Tag: Grapple

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Politics

Lawmakers Grapple Nagging Infrastructure Element: Tips on how to Pay for It

Lawmakers Grapple Nagging Infrastructure Detail: How to Pay for It

Beyond the questionable economics of the measure is politics: Conservative groups backed by money interests and grassroots activists hover an old specter of puffed up federal agents who persecute innocent taxpayers.

The campaign to end the commission is led by a well-known figure, Mr. Norquist, whose network of conservative activists has worked for decades to cut taxes and strangle the IRS. Mr Norquist said Tuesday that his weekly Conservative meeting in Washington – a center of power during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama – has grown when it went virtual during the pandemic.

The meeting has about 160 attendees, including members of Congress, and is complemented by 40 state-level activist meetings – all currently focused on the IRS.The pitch to Republican lawmakers is that increasing enforcement will not affect Fortune 100 companies that already have in-house tax auditors to ensure compliance, but small businesses in their states – such as restaurants, bars, hairdressers, nail salons, and food trucks – take cash for payment.

“We’re letting the elected officials know that this is how people will understand this in the future,” said Norquist.

Such threats have been well received.

“It bothers a lot of Republicans, and I want a lot of Republicans to vote for it,” said Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas, of the IRS ruling, “so I hope it can be modified, narrowed – or otherwise.”

But Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and negotiator, said Tuesday night, “I don’t think we’ve lost anyone,” as she and her colleagues continued to work out details.

Limiting them or throwing them overboard could lead some Republicans to accept the argument that infrastructure investments are at least partially worthwhile through improving economic efficiency and competitiveness. Some lawmakers, Democrats in particular, have argued that spending on roads, bridges, tunnels, and transit is an investment in economic efficiency and does not need to be fully offset as it is partially self-paying, much like Republicans argue that tax cuts do pay off themselves .

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Politics

Some Republicans Discover Failure to Grapple With Local weather Change a ‘Political Legal responsibility’

Some Republicans Find Failure to Grapple With Climate Change a ‘Political Liability’

That same week, a group of young Republicans with signs saying “This is what an environmentalist sees” held an initial rally for “conservative” climate action in Miami.

On Capitol Hill, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy plans to set up a Republican task force on climate change, his staff confirmed. Mr. McCarthy declined an interview request.

And on Wednesday, Mr Curtis plans to announce the formation of the Conservative Climate Committee, which aims to educate his party about global warming and develop policies to counter what the committee calls “radical progressive climate proposals”. So far, 38 members of the Republican House of Representatives have joined, its employees said.

“I hope that any Republican member of this group, when asked about the climate in a community meeting, will be very comfortable talking about it,” said Curtis, adding, “I fear that too often Republicans simply have said “what you don’t like without adding ‘but here are our ideas’.”

These ideas include limited government, market-based policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions as formulated by new conservative think tanks. One of them is C3 Solutions, jointly run by a former advisor to the late Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who called global warming “crap”. The organization also recently recruited an energy policy expert from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group that until recently promoted vocal critics of climate change.

A package of bills presented by Mr. McCarthy on Earth Day advocated carbon capture, an emerging and expensive technology that captures and stores carbon emissions generated by power plants or factories before they are released into the atmosphere. It also encouraged tree planting and the expansion of nuclear power, a carbon-free energy source that many Republicans prefer to wind or solar power.

These measures would do little to reduce fossil fuel emissions, which raise average global temperatures and cause more extreme heat, drought and forest fires; stronger storms; and rapid extinction of plant and animal species. Republicans have not offered any specific emissions reduction targets.

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Health

State Capitols Grapple With Masks Mandates Amid Coronavirus

State Capitols Grapple With Mask Mandates Amid Coronavirus

A Democratic senator in Ohio was walking out of a hearing last week when he saw dozens of viewers in the room were maskless and sat close together.

“I saw danger,” said Senator Cecil Thomas, who added that he was concerned about the risk of infection, also because his daughter had a severely weakened immune system.

Mr. Thomas returned to his office, where he watched the rest of the hearing but was unable to attend.

Almost a year after the coronavirus crisis began, in which there is no national standard for legislation during a pandemic, lawmakers in the country’s state capitals are grappling with holding a new session season. A partisan pattern has emerged, but it remains a patchwork of changing, inconsistent rules about where to meet, how the public can participate, and what to do with masks.

At least 28 states, according to a New York Times poll of lawmakers in each state, require masks on the floors of both chambers of law. 17 of the 28 states are controlled by Democrats. Legislation in at least 18 states, including 15 Republican-controlled ones, doesn’t require masks on the floor in at least one chamber. In the three state legislatures that split party control, one mask is required and two are not.

In Minnesota, masks are required in the Democratic house, but the Senate Republican majority blocked a proposal to require masks in the upper chamber. Senators are allowed to attend meetings remotely. “Part of that is simply respecting those who take a different point of view,” said Senator Paul Gazelka, the Republican leader.

Similar partisan differences have emerged across the country. In Ohio, Republican lawmakers have denied requests from Democrats to demand masks in the statehouse and allow remote participation. When Mr. Thomas colleagues heard public comments on a bill to limit the governor’s emergency powers that could allow lawmakers to veto the governor’s health instructions, Mr. Thomas in his office was listening and unable to ask questions.

Other Republican-led legislatures like Missouri have also stopped wearing masks. The Arizona House of Representatives held two swearing-in ceremonies earlier this year: one for lawmakers who would wear masks and one for those who would not. Republican leaders in South Dakota, which has the second highest rate of known coronavirus cases in the country, have called for masks in the Senate but only encouraged them in the House of Representatives. The legislators in both chambers may participate and vote remotely.

With no shortage of urgent problems lawmakers face – budget constraints, economic relief, and restructuring to name a few – many state government rituals have been disrupted by the pandemic.

At least 26 governors, both Democrats and Republicans, have put their annual state of the state addresses online or in places that allow greater distancing than the legislative houses. Members of the public in 22 states have been banned from Capitol buildings. Legislation in 27 states has allowed lawmakers to attend meetings and cast their votes from home or other locations in Capitol buildings.

And lawmakers from both parties have come together under conditions unimaginable a year ago.

In Maryland, a maze of plexiglass barriers separated masked Senate lawmakers when they returned to work last month. New Hampshire legislature held its organizational meetings outdoors. In Illinois, the House of Representatives did business in a convention center, not the Capitol. And in California, the gathering moved its opening ceremony to the Golden 1 Center, the home arena of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings