Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

Tory legacy has left the new Labour government with very little fiscal freedom, strategist says  MSN

Excerpt from:

Tory legacy has left the new Labour government with very little fiscal freedom, strategist says - MSN

If the federal government shuts down at midnight Saturday, nearly everyone on Capitol Hill is ready to blame the House Freedom Caucus.

Yet hardly anyone here can articulate what, exactly, the right-wing group wants or how it plans to get there.

The group designed to be a thorn in the side of GOP leadership has become too fragmented to agree on specific demands, reducing its influence as a bloc. But key individuals have more leverage than ever.

The group has no website, no official roster, and definitely no cameras in the room where it happens.

You can only join if youre vetted and invited. Its all part of the mystique surrounding the ultraconservative group that often seems like Capitol Hills version of Fight Club. (First rule of Fight Club: You dont talk about Fight Club.)

Founded to rein in spending and decentralize power in the House, it has longbeena thorn in the side of GOP leaders. It has shut down government operations and careers before and has made clear it isnt afraid to do so again.

Today, the blocs members have more clout than ever, even as members are divided over tactics.

But some say it has departed from its founding ideals.

Its like, Guys, you used to have actually a fiscal heart and soul, and now youre just playing political games, says Freedom Caucus co-founder Matt Salmon, who left Congress in 2017.

If the federal government shuts down at midnight Saturday, nearly everyone on Capitol Hill is ready to blame the House Freedom Caucus.

Yet hardly anyone here can articulate what, exactly, the right-wing group wants or how it plans to get there.

There isnt even complete clarity on whos in it.The group has no website, no official roster, and definitely no cameras in the room where it happens.

The group designed to be a thorn in the side of GOP leadership has become too fragmented to agree on specific demands, reducing its influence as a bloc. But key individuals have more leverage than ever.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a key player in the shutdown drama, often appears with the Freedom Caucus. But he says hes technically just an admirer. Georgia firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene was a member, and now isnt, under circumstances that remain unclear.

You can only join if youre vetted and invited, says Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, strolling back from the House last week after casting one of six GOP votes that blocked leadership from bringing the defense appropriations bill to a vote.

Andy Biggs, my hero! says Rep. Lauren Boebertof Colorado,a fellow Freedom Caucus member,sidling up to him at the edge of the crosswalk leading back to House office buildings.

Hey, whats up, he says, before turning back and declining to elaborate further on the caucuss internal workings.

Its all part of the mystique surrounding the ultraconservative group that often seems like Capitol Hills version of Fight Club. (First rule of Fight Club: You dont talk about Fight Club.) Founded to rein in spending and decentralize power in the House, it has beena thorn in the side of GOP speakersfrom John Boehner to Paul Ryan and now Kevin McCarthy. It has shut down government operations and careers before and has made clear it isnt afraid to do so again.

Yet while Freedom Caucus members have more clout than ever, including key seats on committees and subcommittees, this latest standoff has also exposed cracks within the group itself. Members have been publicly divided over tactics, the desirability of a shutdown, and whether to accept a short-term fix.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

GOP Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Matt Gaetz of Florida confer during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 20, 2023.

One reason for the chaos is simple math.Republicans hold only a four-seat majority,which means that just a handful of lawmakers can gum up the works.That gives any holdouts outsize leverage,which disincentivizes banding togetheror compromising. As the government edges closer to the brink of running out of money, Speaker McCarthy isnt negotiating just with the Freedom Caucus, but with a rotating cast of individuals, both inside and outside the group all with seemingly disparate demands.

Didnt we sing kumbaya the other night? jokesRep. Ken Buck of Colorado, a Freedom Caucus member, when asked about the groups internal divisions. Mr. Buck himself has publicly criticized Mr. McCarthys decision to launch animpeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, calling it a transparent attempt by the speaker to distract from the spending fight.

We all held hands, quips Representative Biggs, walking alongside him.

Its a big group. And its a group thats going to disagree, says Mr. Buck, more seriously. People look at that and say, Thats disorganized. I look at that and I say, Im learning a lot.

What, specifically, has he been learning?

Theres a lot of conservatives that will vote for more spending.

The Freedom Caucus was born during a secret January 2015 meeting of nine GOP members of Congress in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

During the Obama years, Republicans had retaken the House with the tea party wave of 2010, but many were frustrated that they hadnt made much progress in exacting fiscal discipline. A 16-day shutdown in late 2013 over the presidents Affordable Care Act failed to extract anychanges to the health care policy, and the GOP saw its approval numbers plunge.

Conservatives felt like they were constantly getting rolled, saysMattSalmon,a veteran representative from Arizona who was recruited to join the Hershey meeting.He and his co-founders saw a need for a new group that could harness the collective clout of right-wing members.Their goal:pressure Republican leaders to restore fiscal sanity and constitutional principles,and allow legislators to actually legislate instead of making big spending decisions behind closed doors.

Many today insist the groups mission remains unchanged.Freedom Caucus leaders say they are trying to draw a line in the sand, to get a bankrupt and broken Washington back on track before its too late.

Our members are united on one thing, and that is to make sure that we cut spending in this government and that we fund things that the government should be doing no more and no less, says Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida.

Mr. Salmon, however, is dismayed over the groups current state. He says the caucus abandoned its core principles to become a cheering squad for President Donald Trump, staying mum as the Trump administrationran up big deficits.(What members say in their defense: They werent in Congress yet, or the economy was much better then.)That, he says, created a credibility deficit that has undermined its power.

