Tag: Social Safety Net

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Outside right wing groups playing outsize role in Republican government shutdown

by Andrew Villeneuve

The New York Times has a great arti­cle today that delves into the ori­gins of the House Repub­li­cans’ gov­ern­ment shut­down. It turns out that pow­er­ful right wing groups, includ­ing the vast polit­i­cal machin­ery assem­bled and fund­ed by the Koch broth­ers, have been agi­tat­ing for a shut­down for a long time, and were final­ly able, with […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Let’s not forget: House Republicans forced this federal government shutdown to happen

by Andrew Villeneuve

We are almost through Day One of the first major shut­down of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in sev­en­teen years, and sad­ly, it still appears that House Repub­li­cans are unwill­ing and unready to do their jobs. They could have eas­i­ly avert­ed the shut­down days ago by sim­ply pass­ing the con­tin­u­ing bud­get res­o­lu­tion the Sen­ate sent them, and […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

House Republicans bent on taking another vote to defund the Patient Protection Act

by Andrew Villeneuve

The black­mail con­tin­ues: House Repub­li­cans plan to attach a one-year delay of [the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act] and a repeal of its med­ical device to a stop­gap spend­ing bill on Sat­ur­day, a move that could ensure much of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shuts down on Tues­day. Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑Ohio) out­lined the maneu­ver to Repub­li­cans in a […]

Posted inBreaking News, Economic Security, Healthcare, Policy Topics

House Republicans vote to slash food stamps with disgraceful “let them starve” legislation

by Andrew Villeneuve

Once again, we have occa­sion to say: So much for com­pas­sion­ate con­ser­vatism. By a vote of two hun­dred and sev­en­teen to two hun­dred and ten, the Repub­­li­­can-con­trolled U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has vot­ed to make sig­nif­i­cant and destruc­tive cuts to SNAP, the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram, col­lo­qui­al­ly known as food stamps. Their leg­is­la­tion reduces funding […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Our Environment, Policy Topics

House Republicans achieve Pyrrhic victory with passage of unconscionable farm bill

by Andrew Villeneuve

Repub­li­cans in the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives achieved a Pyrrhic vic­to­ry ear­li­er today with the pas­sage of an uncon­scionable, cru­el farm bill that they man­aged to pass with only a hand­ful of votes to spare after hours of acri­mo­nious debate. The Repub­­li­­can-backed pro­pos­al, which passed with­out a sin­gle Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote, pro­vides around $195 bil­lion in […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Economic Security, Elections, Policy Topics

What does Rob McKenna have against family planning?

by Patrick Stickney

Yes­ter­day, guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Rob McKen­na post­ed on Cross­cut a vari­ety of state­ments on how to impair our state Med­ic­aid sys­tem, and chose to omit any sort of con­tent on how con­se­quences of those changes would affect our state. While blast­ing Med­ic­aid expansion(which, by the way, is in con­trast to how 67% of Amer­i­cans feel), Mr. McKenna […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

House Republicans formally block payroll tax break “compromise” bill from consideration

by Andrew Villeneuve

As expect­ed, in a series of votes ear­li­er today, House Repub­li­cans for­mal­ly blocked leg­is­la­tion over­whelm­ing­ly approved by the U.S. Sen­ate a few days ago that would tem­porar­i­ly extend the one-year pay­roll tax break enact­ed by Con­gress last year (S. Amdt. 1465 to H.R. 3630) for anoth­er two months. The House­’s action threat­ens the com­pro­mise on […]