S.555
March 10, 2008 08:03 PM (10 months ago) | Overall Score: 5.0 | Replies: 0

These kinds of plans can be a source of tax savings for some people. More importantly, they help a family budget and save for health care expenses. Big employers have these plans, so why shouldn't small businesses?

S.2633
March 10, 2008 08:03 PM (10 months ago) | Overall Score: 5.0 | Replies: 0

I think that exception pretty much has to be in there. Ever since American intervention produced so much chaos in Iraq, the country has been a magnet for all kinds of international thugs and scum looking for a rock to crawl under. Since we still don't have a viable way to turn Iraq into the peaceful democratic country George Bush used to tell us it would be, they'll probably be there for a long time. Congress can't turn off all the counter-insurgency operations. Far better to have the military do that work, anyway, than the CIA. This bill will probably never become law, tho. The veto pen will come out...

H.R.5140
February 28, 2008 08:02 PM (10 months ago) | Overall Score: 5.0 | Replies: 0

My understanding is that earmarks are not published in the text of a bill. Rather, they are added to the bill just before it's voted on. Tracing earmarks is a difficult enterprise, but the Seattle Times investigative news team did it for one important bill, which took them weeks and weeks of mind-numbing research effort. But it paid off, because now they have an earmark database. Check it out at http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/favorfactory/. Look for more communities to follow their lead. Eventually, that information could make its way into sites like OpenCongress, but even when it does, it will be after-the-fact to the bill's passage. Unless things change, that is, and access to the information could just make that happen.

H.R.5140
February 28, 2008 08:02 PM (10 months ago) | Overall Score: 5.0 | Replies: 0

Anonymous, your attack on mhkid is unwarranted. You're reading WAY too much into his comment. Hiding behind anonymity and hurling insults won't convince anyone to agree with you, it's just cowardly and nasty.

H.R.5351
February 27, 2008 09:02 PM (10 months ago) | Overall Score: 5.0 | Replies: 0

The facts would seem to be on the side of this bill's sponsors and their supporters. $18 billion would go a long way toward building the alternative energy industry, and that in turn would stimulate the economy. Like many investors in this country's energy sector, I have positions in both traditional and alternative companies. If alternative continues to grow as I hope it will, I'll shift assets out of oil and natural gas and into solar (or whatever). I frankly don't see a downside to this legislation. The Bush Administration has a point when he says it's unfair to withdraw the manufacturing credit from JUST this industry. So, broaden the billl. In fact, let's withdraw it from OTHER dinosaurs we don't want this planet and the people of this country be obliged support. Any industry that continues to make profits by using up our non-renewable natural resources, should have manufacturing credit withdrawn, those revenues to be used to find renewable alternatives through responsible means.

S.2544
February 27, 2008 06:02 PM (10 months ago) | Overall Score: 5.0 | Replies: 0

This bill will provide an immediate stimulus to the economy because 1) it's easy and cheap to administer, using existing bureaucracies States already have in place to administer employment programs and 2) unemployed people will immediately take that money and go out and spend it in the retail economy, unlike tax rebates that many people will tuck into savings accounts.