Where were you during those four years when we were spending like drunken sailors on shore leave? asks Mr. Salmon, who left Congress just before Mr. Trump took office in January 2017.Its like, Guys, you used to have actually a fiscal heart and soul, and now youre just playing political games.

Others on the right are less critical but agree the caucus is struggling to exert the influence it once had.

A more unified Freedom Caucus would actually be helpful in the current situation, argues Rep. Thomas Massie,a Kentucky libertarian who is not in the group but is a fiscal conservative. If they were functioning as they were founded, where they consolidate ideas and plans among the most conservative portion of the party, they could win some meaningful concessions, he says.

The problem we have right now is that the Freedom Caucus is not leading the dissent, Mr. Massie adds. A lot of times when you find five or 10 dissenters, theres no common objection.So its hard to get past that impasse.

Anybody seen a bald guy with a goatee? asks someone in the bowels of the Capitol where journalists are milling around to get the latest scuttlebutt after a GOP meeting breaks up.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Texas Rep. Chip Roy and members of the House Freedom Caucus hold a news event outside the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 12, 2023, calling for Congress to rein in "out of control" spending.

Its a tongue-in-cheek reference to Rep. Chip Roy, an ideological heavyweight within the Freedom Caucus and one of the most prominent members pushing Speaker McCarthy to hold the line on government spending.

Mr. Roy knows all about government shutdowns, and the political risks they carry: He was serving as chief of staff for GOP Sen. Ted Cruz when the senator championed the 2013 shutdown over the Affordable Care Act.He doesnt want another one now, and hes chastised some of his more hard-line colleagues for flirting with danger.

But hes also insistent that Congress needs to rein in out of control spending.

The federal government will spend $2 trillion more than it takes in this year, Representative Roy said at a Freedom Caucus press conference earlier this month, noting that the government had already added $1.5 trillion in debt since the so-called debt deal in June. Were now spending more on interest on the debt than we are on defending the United States of America.

Thank God for the Freedom Caucus, chimed in Florida Sen. Rick Scott at the same presser. Weve gotta stop this insanity.

Still unclear is how they plan to do that.

With Democrats currently in control of the Senate, and President Biden in the White House, nothing can pass without bipartisan support, which means, in the end, that some form of compromise will be required. The question for conservatives is how much pain they want to try to inflict in advance of that eventual compromise and whether those efforts will actually help or hurt their cause.

Many are still irate over the debt ceiling deal Mr. McCarthy brokered with the president back in June. Others concede that the speakers hands were essentially tied.Some critics question whether the current holdouts can be placated by any concessions, or simply want to fight for the sake of fighting.

Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who withheld his vote for Mr. McCarthy to become speaker until the 11th of 15rounds, sayshes fine with being one of only a handful of GOP membersstanding apart from the rest of the Freedom Caucus if thats what it takes to achieve economic security.

Were going to fight for the country, says Representative Norman. I dont care whether weve got four [members], or weve got more.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina looks over notes as the House Rules Committee meets to prepare an appropriations bill for a floor vote, at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 29, 2023. He says he doesn't mind being one of the few Republican holdouts.

Hanging over the negotiations is the threat that at any moment, a single disgruntled member could bring a motion to vacate the speakers chair in other words, a vote on whether to kick Mr. McCarthy out of his job.

In a Sept. 12 phone call with reporters, Mr. Gaetz accused Mr. McCarthy of backtracking on promises he made to conservatives when trying to win the speakership and threatened to bring such a motion every single day for as long as it takes.

Democrats have been watching this drama unfold with a mixture of frustration, schadenfreude, and even a touch of sympathy.

Weve all had friends in relationships where we say to them, Theyre not good for you, and theyre not that into you, says Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington. And this feels like that dynamic.

The majority party has always had to deal with disgruntled factions, notes former House historian Ray Smock. But its unusual for a handful of people to wield such outsize power.Previous Speaker Nancy Pelosi managed to largelymaintain discipline in the last Congress with an 11-seat Democratic majority.

The fact that the leadership on the Republican side has not found a way to deal with their own hotheads, as Im prone to call them, is kind of a mystery, says Mr. Smock. At some point they will have to be called to account.

Over the pastweek, Mr. McCarthy began bending to someof the renegades demands. Mr. Gaetz and others have been insisting on 12 separate spending bills rather than one big omnibus, which has become the default for Congress and makes it difficult to influence funding levels in specific areas.

Earlier in the summer, however, some of those same members stalled that 12-bill process by bringing the House floor to a complete standstill inretaliation for Speaker McCarthys compromise on the debt ceiling. Conservatives said Mr. McCarthy had reneged on promises he made in January to win their backing for the speakership.

What we ended up doing was sort of re-litigating January ... in July, says Representative Massie. It was sort of like, OK, Kevin, you didnt hold your end of the bargain, so were going to stop you from doing anything.

The speaker heldvotes Thursday on four of those 12 bills, and got three of them passed in addition to one that passed this summer. But he got little in return.On Friday, 21 Republicans torpedoed a GOP stopgap spending measure known as a continuing resolution, or CR that would have kept the government running in the short term.

The measure, which Representatives Roy and Donalds, along with Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry, hashed out with other Republicans, provides for lower overall spending levels and provisions toimprove border security. But more than 10 of their own Freedom Caucus colleagues, including Mr. Biggs, Mr. Buck, and Ms. Boebert, helped kill it.

