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With Social Security disability fund going broke by 2016, Congress set for partisan, election-year showdown

The 11 million Americans who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year unless Congress acts.
Social Security's trustees say the disability trust fund will run out of money in late 2016, a presidential election year, which would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits.
GOP lawmakers see the funding crisis as an opportunity to improve a program that they believe is plagued by waste and abuse. Democrats sat that the program’s modest benefits keep millions of disabled workers and their families out of poverty.
Lawmakers from both political parties would like to resolve the issue this year, protecting beneficiaries from steep cuts before presidential politics consumes the capital. But a deal remains elusive as Social Security approaches its 80th birthday on Friday.
President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on Aug. 14, 1935. The disability program was added in 1956.
The average monthly payment for disabled workers and their families is $1,019. That comes to $12,228 a year. A 19 percent cut would lower the average annual benefit to less than $10,000.
Social Security is self-financed by a 12.4 percent tax on wages up to $118,500. Workers pay half and employers pay half. Social Security also gets revenue from taxes on benefits and interest on the program's two trust funds.
Last year, the wage tax generated $756 billion. By law, the tax revenue is divided between the disability trust fund and Social Security's much larger retirement fund. The retirement fund gets about 85 percent of the money, and the rest goes to disability.
Over the past 20 years, the fund balances have gotten out of whack. The retirement fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2035, according to the Social Security trustees. But they disability fund is projected to run out of money in fourth quarter of 2016.
Congress could redirect tax revenue from the retirement fund to the disability fund, as it has done in the past. The last time was in 1994.
If Congress redirects the tax revenue, the retirement fund would lose one year of solvency, so both the retirement program and the disability program would have enough money to pay full benefits until 2034.
Republicans say that simply redirecting the tax revenue would be taking money from retired workers to pay disabled workers -- robbing one fund to finance another.
Also, Republicans say they want changes in the disability program to reduce fraud and to encourage disabled workers to re-enter the workforce.
Democrats say they too want to reduce fraud and to encourage disabled workers who can work to re-enter the workforce. But they accuse Republicans of manufacturing a crisis by refusing to redirect tax revenue between the trust funds.

