Friday, December 29, 2023
About 218,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report on Thursday. It showed that about 218,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on December 23rd. Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending December 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 218,000, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 205,000 to 206,000. The 4-week moving average was 212,000, a decrease of 250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 212,000 to 212,250.
2023 Was NOT A Good Year For The Republican House
The following is just part of an article about the dysfunctional Republican House by Li Zhou at Vox.com:
There’s nothing quite like starting the year with 14 consecutive rounds of failed speaker votes.
Just one week into 2023, House Republicans had already endured a humiliating leadership race full of infighting and chaos. And while that was a low point for them, things arguably went downhill from there.
Since then, the GOP followed up its first wave of speaker drama with another equally tumultuous contest, expulsion votes on one of its own members, failed attempts to get much of its policy agenda out the door, and floundering investigations of President Joe Biden.
Spending a year dealing with political and personnel problems left the party with little to show for itself policy-wise ahead of an election year in which Republicans hope to expand on their narrow House majority. And it has given Democrats plenty of ammunition to use in making the case the GOP shouldn’t be trusted to govern.
According to the New York Times, this is the most unproductive the House has been in years, even compared to other instances of divided government. In 2023, the House passed just 27 bills that became law, a far lower figure than the 72 it passed in 2013 when Congress was similarly split.
It was always going to be difficult for Republicans to leave a mark given Democratic control of the Senate and White House, but in the past, parties in the GOP’s position have stayed better united on their policy priorities and put pressure on the administration while sticking together on their demands. Although there’s still time to turn things around next year, at this point in the term, it seems as though this House will be remembered for being the one in which Republicans were seriously in disarray.
Thursday, December 28, 2023
Republicans Don't Trust Vote Counting In Their Own Primary
Congress Is Running Out Of Time To Fix Social Security
Economists and politicians have been warning us for years that the Social Security system is in a financial crunch, and in a few years won't have enough money to fully pay benefits. Currently, it is expected that by 2030 the system will only be able to pay recipients about 80% of benefits.
That's not very far down the road, and if allowed to happen, it would be disastrous for the millions who rely solely on Social Security for their income -- especially those receiving the smallest benefit amount.
Both parties claim they want to fix Social Security, but they cannot agree on how to do it.
The Republicans don't want to fully fund the system. Instead they want to cut Social Security. They have proposed changing the formula for cost-of-living adjustments. Their new formula would reduce the amount of cost-of-living adjustments, making it even harder for seniors to keep up with inflation. This is a crazy idea, since many recipients already aren't able to keep up with inflation.
They have also proposed raising the age at which a worker can apply for benefits to 70 (or higher). That might be fine for bankers and CEOs -- people who don't need the benefits to begin with and are working jobs that are not physically strenuous. But for millions of workers, the ones who do actual physical labor, it would create a dire situation. After their bodies have forced them to retire, they would still have to wait years to get any benefits. How are they supposed to live?
The GOP solutions simply will not work for millions of workers. But there is another way, one that would be virtually painless to most Americans.
Currently, the tax that funds Social Security is capped at the first $168,600 of income. Any amount of income over that is not subject to the tax. That means anyone making $168,600 would pay 6.2% of their income into the Social Security Trust Fund. Those making more than that would pay a smaller percentage of their income -- and the rich would pay a much smaller percentage.
By raising the cap to about $250,000, the Social Security system could be fully funded for many decades to come. It would not affect those already paying the full 6.2%, since they would not pay any additional tax. Those making between $168,600 and $250,000 would pay the same percentage as those making less, and the rich would still pay a smaller percentage than anyone else.
This way, the system would be fully funded and no benefits would be cut (or retirement age raised). And the seniors making less than the average benefit would be protected from creeping poverty. This is the way that makes sense!
Unfortunately, the Republicans won't go for it. They only care about the rich. They really don't care about the millions of Social Security recipients struggling to keep up with rising costs.
This means the only way for voters to insure the Social Security system is saved is to vote the Republicans out of office. Anyone who needs their full Social Security check each month would be crazy to vote for anyone but a Democrat for president and for Congress.
Insurrection Act Must Be Fixed (In Case Trump Is Re-Elected)
The following is just part of an article by Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith in The New York Times:
The Insurrection Act is a dangerous centuries-old federal statute that authorizes the president, with few restraints, to deploy the U.S. military inside the United States to suppress threats the president perceives to the constitutional order. Commentators have recently proposed tightening the law following reports that former President Donald Trump and his advisers are planning to use it aggressively for law enforcement and to quell domestic disturbances if Mr. Trump is once more elected.
This focus on Trump is understandable but inadequate in capturing the compelling case for reform. It has been clear for decades that the poorly drafted and antiquated law needs revision. There is an opportunity in 2024 to make targeted changes to the statute’s main flaws — and, critically, in a way that both parties would have good reason to support.
The Insurrection Act empowers the president to order the armed forces and state militias into action within the United States and against American citizens in numerous ill-defined circumstances. The president can, for example, deploy military force where states call upon federal assistance in quelling an “insurrection”; or as the president “considers necessary” to enforce federal law against “obstructions,” “combinations” or “assemblages”; or alternatively to quell any “domestic violence” or “conspiracy” that impedes the enforcement of constitutional rights or even “the course of justice” under federal law. . . .
The problem is that the act has very broad and imprecise triggers to its operation and no temporal constraints, and it does not specify any role for Congress to assess, shape or limit the president’s response to an emergency. It is in many respects like the Electoral Count Act, which Congress by large bipartisan majorities revised in 2022 to govern the final tally of the state electoral votes for presidents and vice presidents: a statute widely recognized to be poorly designed and clearly susceptible to harmful misinterpretation and application, yet left on the books for too long because the dangers it presented had not yet come to pass. . . .
There is no serious dispute, on the merits, that the Insurrection Act gives any president far too much unchecked power. It is hard for anyone to argue that a president should be able to unleash U.S. troops or state militias without any accountability beyond public opinion or impeachment. . . .
Insurrection Act reform has many potential moving parts. There are three vital elements.
First, Congress should tighten the triggers to presidential invocation of the act. It should eliminate vague and obsolete terms like “assemblage” and “combination”; clearly define other terms like “insurrection” and “domestic violence”; and narrow the president’s seemingly boundless discretion to determine when the act’s triggers are satisfied.
Second, it should require the president to consult with state and local authorities to ensure that troop deployment is needed to address a serious threat to safety; to make findings to that effect; and to report to and consult with Congress on a regular basis.
Third, and perhaps most important, Congress should place a relatively short sunset provision on a president’s invocation of the act — weeks, not months — subject to additional short-term continued deployments approved by Congress. This is where the rubber meets the road, since Congress might not approve the president’s continued use of the military.
But any threat that justifies using the military for domestic law enforcement should be severe enough for majorities of Congress to approve the action, and the dangers of presidential abuse here outweigh the dangers of congressional gridlock.
Amending the Insurrection Act along these three dimensions addresses the primary concerns with the statute without veering off into more contested issues that might make it harder for the parties to find common ground. Yet these simple changes would constitute a historic reform and would be far better than no reform at all. The primary and urgent task is to bring the core of the president’s promiscuous Insurrection Act authority to heel.
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