Tuesday’s editorial has some
appreciation for the words of our newest congressman and urges those leaders in
D.C. to get a national gameplan in place and then follow through on it.
There’s nothing like starting your
job smack dab in the middle of a crisis. New U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, R-Myrtle Beach, and new U.S. Sen. Tim Scott,
R-North Charleston, took their oaths on Thursday as the nation they seek to
help lead struggles through a particularly nasty patch of partisan bickering
and stonewalling.
Governing has taken a back seat to
mud-slinging and shouting. Rather than work together to improve the United
States, Congress has settled for lurching from crisis to crisis, barely
averting each fresh disaster just days or hours before it happens. What a
reality to encounter on your first day on the job.
Saturday’s editorial, courtesy the Orlando Sentinel, address the no-tax pledge of Americans for Tax Reform. Our local take on the issue is below.
When the political autopsy on Congress’ supercommittee is complete, a contributing cause of death must include the no-tax pledge that’s infecting elected officials across the nation.
All six of the Republican senators and House members on the 12-member committee went into negotiations having taken an oath that they would never raise income tax rates on individuals or corporations. Nor would they ever eliminate tax deductions or credits unless matched by other tax reductions, so help them Grover.
Thursday’s first editorial urges State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais to pursue federal funding.
It takes guts and a real strength of principle to stand firm in your beliefs when the critics are baying and condemnation pours in. On that score, we have nothing but respect for the resoluteness of S.C. Education Superintendent Mick Zais.
But while we can respect Zais’ steadfast refusal to pursue federal Race to the Top funding, we can’t say that we agree with it. The basic argument is simple enough: We’re sending our tax money to the federal government, which is using some of it to fund this unique education initiative. But instead of seeking to have some of that money returned to our state, Zais – with the support of Gov. Nikki Haley – has refused to take part in the program.
Thursday’s editorial discusses one way the federal budget spat this year has come back to haunt us here:
It’s often hard to see what practical effects national or state policy fights have on the local level, but Horry County charities got a firsthand view this year.
As Congress dithered and fussed over the national budget this year, culminating in the April showdown that threatened to shutter the federal government, local charities waited increasingly desperately for word on the funding they’d receive. Why? Caught up in the drawn out negotiations was the budget for the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program, an initiative established in 1983 to provide money to groups around the nation for food, rent and utility assistance.
In an episode sadly reminiscent of
the health-care reform debate, Republican U.S. Rep. John Boehner was publicly
lambasted this week for the apparent modern-era sin of proposing a serious
policy solution to a serious governmental problem.
Specifically, Boehner (the House
Minority Leader) gave an interview in which he proposed three changes: raising
the Social Security retirement age to 70 over time, tying benefits to increases
in prices (which rise more slowly than Social Security’s current index, wages)
and reducing benefits for wealthy retirees who do not need them. Denunciations
from Democrats were swift and furious. “Callous, outrageous and frankly
un-American,” said U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat also from Boehner’s state
of Ohio.
Amercans United for Change, one of the many left-leaning groups that pounced,
said called his ideas “an assault on the safety net that has kept generations
of seniors from poverty” that would “launch a nuclear bomb” on Social Security.
Friday’s editorial describes signs of bipartisan progress on
financial reform and the deficit.
A very strange thing, something
almost no one would have predicted even just a few months ago, is happening in Washington right now:
Republicans and Democrats are working together on some very hard problems.
Both the Myrtle Beach Republican Women's Club luncheon and the Carolina Patriots forum on Tuesday were visited by the same five candidates for Congress: Mt. Pleasant town councilman Ken Glasson, attorney Larry Kobrovsky, businessman Mark Lutz, Myrtle Beach accountant Clark Parker and Charleston County Councilman Paul Thurmond.
The luncheon allowed the candidates extended, free-form introductions of themselves followed by a handful of questions, while the forum offered more targeted questions and answers. You'll find clips of both events below, with some limited thoughts I had while watching.
Saturday’s editorial urges Congress and the White House to
focus soon on fixing Social Security.
Regardless of whether you agreed
with the Obama administration’s methods or believed its conclusions, you likely
had some appreciation for the White House’s stated intent for making
health-care reform a first priority: addressing the nation’s out-of-control
long-term deficits.
During the lifetime of any young
child today, the greatest single driver of the federal budget deficit is the
rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid - not stimulus spending, not earmarks,
not the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq nor even any given president’s tax cuts.
This is partly because of our country’s aging population but moreso because of
the expected inflation in the price of health-care for everyone, insured or
not, and health-care reform was intended to slow that growth in costs - hence
the phrase “bend the cost curve.”
Thursday’s editorial encourages Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim
DeMint to put their overt display of partisanship aside and vote for fixes to problems
in the new health care law that they were just recently criticizing.
Though mostly obscured by a year’s
worth of irresponsible rhetoric, there were plenty of reasonable policy
objections to be made to our country’s health care law.
The major issues were mostly
settled by President Obama’s signature on Tuesday. Even if Republicans retake
the House, Senate and presidency in rapid succession, the new law truly does
incorporate enough popular Republican ideas that an outright repeal of it is
extremely unlikely.
Yet the reform bill was far from
flawless, and it will certainly itself continue being reformed. And the first
of the reforms – addressing concerns raised by Republicans and Democrats alike
– has already passed the House and is being debated by the Senate right now in
what is called the reconciliation bill.
Thursday’s second editorial joins strange bedfellows Nancy
Pelosi and Jim DeMint in calling for a year-long ban on earmarks – and the
endless conversation about them.
“Nancy Pelosi and I don’t agree on
many things,” began a recent comment from U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint in what both
parties would agree might be the political understatement of the year, and the
occasion is certainly worth celebrating.
Specifically, it was a report in a
Capitol Hill publication that the Speaker of the House is considering proposing
a one-year ban on earmarks. DeMint notes that he and 15 other Republican
Senators (and one Democrat) proposed a similar ban earlier this year, though
the Democrats would surely note that earmark reform was never accomplished when
Republicans had control of Congress.
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