Congress faced with passing a long term Transportation bill after August recess

When is a highway bill not about a highway bill?
When it’s about Iran, de-funding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities.
And when it’s about an obscure Washington institution called the Export-Import Bank, Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, the tax code, the federal deficits and the August congressional recess.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is fond of saying members of Congress conduct policy in a political setting. And the calisthenics over the past few weeks on the highway bill attests to his thesis.
“Republicans don’t know how to get a transportation bill done,” charged House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, California, a few weeks ago.
Federal highway dollars expired at the end of July, and Congress again rushed to plug the dyke. For starters, the House approved a five-month bill to keep federal transportation programs afloat in mid-July. Then the Senate crashed through a six-year, bipartisan bill authored by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and the top Democrat on the panel, Sen. Barbara Boxer, California.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., championed the effort, scheduling a rare Sunday session to help expeditiously complete the legislation before sending it to the House just before the start of the lengthy August recess.
But other issues intruded. Major bills often assume the mantle of “Christmas trees” right before major congressional recesses. That’s because lawmakers attempt to adorn those bills with every possible legislative bauble and ornament available. That’s where de funding Planned Parenthood came in. There was sanctuary cities tinsel. Export-Import Bank bubble lights and garlands for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Call it Christmas in July.
But McConnell knew better than to be distracted by the shiny objects if he was going to wrap up his longer-term bill. He permitted but two decorations on this tree: one important to Democrats and one crucial for Republicans.
One amendment would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, which helps American firms conduct business abroad and that expired in June. The other would repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Neither has anything to do with funding highway construction programs. But sometimes that’s the cost of doing business in the United States Senate. And, the spare ornamentation might actually help senators complete the bill and not find other distractions.
Conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, immediately flayed McConnell.
He decried the ObamaCare de-funding effort as a “show vote” -- particularly since stripping dollars for the health care program didn’t have the support to clear a procedural hurdle let alone become part of the highway bill.
Meantime, it was clear from the outset that the Ex-Im Bank commanded enough yeas to clear the procedural threshold and be attached to the legislation.
The Senate approved the bill -- wishing the House might entertain it before its members fled the Capitol for August. But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., promptly squelched those hopes.
“We are not taking the Senate bill,” declared McCarthy, fretting about dumping a 1,000-page bill on his members just days before escaping the Beltway.
At that point, the House had already approved an interim highway bill stretching through mid-December. But the House GOP brain trust then rolled out a three-month patch through late October. The House was slated to depart Washington on July 30. But the House quickly approved the three-month measure, and McCarthy cut everyone loose a day early on July 29.
Ironically, even though the House was out of session on July 30, dozens of House members were spotted walking around the Capitol complex that day. Many had important meetings scheduled and didn’t want to cancel them.
Still, McCarthy’s opportune departure gambit achieved four objectives:
First, it jammed the Senate with the House’s short-term highway bills. It was a take-it-or-leave it proposition. Either the Senate would swallow hard-to-pass stopgap plans or highway programs would go belly-up at the end of July. It would be the Senate’s fault and nobody could hang the responsibility on the House.
Secondly, the maneuver absolved the House of having to immediately consider the Senate’s version of the highway measure. Members of Congress from both sides seemed all right with that, despite the bipartisan structure of the Senate legislation. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., noted his opposition of the Senate package and echoed McCarthy’s calendar concerns.
“In the short time that we have available, it would be not possible to consider that bill in any depth,” he said. “Certainly the Senate doesn't expect us to take a 1,000-page bill and just, you know, no questions asked and pass it and send it to the president.”
Third, the House’s decision to skip town on the Senate and its highway measure also protected its members from a nasty political skirmish.
Remember the Ex-Im Bank? Eliminating the institution is a cause celebre for the Republican right. Both the House and Senate let its charter expire at the end of June -- even though there’s sufficient, bipartisan support to renew the institution in both bodies of Congress.
The procedural vote on Ex-Im in the Senate scored a whopping 67 yeas. The vote in favor of the actual amendment racked up 64 ayes. But there’s a conservative, Tea Party-aligned core of House members who are repulsed at the prospect of reauthorizing the bank. They would have immediately balked at the Senate highway bill on those grounds alone. Any potential changes to the Senate’s bill -- including stripping out Ex-Im -- could have protracted the process and prompted the House to send an altered bill back to the Senate.
Fourth, this effort preserves a conservative policy goal. Ex-Im remains mothballed. That empowers House conservatives to return to their districts during the August recess and affirm that the Export-Import Bank is dead.
For now.
Boehner’s long expected the Senate to include a provision to reauthorize the bank in a “must-pass” piece of legislation. A long-term highway bill could constitute such a vehicle.
And even though highway programs are on life support now through late October, the onus is now on the House to author a bona fide highway measure, pass it and huddle in a House/Senate conference committee this autumn to arrive at a final, merged bill to send to President Obama.
Still, even some House Republicans want to salvage the Ex-Im Bank.
The House Rules Committee is the final gateway to the floor for most pieces of legislation. An effort to renew the bank surfaced on a rather obscure, but noteworthy vote on the night of July 28 as the GOP prepped its three-month highway measure for debate the next day.
Rep. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn., backs the Export-Import Bank and drew up an amendment to extend its life through the fall of 2019. The Rules committee rejected the inclusion of Fincher’s amendment in debate on the emergency highway bill, but only by 7-to-6 vote.
That vote is important because members of the committee serve at the pleasure of the House speaker. The committee is set up in a way to always favor the leadership -- which for now isn’t willing to reauthorize Ex-Im.
And on the vote to include the Fincher amendment, GOP Reps. Steve Stivers, Ohio, Dan Newhouse, Washington, bucked the rest of the Republicans on the panel.
They voted yes along with all Democrats, which triggered the close vote in the Rules committee. It’s been years since the committee has experienced such a tight tally on a major issue -- and significant that not one but two GOPers voted against their fellow Republicans.
At his final press conference before the August respite, Boehner was asked by reporters about a final resolution to the highway bill when lawmakers reconvene in September.
“I’m confident as we get into this fall we’re going to have pretty smooth sailing,” chirped Boehner with a smirk, drawing laughter from the press corps.
Perhaps the “smooth sailing” refers to solving actual highway policy issues. Settling all of the ancillary topics are the real challenge -- because it’s obvious the debate so far about the highway bill hasn’t been about the highway bill.

