The White House is planning additional staff changes that could come as early as next week as part of a broader effort to repair relations with Congress and revive the Bush presidency, according to several Republicans in the know.
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A possible Republican opponent tried to chip away at Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s image as a moderate who supports adoption.
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ASIA.
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The French president’s offer to soften a new labor law was swiftly rejected, with thousands joining in spontaneous protest.
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Bernard Siegan’s unsuccessful nomination to a federal appellate judgeship was one of the most bitterly disputed judicial nominations of the Reagan era.
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Representative Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia and her legal advisers blamed racial bias for her run-in with a Capitol police officer this week.
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In response to a question from protesting students, Ms. Rice acknowledged that the administration had made “tactical errors.”
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The two leaders ended a two-day meeting agreeing on an approach, but unable to win the support to turn their vision into law.
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A Senate panel opened a debate over whether Congress should censure President Bush for his domestic eavesdropping program.
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Tony Rudy faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution of up to $100,000.
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A lawyer for Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia congresswoman who had a physical altercation with a Capitol Police officer, says she was “just a victim of being in Congress while black.â€
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Friday’s conspiracy guilty plea by a former top staffer to U.S. Rep. Tom Delay, (R-TX) exposes the degree of influence that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had on Capitol Hill.
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What an intriguing book. As an Independent with a strong disdain for partisan ideology…for the sake of partisan ideology, I found Murray’s ideas both thought provoking, encouraging and attractive to all voting blocs. I have a mixed voting history that leans slightly Democratic and the premise Murray puts forth buoyed all my varying sensibilities from libertarian to conservative to liberal to populist to free capitalist to humanist to idealist to pragmatist.
“The Plan”, as Murray calls it, is simple. Everyone at the age of 21 receives $10,000 (tagged for inflation) per annum for life. No changes for marital status or any other demographic tag. Erring on the high side, this program will, at the most about 1.73 trillion to start and, according to demographics, will descrease over time in equal-valued dollars. This replaces all entitlement spending at all levels of government which Murray states in 2002 totaled almost 1.4 trillion dollars. This includes business and agricultural subsidies and means tested programs for the poor. According to Murray, “The Plan” will effectively eliminate involuntary poverty.
Seems radical but it isn’t. It makes more sense than other policy innovation I’ve ever heard of.
The liberal skeptic needs to consider how much we spend on social assistance and take a sobering look at how far the battle over poverty is from being won. This plan gives every American, regardless of circumstances, the financial base to escape poverty. Failure is in “our hands”. Virtually every extreme circumstance one can imagine is countered by “the plan”. For the average and below average american it is a base to build from and protect oneself.
The conservative skeptic needs to see how much we spend already and what it does and doesn’t do for the poor and the elderly. The funding of this program, erring on the high side, will be less expensive than the current system in a few short years…maybe sooner. By 2020, Murray estimates “The Plan” will cost over $500 Billion less annually than the current system. How’s that for savings?
Some practical details: Murray also proposes smart healthcare reforms that will bring down the cost of healthcare. Most importantly, he proposes obligating all insurers to base rates on a single pool of applicants: the entire population. He also argues decoupling less expensive routine treatemenst from major doctor administered care. He estimates an annual premium cost per person of $3000 per year. The other $7000 per year is for the person to use to provide one’s saftey net. He also suggests $2000 per year go into conservative retirement savings. It’s important to note that $7000 after health insurance is the more important stat to Murray. If healthcare cannot be done for less than $3000, he demands increasing the 10,000 to a suitable number. At an anemic 4% annual growth over one’s working life(unheard in America history except for someone who started working during the crisis of 1887 and retired at the Great Depression, in which case the return would have been 4%!) it gives a total of about $245,000, which in the form of an annuity will give a yearly income of about $20-24000 and you STILL get the $10,000! Double for an elderly COUPLE of limited means and you get a retirement income of at least $60,000 GUARANTEED. What government program can do that?! Save more, retire sooner!
Other important details: at 50,000 in income, you give back half the grant. Also keep in mind that all those FICA and Medicare withholding taxes are eliminated from payrolls…the most regressive wage taxes of them all.
People earn more, save more, retire better and when they want and the government averts fiscal crisis. Involuntary poverty is easily averted for virtually everyone. Some may argue that that is impossible. Maybe it is. But it is much easier to avoid poverty this way then by relying on the current system. Some people will always doom themselves to life of voluntary squalor…just like they do now. With the Plan, a minimum wage part-time job is all you need.
Murray leaves the details to the politicans. But he has painted the broad strokes of the idea so in can flourish into an intelligent national debate. The book is a quick, easy read. Read it, talk about it and pass it on.
This could be one of the influential policy innovations of our life time. It only needs the attention to give it its due scrutiny, which I’m sure it will pass.
This needs discussion on the Left, Right and Center.
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Worrying levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene have been found in four soft-drinks available in the UK, the Food Standards Agency says.
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Shailagh Murray & T.R. Reid, Washington Post:
The first time Rep. Tom Tancredo got really angry about immigration, the year was 1975, and he was a junior high school social studies teacher in Denver. The state had recently passed the nation’s first bilingual education law, and Hispanic kids were taken from his class to study in Spanish.
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All Things Considered, National Public Radio:
Americans are split three ways over illegal immigration, with about one-third saying undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States permanently and about one-third saying such immigrants should be granted only temporary worker status, according to a new poll. Another 27 percent say illegal immigrants should be required to return to their native countries.
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Joel Brinkley, New York Times:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meeting here on Thursday with representatives of the other four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, raised the idea of imposing unspecified sanctions on Iran, but she received a decidedly cool reaction from China and Russia.
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Louisiana governor leads tour to assess damage from hurricane that was outshadowed by Katrina.
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Carl Hulse & Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times:
Conservative House Republicans bluntly warned their leaders Thursday against any immigration compromise that would allow temporary foreign workers and assailed a Senate proposal that would open the way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.
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Brock Vergakis, Associated Press:
Utah is fed up with presidential candidates who get no closer than 30,000 feet as they fly over the state. The state isn’t necessarily blaming the candidates, but rather a primary calendar that puts it months behind Iowa, New Hampshire and states that typically settle the Democratic and Republican nominations long before the Utah even writes its ballot.
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Murray Waas, National Journal:
Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush’s 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address — that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon — might not be true, according to government records and interviews.
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People around the country understand that ‘FOX & Friends’ rocks!
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A former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay on Friday pleaded guilty to conspiracy and promised to cooperate with the government’s investigation of lobbying fraud.
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Tony Rudy is Staffer A in court papers released in connection with Jack Abramoff’s guilty plea.
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Is someone with half a brain only half a person?
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