Rep. Garrett Graves, who was the chief negotiator between the caucus and Mr. McCarthy during the debt ceiling standoff, said last week that walking away from the CR was a big mistake. The measure wouldnt have passed the Senate as written, but it would have given Mr. McCarthy some leverage in his negotiations with Democrats. Now, they may be heading for a politically damaging shutdown that eventually forces Republicans to cave entirely.

I think the closer we get to shutdown, the more and more leverage you lose, he said.

When asked whether the stalemate reflects a breakdown in ideological cohesion, personalities, or just general dysfunction, he gave a tired smile.

Ive got a whole lot of reasons as to why thats happening, he said. Tapping his head, he added, But Im just going to keep them right there for right now.

Read more from the original source:

Freedom Caucus: The Fight Club of Congress - The Christian Science Monitor

Congress has just hours to keep the federal government from grinding to a halt, and a last-minute deal seems increasingly unlikely. The problem is that lawmakers need to pass a dozen appropriations bills or a single continuing resolution by midnight on Sept. 30 in order to keep the governments lights on. But a key group of House Republicans is refusing to pass anything without steep spending cuts. No bills, no government at least for a few days or weeks, anyway.

While fiscal discipline has long been the rallying cry for shutdown supporters, the tactic isnt necessarily effective at reducing the governments deficit.

Article continues after advertisement

Ive been following efforts to shut down the U.S. government for one reason or another for more than 40 years, first from various perches at the Congressional Budget Office, then at the National Governors Association, and now as a professor of public policy. History shows that shutdowns are counterproductive at least as measured by their own defenders goals. Fortunately, the past also provides a proven way to reduce the deficit, which I agree is a laudable goal.

When House Republicans say Americas finances are in bad shape, they do have a point. The deficit, currently estimated at U.S. $1.5 trillion, and debt held by the public, estimated at $25.8 trillion, are both dangerously high.

Why is the status quo so risky? For one thing, large deficits are inflationary and put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. For another, interest on public debt is now estimated to be $663 billion a year, which is slightly over 10% of total spending a huge fiscal burden.

Finally, and most importantly, at some point individuals and foreign countries may dump U.S. treasury bills and bonds on the market because of a loss in confidence. That would make interest rates spike and could create a major economic collapse.

Because of these risks, members of the House Freedom Caucus have threatened to shut down the federal government on Oct. 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year, if they arent able to get big cuts to domestic discretionary spending.

Negotiations are further complicated by some House Republicans desires to add riders about the border and culture war issues to the must-pass spending bills, as well as the Biden administrations request for $24 billion for Ukraine, which not all party members support.

I would argue that now is the wrong time for Republicans to take a stand on reducing the deficit, for two reasons.

First of all, shutdowns dont get results. The U.S. has had 21 shutdowns over the past five decades, three of which have been major. These have all caused real harm to the U.S. economy, but they havent led to the spending levels Republicans wanted.

Whats more, in each case, the public blamed Republicans for the shutdowns, polls show. Some historians have even suggested that the fallout from the weekslong 1995-96 shutdown contributed to then-speaker Newt Gingrich having to resign in 1998.

Article continues after advertisement

Second, the cuts Republicans are seeking arent all that significant. The bottom line is that theyre ignoring national defense and mandatory spending, which together represent 75% of total spending. The current effort aims only to trim domestic discretionary spending, which makes up a small and shrinking slice of the federal-spending pie less than 15% in 2023.

At the same time, mandatory spending, including entitlements, totals nearly $4 trillion annually and is growing rapidly. So, even if Democrats agreed to the domestic discretionary-spending cuts advocated by the House Freedom Caucus, those savings would be overtaken by growth in entitlement spending primarily Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid within a year.

Whats more, any serious plan to reduce the federal deficit must consider increasing the $4.8 trillion of federal revenue. The House Freedom Caucus has expressed no interest in raising taxes.

The bottom line, in my view, is that the shutdown strategy is more about creating drama, publicity and campaign fundraising for certain lawmakers than it is about seriously reducing the deficit.

While its never politically easy to cut entitlements or raise taxes, the reconciliation provision in the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act was enacted specifically for this purpose. It allows entitlement cuts and tax increases to be incorporated into the same bill, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate and only needs a majority for passage.

Over the past 40 years, there have been six serious budget negotiations that resulted in deficit reductions. One in 2011, negotiated by then-President Barack Obama and House Majority Leader John Boehner, was likely the most successful from a fiscal perspective. When it was finally enacted, it generated $1.95 trillion in deficit reduction over nine years.

A similarly successful negotiation came in 1997 during the Clinton administration. Lawmakers cut national defense spending by $247 billion, nondefense discretionary spending by $273 billion and entitlements by $374 billion, with interest savings of $142 billion. They also reduced taxes by $220 billion, mostly for low-income individuals, which brought the net total to $816 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years.

In addition to those successes, there were four other negotiations in 1993, 1990, 1985 and 1983 that averaged over $400 billion in deficit reduction, albeit over different timelines.

Article continues after advertisement

These examples show that budget negotiations without threatening a shutdown can be effective at enacting major deficit-reduction plans into law. The one during the Clinton administration even led to the budget surpluses in the years from 1998 to 2001, the first surpluses since 1969.

UVA Communications

Raymond Scheppach

Unfortunately, I dont believe any of these requirements can be met today.

Raymond Scheppach is a professor of public policy at the University of Virginia.

This article is republished from The Conversation.

As a nonprofit newsroom, MinnPost relies on donations from readers like you.