Fiorina: Breakout debate performance has sparked 'uptick' in financial support

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said Sunday that her breakout performance during the last week’s debates has created a surge in support and that she can ascend to win the party nomination.
“The truth is the race has just started,” Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s game on.”
Fiorina failed to qualify for the prime-time Fox News Channel debate Thursday night for the top-10 ranked GOP candidates. So she competed with the seven others in a forum before the main event.
Still, just the exposure was key to her campaign because as a first-time presidential candidate she lacked name recognition, Fiorina said.
“It was a big night for me,” she told Fox. “Only 40 percent of Republicans had heard my name. … There’s been an uptick in financial support, in support generally.”
Nevertheless, Fiorina, the only major female candidate in the 2016 Republican field, will have a tough time breaking into the top tier or winning the nomination, considering she has consistently ranked among the last in most major polls.
And she is ranked 13th among 15 candidates with 1.3 percent of the vote, according to the most recent averaging of polls by the nonpartisan website RealClearPolitics.com
Beyond the problem of name recognition, Fiorina will continue to have to defend her tenure at Hewlett-Packard where she laid off 30,000 employees and was eventually fired.
On Sunday, Fiorina argued, as she has since the start of the campaign, that she kept the company alive in the post-9/11 and dotcom bubbles.
“Sometimes, in tough times tough calls are necessary,” she said, adding she was fired in a “board room brawl.”
Fiorina said she will continue to do what she has since the start of the race, attack the top candidates, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, and work hard on the campaign trail.
She said Trump has "no excuse" for attacking Fox new anchor Megyn Kelly for her tough questions to him during the debate.
"There’s no excuse for this," she said. "It’s her job to ask tough questions."
Fiorina, whose platform includes cutting the size of government and economic growth through the support of small business, also said: "I’m throwing every punch. ... I’m going to keep working hard, keep doing what I’ve been doing since day one -- keep talking to people and answering their questions.”

