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Top Ten Bills
TOP TEN BILLS....Over at Tapped, Tim Fernholz passes along summaries of the top ten bills the Senate Democratic leadership plans to introduce this month. It starts with S.1, the stimulus bill, and runs down through troubled mortgages, healthcare, climate change, education, immigration, and a few other things. The descriptions are mostly just placeholders and don't really say much, but it's still an interesting look at Harry Reid's priorities.
Perhaps what's most interesting, though, is what's not on the list: card check, forcing hedge fund billionaires to pay ordinary taxes on their income (possibly the biggest no-brainer legislation in recent history), military procurement reform of any kind, and serious financial regulation. That's not to say this stuff won't come later. But apparently it's not part of the Top Ten.
UPDATE: A couple of commenters think card check is implied as part of S.2. Maybe so. The wording seems awfully vague if that's really their intent, but we'll see.
Because I think they know that Employee No Choice At All Act won't pass.
#2 looks like it might include card check:
"ensuring workers can exercise their rights to freely choose to form a union without employer interference."
Card check does, however, seem to be slipping down the list of priorities. Both Arkansas Senators appear to abandoning it.
What Brian said -- they're pretty clearly talking about EFCA in #2.
Lincoln and Pryor voted for cloture on EFCA last time; they may decline to back it in the floor vote but they won't filibuster it. In theory the votes are all there (Specter plus every Dem and both Independents voted for cloture on it last time), but it means they'll need the full 59 members of the Dem caucus seated, so any action will have to wait until after Franken is sworn in and Obama's seat is resolved.
Now, Matt, you know that great champion of the "middle class," Chuck Schumer (see today's Politicalwire), thinks that the poor hedge fund managers should only pay capital gains tax on their incomes, not higher ordinary income taxes like the rest of us, so that must be right!
Oops -- Kevin that is.
#10 (Fiscal Responsibility) seems inconsistent with #1. Bush left a record deficit, which may become larger if the govermnent is called upon to make good on various bailout commitments. Priority #1 calls for new tax cuts plus an expensive stimulus package. That combination will make the deficit that much worse.
Chuck Schumer (see today's Politicalwire), thinks that the poor hedge fund managers should only pay capital gains tax on their incomes, not higher ordinary income taxes like the rest of us, so that must be right!
Posted by: David in NY on 01/06/09
Schumer is like most senators when it comes to 'home state' issues. He's clearly wrong on this.
But, it's sensible that this isn't a top-ten item. It affects far fewer people than the economic crisis or health care and energy issues.
I'd expect tax equality to come up later, soon after regulation reform.
Can you believe they let Madoff stay at home and now he's mailed off about $1M in diamonds? What does it take for a judge, or legislators, to begin equating large dollar value crimes with things like possession of pot? A lot more people have had their lives destroyed by Madoff!
Idea for S.7, the Education Opportunity Act of 2009:
Please bring back the National Education Goals Panel
"This site was last updated on March 6, 2002"
Also: reduce class sizes by half, build and refurbish schools, cut tuition costs, and substantially increase if not double teacher salaries. The investment payback makes this proposal budget-neutral when amortized over half a century or a full century.