Donate today to keep our in-depth journalism free for all to access.

If youre interested in joining the discussion, consider writing a Community Voices commentary or counterpoint. (For more information about Community Voices, see our Submission Guidelines.)

Read the rest here:

History shows a better strategy than shutdown for reducing the deficit - MinnPost

Complaining about the nations budget after your party spent like drunk sailors on leave is bad theater, more farce than substance.

After Republicans added an obscene $8 trillion to the nations tab under the Trump administration, the Freedom Caucus forced a debt ceiling showdown only four months ago. Now the same thirsty clowns are back, blaming Democrats for decades of deficit both parties built equally.

The Freedom Caucus has twice blocked the GOPs Pentagon spending bill, one of 12 annual spending bills, from even coming up for debate, in a major rebuke to Speaker McCarthy. They also rejected a 30-day stop gap measure to allow more time to work it out.

Were not interested in a continuing resolution that continues the policies and spendings of the Biden, Schumer, Pelosi era, the Freedom Caucus chair recently said of McCarthys request for a 30-day stop gap measure. Were here to put our foot down

Its hard to decide whats worse, the drama or the hypocrisy. They are not mutually exclusive.

The Freedom Caucus says it will fight with everything that we have. Calling their budget demands the No Security, No Funding plan, the caucus isnt worried about a government shutdown. Its all about MAGA messaging on a nation they fervently wish were in decline. According to Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, a government shut down would be small compared to the principle battle that were in. We are not going to casually fund the decline of our country.

To address so-called decline, their plan demands an overall reduction in spending levels, including cuts in aid to Ukraine; a bill to construct more wall at the southern border and restrict asylum seekers; an end to woke policies in the military like abortion accommodations; and the elimination of the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI by cutting DOJ funding. Caucus enthusiasm is unhindered by the lack of evidence tying Biden to Trumps many criminal indictments, the fact that Trump tried to turn the DOJ into his personal weapon, or by Trumps explicit promise, if he is re-elected, to appoint a real special prosecutor to target the Biden crime family.

McCarthy, who made the mistake of bargaining with hijackers to get his speakership in the first place, parrots their interest in reducing the nations spending, which, he says, is like a family earning $24,000 a year, but spending $35,000. The greatest threat to our nations future, McCarthy now says, is our national debt.

Twice-weekly

News updates from Northwest Indiana delivered every Monday and Wednesday

Too bad McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus couldnt find such fiscal restraint during the four years Trump was in office.

The Freedom Caucus fiscal restraint was only triggered when a Democrat entered the White House. Since 2001, both parties have caused the federal deficit to grow through evenly divided Democrat and Republican presidencies. However, as former GOP congressman David Jolly noted, Roughly 25% of our total national debt incurred over the last 230 years actually occurred during the 4 years of the Trump administration. As Trump intelligently explained, This is the United States government you never have to default because you print the money.

McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus ignore that the national debt is driven by tax policy as much as spending. Following the Trump administrations staggering $2.3 trillion tax giveaway to corporations and the nations wealthy, Trump told his rich donor friends, You all just got a lot richer. Its a gift we are all continuing to pay for, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculating that Republicans tax cuts will continue to increase the national debt by another $1.9 trillion over the next 11 years.

The national debt now sits at $33 trillion, and for all their bluster about cutting entitlements, Republicans cant seem to stop gushing money for their donors.

They reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, gifting corporations with a 40% reduction in their tax burden in 2017. Tax cuts drive national debt, but the No Security, No Funding plan makes no mention of clawing back their gifts to the rich.

With limited time remaining until October 1, the start of the new fiscal year, Congress will have to pass a continuing resolution, or a short-term extension on government funding, to buy more time for lawmakers to work out a spending package. Heres hoping McCarthy takes a cue from the Senate, works out a bipartisan budget thrilling to no one, and brings a vote on a continuing resolution to keep the government running to call his tormentors bluff. If the clown car shuts down the government, at least the nation will know their names.

Sabrina Haake is a Chicago attorney and Gary resident. She writes the Substack newsletter The Haake Take.

Link:

Haake: For the freedom caucus, chaos is the point - Chicago Tribune

The next legal wrestling match over what Missouri voters would see if an abortion-rights initiative petition makes next years ballot is scheduled for Oct. 30 before judges of Western District Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel will hear oral arguments that day on Secretary of State Jay Ashcrofts appeal of Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetems Monday ruling that rewrote the ballot language for six proposed initiatives.

In an order setting the hearing date, the court also set an expedited schedule for filings in the case, splitting the difference between the faster schedule sought by ACLU of Missouri attorneys and the calendar proposed by Ashcrofts legal team.

Ashcrofts opening brief will be due Oct. 11, with the final filing on Oct. 23, one week before arguments.

No extensions will be granted, the order states.

The same schedule applies to an appeal filed Tuesday seeking review of Beetems ruling upholding a fiscal note summary written by State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick. A challenge filed by state Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, and Kathy Forck, a longtime anti-abortion advocate from New Bloomfield, argued that the state could lose federal Medicaid funding and trillions in future tax revenue.

A separate three-judge panel will hear the appeal from Kelly, Coleman and Forck.

Beetem decided that Ashcroft wrote a biased ballot summary for six proposed initiatives that would enshrine rights to receive reproductive health care, including abortion, in the state constitution.

State law directs the secretary of state to prepare a ballot summary that is neither intentionally argumentative nor likely to create prejudice either for or against the proposed measure. In his ruling, Beetem wrote that Ashcroft violated both standards.

