H.R. 1424: To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment, and for other purposes.

451 PAGES, up from the H.R. 3997’s 110 and the original’s 3.

Senators Voting “Nay” on Federal Intervention in the Financial Markets: Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008:
Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO), Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Official roll call for vote number 213.

Both of the senators from the state of New Jersey where I am a resident voted in the affirmative. They’ve already received emails indicating my displeasure with their actions.

To Frank Lautenberg:

I am disappointed by your vote in the affirmative on H.R. 1424. I will be doing what I can to to assure you are not reelected in November.

“We will not let this economy fail” -Senator Reid
“This bill creates jobs here at home.” -Senator Reid
“Inaction is not an option.” -Senator Reid
“America I hope saw  Congress, the United States Senate, acting as the forbearers and the Founders intended it to act.” -Senator Dodd

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

Politicians who blame “speculators” in futures markets for the run up in oil prices — such as Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) writing in this morning’s USAToday — should consider a lesson from the lowly onion.

Onions are one of the few commodities in the United States for which there are no futures markets, according to an item published Friday in Fortune magazine. (Futures markets allow the sale of commodities for set prices at future dates.) It seems that in the late 1950s domestic onion producers blamed those same speculators in futures markets for driving onion prices DOWN. They successfully lobbied Congress to ban all futures trading in onions, a ban that is still in place a half century later.

So has the absence of futures-market speculation kept onion prices low and stable? Quite the contrary. According to Fortune:

And yet even with no traders to blame, the volatility in onion prices makes the swings in oil and corn look tame, reinforcing academics’ belief that futures trading diminishes extreme price swings. Since 2006, oil prices have risen 100%, and corn is up 300%. But onion prices soared 400% between October 2006 and April 2007, when weather reduced crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only to crash 96% by March 2008 on overproduction and then rebound 300% by this past April.

Sen. Dorgan and his allies will need to find someone else to blame for volitale and rising oil prices.

Isn’t this what serious economists, especially the Austrians, have been saying for perhaps 100+ years yet the politicians continue to use speculators as the scapegoat for many of the problems they instigated.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

President Bush said Thursday concern should be shown those who’ve lost their homes but it’s not the federal government’s job to bail them out.

“Obviously anybody who loses their home is somebody with whom we must show an enormous empathy,” Bush said. Asked whether he would champion a government bailout, Bush responded: “If you mean direct grants to homeowners, the answer would be `No, I don’t support that.’”

A Treasury Department study, released earlier this year, showed the federal corporate tax rate could be cut from 35 percent to 27 percent with the same amount of revenue collected if a number of corporate tax breaks were eliminated, thereby broadening the tax base.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called Bush’s interest in a corporate tax cut irresponsible given the government’s rising debt. “It’s hard to make a case that large U.S. corporations are paying too much in income taxes,” Dorgan said.

It’s irresponsible to tax companies and individuals into the poorhouse. It’s irresponsible to have a rising government debt. Senator Dorgan is part of the problem. The president doesn’t allocate money and tax the public, Congress does. If he doesn’t want the government to be in debt he can lobby his fellow representatives to get rid of nanny state social programs and vote to stop funding the unconstitutional war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hard to make a case that US corps are paying too much? They pay taxes on their income… then they are forced to withhold taxes from that when they pay their employees. They are forced to match the 7.5% they take from their employees wages for SSI and Medicare. End the income tax, end all unfair unappropriated direct taxes. If they need an income source to make up for the current income taxes (which make up 1/3ish of their income) than they can impliment something like the FairTax.