Morning action:

Welfare
Labor Department
Guns
Debt Ceiling
Obamanomics
Shutdown



MORNING ACTION: SENATORS WANT TIME TO READ 500 PAGE BILL

CATEGORY: Driving The Day KEYWORDS: Debt Limit, Guns, Obama, Senate, Spending, Welfare

KATHERINE ROSARIO | MARCH 13, 2013Morning Action: Senators Want Time to Read 500 Page Bill

WELFARE. The House has the opportunity to preserve welfare work requirements with H.R. 890, a bill that will repeal the Obama administration’s July 12, 2012 memo allowing states to seek waivers for welfare work requirements. Email your Representative to support this bill.

LABOR DEPARTMENT. It comes as no surprise that President Obama has chosen a partisan liberal from the far left on board as Secretary of Labor, and the appointee’s record on civil rights advocacy speaks volumes:

Perez is better known for his civil rights advocacy than for his work regarding labor issues. But that work establishes him as one of the administration’s most strident liberals and zealous activists.
…
Perez is a man with a mission who sees only modest change in the country from the ’60s. “Crosses are still burned in yards across the nation’s heartland,” Perez said at a 2010 Martin Luther King Day event in Greensboro, N.C.

He is particularly aggressive on issues related to immigration and voter fraud. He led the division’s efforts to sue Texas and South Carolina over voter ID laws, succeeding in getting the Texas law overturned. Florida was also sued for its efforts to strip noncitizens from the voter rolls.

GUNS. Sen. Chuck Schumer has expressed a great deal of frustration over Republican lawmakers who are hesitant to agree to his universal background checks bill:


Schumer once called background checks the “sweet spot” for gun control reform, but negotiations with Republicans have stalled in recent weeks over how to implement an expansion of background checks. His frustration was on full display at Tuesday’s hearing.

Sen. Schumer used emotional appeals to call for background checks, which he suggested after the Newtown shootings should have been a good place to find common ground. However, he gives short shrift to the legitimate concerns of those concerned about our Second Amendment rights. Heritage explains:


The only way to enforce universal background checks for private sales is if law enforcement authorities know what firearms are held by private citizens. And the only way to know what firearms are held by private citizens is through the creation of a national firearms registry. Federal law currently prohibits authorities from using data in the background check system to create a national firearms registry, although there are avid gun control proponents who would like to change that—a real threat to the Second Amendment rights of legitimate gun owners.

Yet, the Senate Judiciary Committee continues its work on controversial “gun violence bills”:

The Fix Gun Checks Act is the third of four gun control bills to make it out of committee. Last week, the panel approved legislation to crack down on the illegal trafficking and straw purchasing of firearms. The illegal tracking bill likely has the best chance of any gun violence bill of winning congressional approval.


DEBT CEILING. The approaching debt ceiling will likely prove to be another moment of truth. Conservatives do not want House leadership to go back on promises not to raise taxes again.


Conservatives are privately debating how much space to give House leaders to follow through on promises made at their Williamsburg, Va., retreat in January, with a wait-and-see approach embraced by key veterans and a smaller movement of mostly newer lawmakers wanting to push leadership harder.
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The debate has big implications for how Republicans will approach future spending showdowns such as the next debt ceiling increase and shows there are rumblings beneath the surface during a period of relative tranquility for the GOP conference.


OBAMANOMICS. An increasing number of Americans are beginning to doubt President Obama’s handling of the economy:


The afterglow of President Obama’s reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

In December, just after he won a second term, Obama held an 18-percentage-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of whom the public trusted more to deal with the economy. Now, it’s a far more even split — 44 percent to 40 percent, with a slight edge for the president — but the share of those saying they have confidence in “neither” has ticked up into double digits.


SHUTDOWN. The Senate’s $984 billion bill omnibus spending bill has stalled because Senators want time to read its 500 pages. The bill has also been larded up with additional wasteful spending:


The two also said they had already found “pork barrel spending” in the measure, negotiated by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and ranking member Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

“What we have found is egregious pork barrel spending,” McCain said. “I hope in next few hours we’ll be able to finish examining the bill, but what we’ve found is so egregious … frankly it’s beyond anything I have ever seen in my years in the United States Senate.”


Morning Action: Senators Want Time to Read 500 Page Bill