Ashcroft filed a notice of appeal the same day as the ruling, telling the Western District Court of Appeals that Beetem went too far by rewriting the entire ballot summary for all six proposals instead of performing minimal revisions to any language deemed unfair and insufficient.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

SUBSCRIBE

In the motion to expedite the appeal, attorney Tori Schafer wrote that Ashcroft has been trying to delay the start of signature-gathering and a lengthy appeal process only helps that effort. The ACLU of Missouri represents Dr. Anna Fitz-James, a St. Louis physician who is the named representative of a political action committee called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and the plaintiff in the case.

The Attorney General and Secretary of State have repeatedly acted outside of the law to delay this case in an attempt to frustrate Dr. Fitz-Jamess right to initiative, Schafer wrote in the motion seeking oral arguments on Oct. 11.

Ashcroft is represented by Attorney General Andrew Baileys office in the case. Bailey was also the cause of the first substantial delay in opening the signature campaign when he refused to accept Fitzpatricks fiscal note summary in April.

Under regular procedures, it takes 56 days to complete a review process that produces a ballot title summary and financial estimate. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom filed 11 proposals in early March and expected to have a petition ready for circulation by mid-May.

To make the 2024 ballot, backers must secure more than 170,000 signatures from registered voters by early May 2024.

Instead, Baileys refusal to act on Fitzpatricks summary resulted in a court case resolved by the July 20 decision of the Missouri Supreme Court that concluded nothing in state law gives the attorney general authority to question the auditors assessment of the fiscal impact of a proposed petition.

Ashcroft waited for a week after that decision before certifying the ballot title, Schafer wrote.

Time is of the essence to prevent the Attorney General and Secretary from successfully frustrating the right to initiative, she wrote.

In seeking a longer schedule, Assistant Attorney General Josh Divine wrote that he needs time to prepare after taking over the case from the trial attorney. Under normal court procedures, he wrote, Beetems Monday ruling would not be final until Oct. 25.

Any time after that would be best for Ashcroft, Divine wrote. The time limit for litigation over ballot titles is 180 days, he wrote, making the deadline for a final decision Jan. 22.

If the court wants to move faster, Divine wrote, he needs until at least October 13 to file an opening brief so counsel can become acquainted with the caseespecially in light of other briefing obligations, including a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, due in the upcoming weeks.

Ashcroft and Bailey have not unnecessarily delayed the certification of the initiative or the litigation, DIvine wrote.

Respondent also casts aspersions, wrongly asserting that state actors have slow-walked this case, Divine wrote. There is no need to respond to every incorrect assertion.

See the original post here:

Appeals court sets hearing date on Missouri abortion rights initiative ... - Missouri Independent

A new Visa Billionaire Card has been recently released by the partnership between luxury group Majestas, Primavera Investments, and Jacob & Co. watchmaker and jeweler, thus creating a new competitor for the American Express Centurion black card.

The Billionaire Card is exclusively accessible to those with a significant amount of wealth. This highly exclusive experience is restricted to just 150 lucky members who have been personally invited by the brand. The grand launch of this incredible card is scheduled for November.

Majestas Group commissioned Jacob & Co. to work together with Insignia, a card company, to create a Billionaire Card. Jacob & Co. designed a set of metal cards with gold plating, diamond inlays, a star pattern, mother of pearl, and the Jacob & Co. crest.

As a distinguished Billionaire cardholder, you can indulge in the utmost luxuriousness, the pinnacle of fine dining, exceptional entertainment, and exclusive nightlife combined with prize-winning lifestyle management and incomparable fiscal freedom, admittance to concerts, fashion shows, worldwide sporting events for instance the Super Bowl, the F1 Paddock Club Priv or even the Academy Awards, Coachella in California, Burning Man in Nevada, New York Fashion Week, Vogues Fashion Forces, and Highsnobietys private events.

In addition to bragging rights, what does it offer?

Have you read? Ranked: Most Powerful Weapons in the World, 2023. Ranked: Countries with the largest active combat helicopter fleet worldwide in 2023. Ranked: Most powerful air forces in the World, 2023. Report: Strongest Economies in The World in 2023. Study: Wealthiest Americans of All Time.

Read the rest here:

Things to Know About the Billionaire Card - a Diamond-Encrusted ... - CEOWORLD magazine

Summary

This report to Congress is provided in accordance with section 608(a) of the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003, as amended, 22 U.S.C. 7701, 7707(a) (the Act).

The Act authorizes the provision of assistance for global development through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) for countries that enter into a Millennium Challenge Compact with the United States to support policies and programs that advance the progress of such countries to achieve lasting economic growth and poverty reduction. The Act requires MCC to take a number of steps in selecting countries with which MCC will seek to enter into a compact, including determining the countries that will be eligible countries for fiscal year (FY) 2024 based on (a) a countrys demonstrated commitment to (i) just and democratic governance, (ii) economic freedom, and (iii) investments in its people; (b) the opportunity to reduce poverty and generate economic growth in the country; and (c) the availability of funds to MCC. These steps include the submission to the congressional committees specified in the Act and publication in the Federal Register of reports on the following:

This report is the first of three required reports listed above.

The Act requires the identification of all countries that are candidate countries for purposes of eligibility for MCC compact assistance for FY 2024 and the identification of all countries that would be candidate countries for purposes of eligibility for MCC compact assistance but for specified legal prohibitions on assistance. Under sections 606(a) and (b) of the Act, candidate countries must qualify as low income or lower middle income countries as defined in the Act.

