Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov 29, 2010 - Lame Duck Continues! Government Aims to Take Control of All Farming

News Alert: The Washington Post: Today, "bowing to Republican political pressure and growing budget concerns, President Obama will announce a pay freeze for all civilian federal workers (including the Department of Defense)."

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO-06) responded: “No doubt, this does not go far enough but his pay freeze is a positive first step by a President who has added over 100,000 new federal employees at wages and benefits much higher than are available in the private sector for doing similar work.”  Although the following bill by Coffman will not see the light of day in this Congressional session, it may find favor if reintroduced it in the next session of Congress: H.R. 6134 would have furloughed  federal civilian employees to non-consecutive two weeks in 2011, reduced salaries of members of Congress by 10%, and  correspondingly reduce appropriations for salaries and expenses for offices of the legislative branch. Result: saving  taxpayers more than $5.5 billion.  And additional benefit: the bill and other actions will send a warning to government employees that we expect them to reduce not expand government.  Future bills should reduce the number of Czars  (funded offices and departments) and reduce the number of both paid and unpaid White House and Congressional staff members.

House Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-OH) responded: “I welcome President Obama’s announcement, and hope he will build on it by embracing much-needed steps to reduce both the size and the cost of government, including the net federal hiring freeze Republicans propose in our Pledge to America. Without a hiring freeze, a pay freeze won’t do much to rein in a federal bureaucracy that added hundreds of thousands of employees to its payroll over the last two years while the private sector shed millions of jobs.
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Congress returns for continuance of the Lame Duck session and liberals still have control. Before going on the Thanksgiving recess, the Senate voted 57-27 to proceed to S. 510, the food safety and FDA reorganization bill - titled the "Food Safety Modernization Act Expected Today." A bill that will affect American's rights to even grow their own food (plants and animals). To paraphrase Glen Beck, thsi bill at minimum increase food prices and at worst ruin farming. Anytime the government interferes in farming, the American people suffer. Last Tuesday on the Dave Elswick radio show (KARN 102.9 FM) Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) said he would vote "Yes" on this bill.

As identified in Politico, at 5:30 this evening, Mark Kirk, heir to President Obama's former seat, will be sworn in as the new Republican Senator from Illinois, narrowing the Democratic majority at a very inconvenient time for its current leadership. "His arrival will narrow Democrats’ majority in the Senate to 58-42, meaning they’ll now need at least two Republicans to reach the 60-vote threshold to move forward on legislation. Two other new senators – Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – were sworn in shortly after the midterm election, but the balance of power remained unchanged in the Senate because they replaced Democrats."

Congress is scheduled today at 6:30 PM, the Senate to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the Harkin substitute amendment to S. 510. If cloture is invoked, the Senate will then consider 4 motions to suspend the rules to allow amendments.

The motions will be offered by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), for an amendment to eliminate the onerous 1099 reporting requirements on small businesses in the Democrats’ health care bill, by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), for an amendment to scale back the 1099 requirements, and by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), for his own substitute amendment to the bill and for an amendment to ban earmarks. Each motion to suspend requires 67 votes to be approved. Senators will vote on all four motions and then on final passage of S. 510.

Lame-duck Democrats enter tomorrow’s meeting of congressional leaders at the White House showing “ The LA Times identified that there are "no signs of relenting” on their plan to impose a job-killing tax hike on families and small businesses. Even after Americans clearly rejected job-killing policies such as this one, Democrats reportedly continue to cling to these tax hikes at all costs, allowing the uncertainty gripping families and small businesses to continue. Reuter's idnetifed that one senior Senate Democratic aide went so far as to ask aloud: “How the hell should we know when we will figure this out?” All this dithering and doubling-down only validates the American people’s repudiation of Washington and politicians who refuse to listen.

As today’s Wall Street Journal notes, “when Mr. Obama and his top advisers signaled willingness to give ground after the election, they were slammed by liberals who viewed it as a capitulation.” The ‘capitulation’ charge was led by union bosses.  Typical, but unfortunate: taking cues from liberal special interests instead of listening to the American people is a major reason why Democrats find themselves in their current predicament.

House Democrats retained Speaker Pelosi as Democratic Leader in part because they want her to serve as a “counterweight” should President Obama express willingness to work with Republicans on the people’s priorities. Her stance on raising taxes, according to the AP, is a “recent example” of this retrenchment. This job-killing tax hike shouldn’t be used as a test case for Democrats’ ability to obstruct critical progress on creating jobs and cutting spending.

Republicans heard the voters loud and clear: end the uncertainty Washington, help small businesses and get our economy back to creating jobs. Democrats and Republicans don't have to wait until January to stop all the tax hikes and start cutting spending. We can – and should – get started right now. The clock may be winding down on Democrats’ hold on power in both houses of Congress, but there’s still time to do the right thing.

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