New York Times article. “I don’t know time-wise how it can happen now.” The Senate reconvened today in an unusual session between Christmas and Jan. 1. Even if the Senate passes legislation, the House of Representatives will not come back into session until Sunday barely 24 hours before the deadline, according to a story today on Politico. If no deal is reached, a single person with two exemptions earning $50,000 per year …
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Residents want Washington politicians to work together.
While North Suburban members of Congress continued to disagree on how to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, citizens shopping at the Lake Forest and Highland Park Jewel Stores spoke of their representatives’ inability to compromise. The House of Representatives passed its version of a package to allow the federal government to borrow more money on a 218-210 vote. The bill will cut government spending $971 billion over 10 years. It will also require the passage of a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution before another increase in February. The looming default by the United States remains a possibility as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has pronounced the bill “dead on arrival” when it arrives in the upper chamber. …
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
A review of the debates prior to last week's vote.
The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act of 2010 passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last Wednesday on a narrow margin of 216-198. For those of us who were glued to our televisions, computers or mobile devices watching the live debate on C-SPAN, the passionate pleas from those supporting the bill and the equally passionate doomsday warnings by those opposed to it were very compelling. How exciting it was to watch democracy in action! Now that video and official congressional transcripts from that day have been made available to the general public, however, it seems that the actions and words by our members of Congress that day were less about democracy and more about political trickery, outright lies and…
Dan Arenov
11:20 am on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Hello all, I guess i shouldn't post something like this without providing more details. The idea for this blog, which i've run by the local Patch editor, is to have a small group of people who either lean left or lean right and to be part of a small 'debate' team. We would pick a hot topic each week (maybe pulling from a Brian Slupski news item, etc) on e.g., Monday, and would select one person … more ›