Specifically, a country will be a candidate country in the low income category for FY 2024 if it

A country will be a candidate country in the lower middle income category for FY 2024 if it

Under section 606(c) of the Act as applied for FY 2024, a country with per capita income changes from FY 2023 to FY 2024 such that the country would be reclassified from the low income category to the lower middle income category or vice versa will retain its income status in its former category for FY 2024 and two subsequent fiscal years (FY 2025 and FY 2026). A country that has transitioned to the upper middle income category does not qualify as a candidate country.

Pursuant to section 606(d) of the Act, the Board identified the following countries as candidate countries under the Act for FY 2024. In so doing, the Board referred to the prohibitions on assistance to countries for FY 2023 under the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2023 (FY 2023 SFOAA) contained in Division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117-103).

Countries that would be considered candidate countries for purposes of eligibility for MCC compact assistance for FY 2024 but are ineligible to receive United States economic assistance under part I of the Foreign Assistance Act by reason of the application of any provision of the Foreign Assistance Act or any other provision of law are listed below. This list is based on legal prohibitions against economic assistance that apply as of July 25, 2023.

Countries identified above as candidate countries, as well as countries that would be considered candidate countries but for the applicability of legal provisions that prohibit U.S. economic assistance, may be the subject of future statutory restrictions or determinations, or changed country circumstances, that affect their legal eligibility for assistance under part I of the Foreign Assistance Act by reason of application of the Foreign Assistance Act or any other provision of law for FY 2024.

View post:

Report on Countries that are Candidates for Millennium Challenge ... - Millennium Challenge Corporation

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., speaks at a news conference with members of the House Freedom Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on July 25. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., speaks at a news conference with members of the House Freedom Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on July 25.

While much of the nation tries to enjoy the last days of summer vacation, and Congress is taking its annual August recess, some members are already hard at work. They may not be physically present in the Capitol, or even in Washington, but their minds are on the mission they will undertake right after Labor Day.

Their goals are ambitious. So they want to make sure they have maximum leverage over the process when Congress makes its big budget and spending decisions at the end of the federal fiscal year.

And they are making no secret of how far they are willing to go. They see this next month as their window of opportunity to alter the policies and priorities of the federal establishment.

From their perspective, they have yet to deliver on the promises they made to the people who voted for them in 2022. They are especially focused on those who voted for them in the primaries first and then again in November, when their party won a narrow majority of the seats in the House (while falling short of control in the Senate).

Those all-important primaries were Republican primaries, of course, because we are talking here about members of the House Freedom Caucus a group of hardcore conservatives within the chamber's majority. Members of the caucus led the resistance to the election of Speaker Kevin McCarthy in January, which took 15 ballots to accomplish.

They have furiously protested the debt ceiling deal that kept the U.S. from defaulting on debt back in May. McCarthy had reached that deal with President Biden, and it passed the House with the votes of most members of both parties but not those of the House Freedom Caucus.

Caucus members were frustrated that the committee placements and rules changes they negotiated back in January when McCarthy became speaker did not seem to restrain him when it came to the debt-limit deal.

Now, caucus members want to declare a new day for the 118th Congress. They think they can force McCarthy to toe their line, because if he does not he will be subject to an effort to replace him. And they want September to be the month they shift the focus of Congress to their own aggressive agenda of opposing, investigating and even impeaching President Biden or members of his administration.

As a starting point, they are refusing to vote for a stopgap bill to keep the federal government operating past Sept. 30.

The stopgap, known as a continuing resolution, is a common fallback when the fiscal year ends and Congress has not finished all 12 of the regular spending bills that must pass both chambers. Without it, parts of the federal government shut down. At a July news conference, Rep. Bob Good of Virginia said McCarthy should seize the moment.

"We should not fear a government shutdown," Good said on the steps of the Capitol. "Most of the American people won't even miss it if the government is shut down temporarily."

Good, who opposed McCarthy's election as speaker, saw the choice in monumental terms for McCarthy and the country:

"Our speaker has the opportunity to be a transformational historical speaker who stared down the Democrats, that stared down the free spenders, that stared down the president and said, 'No, we're going to do what the American people elected us to do.' "

This month, the caucus members have been rallying around one of their own, third-term Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who on Aug. 16 told a radio host in his home state he would "use every tool I have at my disposal to stop [McCarthy's temporary spending measure] and frankly to fight any efforts to continue to fund this government without radical reform for border security, at the Department of Justice and at the Department of Defense, at a minimum."

Roy and other members of the caucus have objected to Justice's prosecution of two criminal cases against former President Donald Trump and to the Pentagon's adoption of diversity programs and sensitivity training for military personnel.

But Roy, whose district lies south of Austin in rural Texas, also made clear his central objection is to the performance of Biden's Department of Homeland Security. He has called on Republicans to "put our entire careers" on the line to "stop funding that smirking son of a b**** Alejandro Mayorkas," referring to the current secretary of Homeland Security, with whom Roy has clashed in congressional oversight hearings.

