Supercommittee Fails to Reach Agreement

The Congressional Supercommittee announced today that it has failed to reach an agreement on a debt reduction plan. The co-chairs said in a statement “after months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.”

Today, President Obama and Speaker Boehner both called for Congress to continue working for an outcome that would best serve the national interest. So what happens now?

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Posted by:

Justin Burkhardt

Political Quick Hits: November 18th Edition

Here’s your weekly quick look at a few developing stories in the political arena:

• As expected, the Supreme Court announced this week that it will decide on the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s health care reform. The court will hear two major questions, the first being if the individual mandate requiring Americans to have health insurance is constitutional and if so, the second question is should all of the healthcare reform be scrapped? Arguments will likely be in February or March, with a ruling coming by June. The ruling will once again make health care an important issue for the 2012 presidential race. (CNN)

• Congress again avoided a shutdown threat by passing a temporary spending measure on Thursday that will keep the government funded until December 16. The government would have run out of  money midnight Friday if another temporary spending bill wasn’t passed. (CNN)

Posted by:

Justin Burkhardt

Congress Rules That Pizza Sauce Counts as a Vegetable

Does that look like a healthy school lunch to you?

Do you think pizza sauce counts as a vegetable? Well, according to Congress, pizza sauce still counts as a vegetable.  It seems that Congress wants to keep pizza and french fries on school lunches across the country. Now I’m not against kids having pizza and french fries on occasion, but should pizza sauce really count as a vegetable? Recently, the Obama administration proposed healthier school lunches, so clearly Congress disagrees with the president.

If you don’t think school lunches should be healthier, go eat one. If you can’t, you can also look at the stats which from the CDC where estimates show that about 17 percent,or 12.5 million,of children between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese. The USDA wanted to change the guidelines that would have changed the pizza sauce vegetable standards and also would have limited starchy veggies like french fries. The USDA clearly lost out to the special interest groups representing the frozen food industry that want to continue serving unhealthy foods to our children.

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Posted by:

Justin Burkhardt

Political Quick Hits: October 14th Edition

Here’s your weekly quick look at few developing stories in the political arena:

• On Tuesday, President Obama’s jobs bill was defeated in the Senate. 50 senators voted for it, 49 against it, a bill needs 60 votes in the Senate to proceed. President Obama promised after this setback to break his jobs bill up into several smaller parts, which would each come up for a vote. (CNN)

• On Wednesday night, Congress overwhelmingly passed free trade deals with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. This is seen as the most significant expansion of trade relations in two decades. The agreement with South Korea, which is the world’s 15th largest economy, could be a boost for the U.S. economy and has the potential to create up to 280,000 American jobs and boost exports by $12 billion, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. (Washington Post)

Peek inside for details on the Iranian terror plot:

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Justin Burkhardt

Would the Debt Crisis Exist if Women Ran the Government?

America’s debt is at an all time high yet the government can barely decide on what to do. Every time any politician comes up with a plan, another has to find a way to counteract the idea. The government is so full of testosterone that many believe that if there were more female leaders, we would have a better chance.

Women make up 51 percent of the country yet women only account for about 16 percent of Congress. That’s 17 of the 100 seats in the Senate and 72 of the 435 seats in the House.

They say women mature faster than men do but since the beginning of time, men have always been perceived to be the stronger gender. For more than 20 years, there have been more women in college and graduating from college than men, so why are there so few women in Congress?
Check out what LZ Granderson had to say on it…

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Ursula Brantley