PODCAST: Hill Update, 2/7/2011

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1.       House/YouCut: The House YouCut vote this week is on the $179 million the US has overpaid the UN in the “Tax Equalization Fund”, the fund created with US taxpayer dollars to pay the UN money to refund the taxes collected on UN employees to the UN employees. The $179 million is in overpayment that the administration hasn’t requested back.

2.       House/Continuing Resolution (CR): The current continuing resolution—the bill that funds government spending at last year’s level because the Democrats didn’t bother to do a budget for this fiscal year—is all the talk on the Hill.  It runs out in a few weeks. The House will introduce a bill on Thursday to specify spending for the rest of the fiscal year (through the end of September). It will have about $74 billion in cuts. It will be introduced in a open process (rule) allowing for amendments—this an unusual amount of openness and is commendable. The RSC will be pushing to get the number up over $100 billion, the number promised during campaign season. RSC members are hopeful they will get there and leadership has suggested it is supportive. It may be done as one RSC amendment. Activists should put in calls to their members to support at least $100 billion in cuts in the CR.

3.       Senate/CR:  11 Senators sent a letter to Speaker Boehner asking him to  get them a continuing resolution with at least $100 billion in cuts since they have a weaker hand being in the minority.

4.       House/Rep. Garrett (NJ): He’s introducing a bill, HR 4853, the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2011, to permanently repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).


5.       House/Energy: Rep. Upton and Sen. Inhofe have introduced the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 to, among other things, stop the EPA bureaucrats from making legislative decisions that should be made in Congress.  I think he got the message from our campaign!  Rep. Burton, in HR 91, has introduced a bill to prevent the upcoming ban on incandescent light bulbs (that Upton helped pass).

6.       Stimulus: Feb. 17th is the two year anniversary of the Stimulus.


7.       Important bills: The RSC continues to push their Spending Reduction Act (HR 408 from Jordan and Garrett/S. 168 from DeMint), the Full Faith and Credit Act (HR 421 from McClintock, S. 163 from Toomey), and Rep. Jeff Duncan’s initiative to bring back the Byrd Committee that would only work on cutting programs/spending.

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