Gun battle during Ferguson anniversary protest ends with man shot by police

St. Louis County's police chief said a man opened fire on plainclothes detectives late Sunday before being pursued and shot by the officers after a day of peaceful demonstrations in Ferguson marking the anniversary of Michael Brown's death.
Chief Jon Belmar did not identify the suspect, whom he said was in "critical, unstable" condition at a local hospital. However, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch identified the man as 18-year-old Tyrone Harris Jr. Harris' father, also named Tyrone, told the paper that his son had just come out of surgery early Monday, and noted that his son and Michael Brown "were real close."
Belmar said that officers had been tracking the man, whom they believed to be armed, during the protest. He said the man approached the detectives, who were sitting in a van, and opened fire. The officers returned fire from inside the vehicle before pursuing the man on foot. Belmar said the man shot again at the officers, all four of whom returned fire.
The man who fired on officers had a semi-automatic 9MM gun that was stolen last year from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, according to the chief.
The officers have been placed on administrative leave, in keeping with standard practice after police-involved shootings. Belmar said none of the officers, who have between 6 and 12 years of experience, was seriously injured.
The shooting took place at approximately 11:15 p.m. local time as several hundred people gathered on West Florissant Street.
Belmar told reporters at a news conference early Monday that a second shooting involving two groups of people happened on the west side of West Florissant Avenue just before the police-involved shooting. Belmar said that between 40 and 50 shots were fired in an exchange that lasted approximately 45 seconds, an amount he described as "remarkable." There was no immediate word of any casualties from that shooting.
"They were criminals. They weren't protesters," Belmar said of those involved in the shootings.
"There is a small group of people out there that are intent on making sure that peace doesn't prevail," he added. "There are a lot of emotions. I get it. But we can't sustain this as we move forward."
At the time of the shootings, observers told the Post-Dispatch that fewer than 100 protesters remained on the streets and were outnumbered by members of the media. However, the few protesters who remained were blocking traffic and confronting police. One person threw a glass bottle at officers but missed.
For the first time in three consecutive nights of demonstrations, some officers were dressed in riot gear, including bullet-proof vests and helmets with shields. One officer was treated for cuts related to a brick thrown at his face, Belmar said. Police made an unknown number of arrests and at one point early Monday shot smoke to disperse the crowd that lingered on West Florissant, he said.
The gunfire marred a day of largely peaceful protest on the anniversary of the killing that shone a national spotlight on relations between the police and black communities across America. Brown's father, Michael Brown Sr., led a march through town after a crowd of hundreds observed 4 1/2 minutes of silence.
The group began their silence at 12:02 p.m., the time Brown was killed, for a length of time that symbolized the 4 1/2 hours that his body lay in the street after he was killed. Two doves were released at the end.
The elder Brown then held hands with others to lead the march, which started at the site where his son, who was black and unarmed, was fatally shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014. A grand jury and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute Wilson, who resigned in November, but the shooting touched off a national "Black Lives Matter" movement.
Pausing along the route at a permanent memorial for his son, Michael Brown Sr. said, "Miss you."
He had thanked supporters before the march for not allowing what happened to his son to be "swept under the carpet."
Later, a few hundred people turned out at Greater St. Mark Family Church for a service to remember Brown, with his father joining other relatives sitting behind the pulpit. Anthony Gray, a Brown family attorney pressing a wrongful-death lawsuit against Ferguson, Wilson and his former police chief, suggested that justice will be served on Michael Brown's behalf.
Gray told the crowd: "You knew in your gut that (the shooting) wasn't right. And you knew what that officer did was unjustified."
The two-hour commemoration, featuring a mime dance and a rap-infused version of "Lean on Me" peppered between reflections about Brown, thinned as it wore on. Roughly 50 still remained by the time Michael Brown Sr. was finally handed the microphone to thank attendees and close out the event, saying, "This movement is going to be a good movement."
Organizers of some of the weekend activities have pledged a day of civil disobedience on Monday, but have not yet offered specific details.
Earlier, at the march, some wore T-shirts with likenesses of Brown or messages such as "Please stop killing us" or "Hands up! Don't shoot!" which became a rallying cry during the sometimes-violent protests that followed the shooting a year ago.
But the focus of the weekend has largely been on Brown, who graduated from high school weeks before the shooting and planned to go to trade school to study to become a heating and air conditioning technician.
Relatives and friends described Brown as a quiet teen who stood around 6-foot-3, weighed nearly 300 pounds and was eager to start technical college. But police said Brown stole items from a convenience store and shoved the owner who tried to stop him on the morning of Aug. 9, 2014. Moments later, he and a friend were walking on Canfield Drive when Wilson, who is white, told them to move to the sidewalk.
That led to a confrontation inside Wilson's police car. It spilled outside, and Wilson claimed that Brown came at him, menacingly, leading to the fatal shooting. Some witnesses claimed Brown had his hands up in surrender. Federal officials concluded there was no evidence to disprove testimony by Wilson that he feared for his safety, nor was there reliable evidence that Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was shot.
The shooting led to protests, some violent, and the unrest escalated again in November when a St. Louis County grand jury determined that Wilson did nothing wrong. He resigned days later. The November riots included fires that burned more than a dozen businesses.
The Justice Department reached the same conclusion in March, clearing Wilson. But in a separate report, the Justice Department cited racial bias and profiling in policing as well as a profit-driven municipal court system that often targeted black residents, who make up about two-thirds of Ferguson's populace.
Ferguson's city manager, police chief and municipal judge resigned within days of that report. All three were white. The new judge, interim city manager and interim police chief are all black. (Racist City)

Trump digs in, plows ahead, Trump hits Bush on his fundraising, Trump: 'I said nothing wrong whatsoever'

Donald Trump gave no ground on Sunday, insisting his crude remarks appearing to imply Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she questioned him during the first Republican presidential debate were anything but.
Three weeks after two of his rivals demanded he quit the race for the GOP presidential nomination and three days after a record 24 million viewers tuned into the GOP debate in Cleveland that many establishment Republicans predicted might be the beginning of the end for him, Trump is still center stage.
And although his longtime political strategist, Roger Stone, left over the weekend, Trump offered few hints his campaign was in disarray. The master-of-shock has plowed through other recent controversies — suggesting undocumented Mexican immigrants were rapists and questioning Sen. John McCain’s standing as a war hero — and come away with even stronger polling numbers as he taps into wide-spread dissatisfaction with Washington’s political class.
“I said nothing wrong whatsoever,” Trump declared on CNN’s “State of the Union” two days after he had said of Kelly on CNN: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her — wherever.”

Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump criticized Republican rival Jeb Bush on Sunday for his lucrative fundraising, while vowing to be immune from outside influences should he be elected president.
“These are not people that are putting it up because they like the color of his hair,” Trump said on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to reports that the former Florida governor raised more than $100 million in early campaign funds. “These are people that are putting it up because they want something, and they’re going to get something.”
Trump, who says he plans to fund his own campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, appeared eager Sunday to pivot from his harsh criticism of Fox News host Megyn Kelly, which sparked a new round of outrage that he is sexist. He also sought to wave off claims that Republicans do not trust him because he’s shifted views on his past support of a single-payer health care system and some other issues, and he tried to position himself again as someone who can shake up the Washington establishment.
Trump claimed his promised resistance to lobbyists and donors is “one of the reasons that I’m killing everybody in the polls.” Still, his campaign has been thrown into damage control after his remarks about Kelly, who was one of the Fox moderators at Thursday’s GOP debate in Cleveland and has a strong following among conservatives.

Donald Trump is not backing off his harsh criticism of Fox News host Megyn Kelly and denies he suggested she was menstruating when asking him tough questions at the first Republican presidential debate.
“I said nothing wrong whatsoever,” Trump said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
In the first of several call-ins to the Sunday morning news shows, the billionaire real estate developer and entertainer said he was referring to Kelly’s nose when he said on CNN Friday: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her — wherever.”
“Only a deviant” would suggest his remarks were sexist, Trump said. “Only a sick person would even think about it.”

 

Taken From: Politico      http://www.politico.com/p/pages/2016-elections/

Biden Cartoon

Trump battles criticism from rivals, former campaign aide

It sounds like Republicans want to cherry-pick someone as the nominee.

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump is showing no signs of curbing his battle with a Fox News television host, the Republican Party establishment and several presidential primary rivals who are accusing him of disrespecting women

Even a former Trump campaign aide suggests that the businessman's bid for the White House has become a side show.

Trump's unconventional, insurgent campaign has excited many anti-establishment conservatives while confounding Republican Party leaders already facing the prospects of a bruising fight among 17 candidates.

The latest controversy started Thursday night when Fox News debate moderator Megyn Kelly recounted Trump's history of incendiary comments toward women. Angry over what he considered unfair treatment at the debate, Trump told CNN on Friday night that Kelly had "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever." That remark cost Trump a prime-time speaking slot at the RedState Gathering, the Atlanta conference where several other presidential candidates spoke to about 1,000 conservative activists.

RedState host Erick Erickson said in a statement that Trump had violated basic standards of decency, even if his bluntness "resonates with a lot of people." The Trump campaign retorted by calling Erickson a "total loser" who backs other "establishment losers."
Jeb Bush, the presidential favorite for many top Republican donors, said at RedState that Trump's bombast would hurt the GOP's chances with women, who already tilt toward Democrats in presidential elections. "Do we want to win? Do we want to insult 53 percent of our voters?" the former Florida governor asked.

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FILE- In this Aug. 6, 2015, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to the …

A parade of other candidates criticized Trump as well. Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, seemed exasperated by it all, at one point snapping at reporters after being asked several Trump-related questions. "I'm running for president," he said. "I'm not running for social media critic of somebody else who's running for president."
By Saturday evening, Trump's campaign announced that he had fired one of his top campaign consultants. Roger Stone retorted on Twitter that he'd "fired Trump," not the other way around. According to an email obtained by the Associated Press, Stone wrote to Trump, "The current controversies involving personalities and provocative media fights have reached such a high volume that it has distracted attention from your platform and overwhelmed your core message."
Trump's campaign manager said he never received that message.
Among RedState attendees, opinions varied about whether Trump should be criticized for the remark he made about Kelly. But if there was anything close to a consensus, it was that the activists still want to hear from Trump and hope that other candidates heed his rise.

"It sounds like Republicans want to cherry-pick someone as the nominee," said Jane Sacco of New Port Richey, Florida, who was angry at Erickson's decision to dump Trump. "And," she added, "they want everyone to fall in line."