Anyone who watched the 15 ballots it took to elect McCarthy speaker can visualize Roy, a towering presence in those long debates in the wee hours. But what is happening now is more than just rhetoric or intraparty intrigue. Government shutdowns have real effects on public employees and the public interest. The 2019 shutdown triggered by then-President Trump's demands for more border wall funding lasted five weeks.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (right) talks to fellow Republicans then-Rep.-elect Chip Roy of Texas (center) and Rep.-elect Jim Jordan of Ohio in the House Chamber during the second day of elections for speaker of the House on Jan. 4. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption

Government shutdowns have never been popular with the public, at least in terms of opinion polling. But they are perfectly acceptable to the kind of partisans who often vote in GOP primaries.

So the prospect of a shutdown this fall is being taken seriously by serious people who know the system and its vulnerabilities. This week a former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, told CQ Roll Call that "the odds are increasing every day that there will be a shutdown."

Cantor should know. Before he became an investment banker, he was in the House leadership with former Speaker John Boehner, who struggled with "Tea Party" hardliners in the fall of 2013. In that case, the sticking point was funding for Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act).

The blockade led to a shutdown of 16 days, one of the longest ever at that time. Negotiating an end to it was complicated by the involvement of first-term GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who personally rallied House members against him. Roy served as chief of staff to Cruz before getting elected to the House.

Boehner has since referred to Cruz as "the devil in the flesh." In the fall of 2015, once again clashing over the budget, Boehner threw in the towel. He resigned as speaker in mid-session, an ignominious end to a career that had brought him the Big Gavel when the GOP captured 63 previously Democratic seats in the 2010 midterms (the ones Obama called "a shellacking").

Boehner was replaced by Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan, who had been chairman of Ways and Means and the GOP's 2012 nominee for vice president. But Ryan too struggled to deal with the Freedom Caucus. Like Boehner, Ryan simply lacked the votes to prevail on the House floor without the caucus' support. Ryan retired voluntarily in 2019 after three years and three months as speaker.

More than two-thirds of the House Freedom Caucus today arrived in the House after the Obama presidency. But for those with longer memories of the partisan wars on Capitol Hill, the words "shutdown" and "impeachment" are closely associated with the last two GOP regimes that controlled the House.

Those Republican majorities, first elected in 1994 and 2010, are now remembered largely for their shutdowns (2005 and 2006 and 2013) and for impeaching Bill Clinton in 1998.

It must be noted that use of a government shutdown to pressure a Democratic president was a new tactic. Congress had always had the "power of the purse," as the Constitution requires legislation to move money out of the Treasury. But the world wars and Depression of the first half of the 1900s built a presumption that Congress would work with whoever was in the White House to maintain continuity of government. And presidents in both parties found ways to work with Capitol Hill, even when one or both chambers were controlled by the other party.

Then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks to the press on Capitol Hill in March 1995 about the upcoming vote in the Senate on the Balanced Budget Amendment. Renaud Giroux/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks to the press on Capitol Hill in March 1995 about the upcoming vote in the Senate on the Balanced Budget Amendment.

That came to an end with the election of 1994, a blowout win for Republicans that gave them control of the House for the first time in 40 years. It also changed the mood of Washington after two years of full Democratic control under first-term Democratic President Bill Clinton.

That win was engineered in the House by the party's No. 2 man, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who would be elected speaker in January 1995 and last almost four years in the job. Gingrich's unified approach to the fall campaign got GOP incumbents and challengers nationwide to sign a pledge ("The Contract with America") to prioritize and vote on 10 specific issues. That amplified the party message and elevated its primary messenger.

The heady GOP expectations of that moment did not come to fruition in the short term. One reason was that the Gingrich team's first two years were marked by two government shutdowns and other dramatic confrontations that failed to derail Clinton's re-election in 1996.

Once in office, Gingrich made it clear he would use tools no speaker had used before. He was the first speaker to make a cudgel of the debt limit which must be raised periodically so the Treasury can issue new debt while paying off bonds and other U.S. obligations that come due. Gingrich wanted concessions in exchange for raising the debt limit, and the showdown threatened default and chaos in financial markets

Gingrich left the speakership late in 1998 after his party lost seats in that fall's midterms amid the controversy surrounding its effort to impeach Clinton.

In 2006, the GOP lost control of both chambers. But when Republicans stormed back into the House majority on the energy of the Tea Party in 2010, it was at first even more confident than the Gingrich crew. They believed the answer to resistance was to plow ahead and reject calls to slow down or compromise the big goals such as balancing the federal budget.

And that is the vision that the House Freedom Caucus of today wants to recapture, starting in September.

See the original post here:

The Freedom Caucus' shutdown threat recalls tactics of past House ... - NPR

Joe Biden is president of the United States.

Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. In describing his dream for us all, Dr. King spoke of redeeming the promissory note to which every American was to fall heir derived from the very idea of America we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While weve never fully lived up to that promise as a nation, we have never fully walked away from it, either. Each day of the Biden-Harris administration, we continue the march forward.

That includes a fundamental break with trickle-down economics that promised prosperity but failed America, especially Black Americans, over the past several decades. Trickle-down economics holds that taxes should be cut for the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations, that public investments in priorities such as education, infrastructure and health care should be shrunk, and good jobs shipped overseas. It has exacerbated inequality and systemic barriers that make it harder for Black Americans to start a business, own a home, send their children to school and retire with dignity.

Vice President Harris and I came into office determined to change the economic direction of the country and grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. Our plan Bidenomics is working. Because of the major laws and executive orders Ive signed from the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, my executive orders on racial equity and more were advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans.

This administration will continue to prioritize increasing access to government contracting and lending. We awarded a record $69.9 billion in federal contracts to small, disadvantaged businesses in fiscal 2022. Were taking on housing discrimination and increasing Black homeownership. To date, weve invested more than $7 billion in historically Black colleges and universities to prepare students for high-growth industries. Weve approved more than $116 billion in student loan debt cancellation for 3.4 million Americans so that borrowers receive the relief they deserve. And a new student debt repayment plan is helping Black students and families cut in half their total lifetime payments per dollar borrowed. Were doing all of this by making sure the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share, keeping my commitment that Americans earning less than $400,000 a year not pay a single penny more in federal taxes.

And to help guide these policies, I made it a priority to appoint Black leaders to my Cabinet, my staff, in the judiciary and to key positions in agencies such as the Federal Reserve to ensure policymakers represent the experiences of all Americans in the economy.

But we know government cant do it alone. Private-sector leaders have rightly acted to ensure their companies are more reflective of America, often in response to their employees, their customers and their own consciences. Right now, the same guardians of trickle-down economics who attack our administrations economic policies are also attacking the private sector and the views of the American people. A recent poll from the nonpartisan Black Economic Alliance Foundation shows overwhelming bipartisan support for promoting diversity as central to a company being more innovative and more profitable, and central to fulfilling the promise of our country for all Americans. Despite the attacks, we all must keep pushing to create a workforce that reflects America.

For generations, Black Americans havent always been fully included in our democracy or our economy, but by pure courage and heart, they have never given up pursuing the American Dream. We saw in Jacksonville, Fla., yet another community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus. We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin. On this day of remembrance, let us keep showing that racial equity isnt just an aspiration. Let us reject the cramped view that America is a zero-sum game that holds that for one to succeed, another must fail. Let us remember America is big enough for everyone to do well and reach their God-given potential.

Thats how we redeem the promissory note of our nation.

Read the original:

Opinion | Joe Biden op-ed: 60 years after March on Washington, we ... - The Washington Post

In 2020, Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang suggested Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a potential answer to job displacement from artificial intelligence. In those days, the general public had little idea of what OpenAI or ChatGPT could do.

Many didnt even know it existed. After all, GPT-3 didnt release until June of that year. The idea that a chatbot could write blogs, create PowerPoints, analyze data, and complete detailed reports with pie charts and bar graphs, all in a minute or two, was a foreign concept to the human workers doing those very jobs day in and day out.

Yang didnt come close to clinching the nomination, but he was the only candidate speaking about the looming near-term potential for job displacement as a result of this new technology. His suggestion supplement every American adult with a $1,000 per month Freedom Dividend sounded necessary to some and socialist to others. He proposed paying for it with a value-added tax (VAT). His ideas have since been adopted by several U.S. cities, including Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Oakland, and are dispensed to around 26 million Americans at the time of this article.

A recent poll found over two-thirds of respondents wanted UBI, with more Democrats than Republicans (82%-48%) and more GenZers than Baby Boomers (79%-63%) driving the results. Generation X was the least in favor at 61%, while 12% of the country was neutral and just 20% opposed the concept altogether.

Its difficult to say whether Yangs system could work on a national scale. The closest weve seen to the federal government running such a program is Social Security, and, according to the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds Annual Report, released on March 31, 2023, thats not going particularly well. The report postulates that the Medicare Trust Fund will become insolvent by 2031 and the Social Security Trust Fund will follow by 2033. In other words, recipients will no longer be able to receive their full benefits as promised if Congress doesnt take action.

Spoiler alert: they likely will.

If history is a guide, thats likely to result in your children and grandchildren working past the age of 67 (current age) before becoming eligible. Considering that life expectancy declined during the pandemic and has only recently inched up to 79.1 years (81 for females, 77 for males), thats not a lot of time to enjoy your Golden Years.

Following Yangs lead nationally would be a $3.132 trillion expense to a government that spent $1.45 trillion more in fiscal year 2022 than it took in. If you have faith in Washington to make the cuts required to accommodate UBI, then you might be a cockeyed optimist. Thats because our politicians have only logged surpluses five times in the last 50 years, with the last time being a relatively measly $128 billion in 2001.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a new report on Aug. 2, 2023, that looked at the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas using data from the World Economic Forum and Bureau of Labor Statistics. Their findings found that more than 10 million jobs fell into the at-risk category from AI adoption. These were mostly administrative roles (i.e., record-keepers, cashiers), accountants, bookkeepers, factory workers, and traditional security roles. Las Vegas was the most at-risk with around 16% of its workforce in danger by the year 2027. Other high-rankers were Miami, Louisville, Orlando, Houston, and Grand Rapids.

The good news: AI could be a massive job creator, provided governments can regulate it without stifling innovation. A PwC report projects the technology to add an average of 14% to 16% to the global economy, the equivalent of a $15.7 trillion contribution. Our share of that could be around 14.5%, or $3.7 trillion, more than enough to pay for a UBI program at the scale Yang envisioned. Expect discussion of this possibility among regulators as they seek ways to temporarily address job displacement or aid in upskilling for those who are employed.

For now, elected officials seem to understand the enormous responsibility that rests on their shoulders. Even if theyre unable to fully grasp the complexity of the tech, their study into possible regulations that launched in April of this year demonstrates a grasp of whats at stake. Whether that understanding translates into the right action, however, is anyones guess.

Editors note: Aric Mitchell is an AI consultant and communications strategist, and produces the AI-focused newsletter, Innovation Dispatch. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Continue reading here:

Universal Basic Income: Fiscal fantasy or AI necessity? - talkbusiness.net