November 5, 2014

Yesterday’s mid-term elections were a rout for Democrats in Washington as well as in state capitals across much of the United States. Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate with at least 52 seats and possibly 2 additional seats with elections in Louisiana and Alaska undecided. (The contest in Louisiana will not be settled until December, when Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu will face Republican Representative Bill Cassidy in a runoff election.) The shift in the Senate elevates Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) to majority leader and demotes Harry Reid (D., Nevada) to minority leader.

In the House of Representatives, Republicans enlarged their majority from 233 to 243 seats, the party’s greatest advantage in the House since the 1940′s. Democrats will control only 178 seats when the 114^th Congress convenes this January.

Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) is the new majority leader of the U.S. Senate. (U.S. Senate)

In state elections, Republicans gained control of 31 governorships, up from 29. In exit polls, nearly 6 out of 10 voters stated they were “dissatisfied” or “angry” at the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama as well as at leaders in Congress, both Republican and Democratic.

November 22, 2013

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted 52-to-48 to change Senate rules to eliminate filibusters for most presidential appointments. Orchestrated by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nevada), the vote was primarily along party lines, with all Republicans voting against the change. The rule change allows most nominees for executive appointments and federal judgeships to be confirmed by a simple majority, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that has been required to overturn filibusters for more than two centuries. The change does not apply to Supreme Court nominations.

Political experts noted that the move severely curtails the political power of the Senate’s Republican minority and will undoubtedly escalate Washington’s already intense partisan warfare. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. Kentucky) accused Democrats of a power grab and warned that they will regret this move. “We’re not interested in having a gun put to our head any longer,” stated McConnell. “You may regret this a lot sooner than you think,” he added, referring to the possibility that Republicans may take control of the Senate in the 2014 off-year elections.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (U.S. Senate)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (U.S. Senate)

Majority Leader Reid triggered the so-call “nuclear option” after Republicans filibustered many of President Barack Obama’s nominees, including three appointments to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Republican justified their filibusters with the assertion that the appellate court simply did not need more judges, regardless of the vacancies.

The D.C. Appellate Court is responsible for the review of most legal challenges to the conduct of the federal government. These challenges generally deal with federal regulations concerning finance, food and drugs, the environment, health care, immigration, national security, and other politically contentious areas. Democrats and many independent political experts charged that the Republicans were filibustering Obama’s appellate court nominees because they did not want the vacancies filled with people whom they deemed liberal. The court appointments are for life.

Additional World Book article:

• Congress of the United States 2012 (a Back in Time article)

October 17, 2013

Some 800,000 federal employees went back to work this morning after a 16-day shutdown of the United States government. The political stand-off between the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama ended just minutes before a midnight deadline after which the government’s ability to borrow money by selling bonds would have expired.

A bill brokered by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D., Nevada) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) finances the operations of government until Jan. 15, 2014, and raises the nation’s debt limit through the middle of February. The Senate passed the measure last night by an 81-to-18 vote. The House followed suit, passing the bill by a vote of 285-to-144. Eighty-seven House Republicans broke ranks to join a united Democratic caucus in approving the measure.

An attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act by hardline conservatives in the House of Representatives collapsed on October 16, when both houses of Congress passed legislation financing the federal government and raising the debt limit.  (© Brooks Kraft, Corbis)

Passage of the measure ended a stalemate led by hardline conservatives, generally members of the House Tea Party caucus. The caucus pushed their Republican leaders to use the double threat of a shutdown and a default on the national debt to defund the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.”

Political experts generally agree that pushing the federal government to the edge of a fiscal meltdown for political gain was a major misstep by Congressional Republicans. A Washington Post-ABC public opinion poll taken earlier this week found that 74 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress were handling the negotiations. A Pew poll taken yesterday found that public approval of the Tea Party was in free fall. Only 20 percent of polled Republicans now support the Tea Party movement. The Wall Street credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s announced yesterday that the shutdown had drained at least $24 billion out of the already fragile U.S. economy.  Conservative radio pundit Rush Limbaugh described the Republican shutdown and subsequent surrender as “One of the greatest political disasters I’ve ever seen.”

Additional World Book articles:

• National budget
• Tempest in a Tea Party (a special report)

April 17, 2012

Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked the so-called Buffett rule, President Barack Obama’s proposal to set a minimum 30-percent federal income tax rate for the highest earners. The name of the bill refers to billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has long complained that his secretary pays a higher rate of tax than he does. The vote, 51-to-45, was largely along party lines. Under the Senate cloture rule, the bill needed 60 votes to move forward for full debate. For most of the rule’s history, the threat of blocking legislation through filibuster was rarely used. In recent years, however, it has become commonplace.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, argues that raising taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million per year would help reduce the deficit and make the tax code more fair. Most Republicans oppose the measure, calling it a political stunt that would actually kill jobs. “By wasting so much time on this political gimmick that even Democrats admit won’t solve our larger problems, it’s shown the president is more interested in misleading people than he is in leading,” noted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The president responded that Senate Republicans chose “once again to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest few Americans at the expense of the middle class.”

Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest men, has long complained that his secretary pays a higher rate of income tax than he does. (Courtesy of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.)

Most American pay approximately 30 percent tax on earned income; by contrast, the income tax on capital gains–that is, money realized from stocks, bonds, real estate, and business partnerships–is about 15 percent. The income of many wealthy Americans, such as Warren Buffett, comes from capital gains, rather than from regular employment.