$41.6 Billion Tax Package

Over $1.5 million on private jets to fly Bill
& Hillary Clinton to stump for various
candidates who lost their 2014 midterms

Ann Louise Wilcox, Bankrupting America: President Obama has signed into law the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending package funding the government through the next year. According to The Hill, “Dubbed the ‘cromnibus,’ the spending package contains 11 appropriations bills that fund most of the government through Sept. 30. It also includes a continuing resolution (CR) that funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through Feb. 27. Some of the bill’s provisions sparked an intense debate, mostly among Democrats last week because it repeals a portion of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.” Read on for the top stories for the week:

EPA Spent Millions To Lease Partially Full Warehouses. On Dec. 8, the inspector general (IG) for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report detailing the poor management of EPA warehouses. According to the report, “The EPA did not adequately inventory property nor provide adequate oversight to ensure effective and efficient use of EPA resources.” In addition, the EPA did not efficiently use warehouse space at 38 percent of the facilities the Inspector General reviewed. According to The Washington Times, “The inspector general report found that the EPA did not efficiently use warehouse space at 38 percent of the facilities reviewed, and that half of the warehouses it inspected had items in stock that could have been purchased locally or didn’t fulfill an immediate need.”

Consumers Will Face A Fine If They Do Not Purchase Insurance By February 15, 2015. On Dec. 17, The Hill reported, “People without insurance are running out of time to avoid the hefty ObamaCare penalties that the IRS will be handing down in 2016. Consumers face a Feb. 15, 2015, deadline to buy insurance, after which those without coverage could be hit with fines of $325 per adult or 2 percent of family income, whichever is higher. Uninsured people looking to escape the penalties are turning to the exchanges before they close, while insurance companies and tax preparers are seizing on the looming tax hit as a business opportunity.”

The EPA Must Finalize The Climate Rule For New Power Plants By January 8, 2015. The Obama administration is on the verge of missing the deadline for the president’s climate plan. According to POLITICO, “The EPA has a Jan. 8 legal deadline to finish the regulation, aimed at throttling carbon pollution from future power plants, but people closely following the rule think the agency could miss that date by months. Among other omens, EPA hasn’t yet submitted the rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, a process that normally takes 30 to 90 days. This wouldn’t be the first time the delay-prone agency has missed a deadline for this regulation: It was originally supposed to finish an earlier version of the power plant rule by April 2013, but it pulled the rule back for retooling as part of the big climate action plan that President Barack Obama announced that June.”

Senate Passed A $41.6 Billion Tax Package Extending The Wind Production Tax Credit. According to The Hill, “The Senate cleared a $41.6 billion package of tax breaks on Tuesday, sending the legislation to President Obama in one of the last substantive moves of this Congress. By a 76 to 16 vote, the Senate passed a measure that would extend more than four dozen tax breaks for both businesses and individuals just through 2014. The short-term tax bill restores tax provisions that help working families, like distressed homeowners, teachers who buy their own supplies and commuters who use mass transit. For the corporate community, the package includes the popular credit for research and development, an incentive for businesses to invest in economically distressed areas and two preferences for multinational corporations’ offshore income. The latest extension of the tax breaks also includes a credit for wind energy, which has bipartisan support but is perhaps the most controversial of all the 50-plus incentives.”

More Than $1.5 Million Spent To Fly The Clintons To Major Midterm Election Events. According to POLITICO, “Campaigns and political committees spent more than $1.5 million on private jets to fly in Bill and Hillary Clinton to stump for various candidates during the 2014 midterms, campaign filings show. The tally includes $44,360 the final weekend of the campaign for a plane in Iowa. That was when Bill Clinton did a fly-around for failed Democratic Senate hopeful Bruce Braley. There was also a $21,801 charge that weekend to Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s unsuccessful reelection campaign, a POLITICO review found. More than 60 payments were made to a New York-based company called Executive Fliteways over the course of 2013 and 2014, a review of FEC records, campaign filings and state parties found. Buzzfeed reported shortly after the midterms that the travel costs were already at almost $700,000 based on records available at that point. The vast bulk of that travel at the time represented planes for former President Bill Clinton.”

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