TBD on Ning

Just follow the money....

wonder how much the lobbyists donated to campaign chests? and tell me again how these fuckheads think we can balance a budget when they keep cutting the revenues that pay for the programs, services and agencies that they want to begin with...

Senate Dems vote to repeal part of health care law

Senate Dems back repeal of a tax in Obama health law; are other unpopular provisions next?

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press | Associated Press – 1 hr 17 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It isn't every day that more than half the Democrats in the Senate vote to repeal part of President Barack Obama's health care law.

But that's what happened Thursday night when the Senate voted 79-20 to repeal a 2.3 percent sales tax on medical devices such as catheters, pacemakers and MRI machines, which was intended to help to finance coverage for the uninsured that starts next year.

The medical device industry, a technology leader that provides lots of well-paying jobs around the country, has been lobbying all-out to repeal the tax. And Republicans were hoping Friday that the vote signals a new willingness by Democrats to defy the president on unpopular provisions of his signature law.

But others pointed out that the vote was nonbinding, amounting to budget guidance. The actual repeal of the tax is far from a done deal, and things might have come out quite differently if senators had to confront spending cuts or tax increases to fill in a 10-year, $30-billion revenue hole that would leave.

Nonetheless, 33 of the chamber's 53 Democrats joined all 45 Republicans in voting for the repeal amendment by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Four out of seven members of the Democratic leadership voted for it. Two independent senators who caucus with the Democrats split their votes for and against.

http://news.yahoo.com/senate-dems-vote-repeal-part-163026133.html

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ProblemAgain on March 22, 2013 at 12:15pm

just another example.....sooooo perhaps ups, dhl and fedex are donating bigtime to make the post office out of business.. they may just want to not have to compete with post office priority deliveries for about 12 bucks when they charge 45...

soooo any questions who the republican party is really serving?

Can the Postal Service be saved?

By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – Sat, Mar 9, 2013

The USPS is losing $25 million... a day

What's wrong with the post office?
It's hemorrhaging money at the rate of about $25 million a day. The U.S. Postal Service, the nation's second-biggest employer after Walmart, lost almost $16 billion in the last fiscal year. By next fall, it is projected to have less than three days' worth of operating expenses on hand. (As an independent agency operating with federal oversight, the USPS can borrow money from the government to cover its losses but doesn't get any direct funding.) To ward off reckoning day, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe last month announced that Saturday delivery of regular mail would end in August, in order to save $2 billion a year. That plan is meeting stiff resistance in Congress, which has notified Donahoe that he lacks "the constitutional and statutory authority" to eliminate Saturday delivery. Dozens of House and Senate members are vowing to go to court, if necessary, to block any change in delivery frequency. Donahoe isn't budging. "We plan to do what we said we were going to do," he said.

Why is the USPS losing so much money?
First-class mail volume has dropped by more than 25 percent since 2006, as Americans embraced email and started paying bills and communicating with each other online. But more than two thirds of last year's colossal losses were caused by pension obligations. In 2006, Congress and the Bush administration passed a law requiring the then-profitable Postal Service to prepay, over the course of just 10 years, 75 years' worth of anticipated retiree health benefits. Fearing a future financial collapse and a taxpayer bailout, Republicans insisted on the provision to guarantee that the post office would meet its future obligations. No other government agency or private company, however, is required to fund future costs in this backbreaking way. The Postal Service has since made $49 billion in such payments, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has claimed that if the Postal Service were allowed to manage its own obligations, it "would be back in the black and posting profits."

http://news.yahoo.com/postal-saved-133000510.html

Congress to force Postal Service to keep Saturday delivery

By Elvina Nawaguna | Reuters – 20 hrs ago

By Elvina Nawaguna

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress foiled the financially beleaguered U.S. Postal Service's plan to end Saturday delivery of first-class mail when it passed legislation on Thursday requiring six-day delivery.

The Postal Service, which lost $16 billion last year, said last month it wanted to switch to five-day mail service to save $2 billion annually.

http://news.yahoo.com/congress-set-force-postal-keep-saturday-deliv...

Permalink Reply by Lifesighs on March 22, 2013 at 5:21pm

I have read elsewhere that part of the pre funded health for pensioners was not only for postal service employees but congress had shifted military pension health care to the postal service to make the budget seem less at the time.