We all know that Fox News is real news. CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times, even that Saturday Night Live Weekend Update, all fake. Fake, fake, fake. Fox News is real news. That’s it, folks. Trust nothing else:
Large majorities of voters favor granting work permits or citizenship to illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, according to the latest Fox News poll.
Sixty-two percent say it is extremely or very important Congress pass immigration law that will address the Dreamers. Voters think this is more important than passing new health care (58 percent important) or tax reform legislation (52 percent).
… Overwhelming majorities favor granting work permits (86 percent favor vs. 12 percent oppose) and U.S. citizenship (79-19 percent) to illegal immigrants under the age of 30 brought here as children, provided they pass a background check.
And that support extends beyond Dreamers: “The poll finds a record-high 83 percent of voters support setting up a system for all illegal immigrants who are currently working in the country to become legal residents,” notes real news Fox News, “up nine points since last year. Just 14 percent say ‘deport as many as possible.’”
Sarcasm aside, Fox News just confirms what basically every other poll out there has already confirmed. In a Trump era where it’s hard to get nearly 90 percent of American voters to agree on anything, Americans overwhelmingly believe undocumented immigrant youth should be able to stay, work, and live in the only country they know as home. Even Fox agrees.
And if Congress would just allow the bipartisan Dream Act to come to a vote, it could pass.
Congressional Republicans are letting vital health programs for children and low-income Americans expire, choosing to forego working through tomorrow to reauthorize the programs before the fiscal year ends Saturday at midnight. One state—Utah—is warning of pending disaster if the Congress doesn't get this done fast.
Utah health officials submitted their intentions to close an insurance program for children in low- to middle-income families if Congress does not reauthorize its funding.The state's Division of Medicaid and Health Financing sent a letter Sept. 15 to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which outlined its plan to close its Children’s Health Insurance Program if Congress fails to renew its funding by its deadline Saturday. Without the necessary federal dollars, division spokeswoman Kolbi Young said the program’s funding will run out by the end of the year.
The federal and state program provides wellness exams, immunizations, doctors visits, prescriptions and other forms of health care to nearly 20,000 children in Utah. The kids typically come from families that make too much to qualify for Medicaid, the federal and state insurance program for low-income people.
Utah taking the lead here is significant, since it's their senior senator—Republican Orrin Hatch—who is responsible for the reauthorization as chairman of the Finance Committee. That makes him responsible for the 20,000 kids in Utah and for the nearly 9 million children and pregnant women on the program nation-wide. The lack of urgency he's demonstrating in getting this done isn't just a problem for Utah. A handful of other states don't have enough funds in reserve to keep their programs running until the end of the year, and most states won't have enough to extend far into next year.
This is after Hatch and his ranking member, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) reached an agreement to not just fund the program, but extend funding for five years. That was two weeks ago, and then all progress came to a screeching halt. It was more important to Senate Republicans to turn all their attention to the latest harebrained Trumpcare scheme, and for House Republicans to work on their plan for tax cuts for the rich.
Maybe the warning from Utah will be enough to light a fire under Hatch and the funding will be approved before lasting damage is done. To this program, anyway.
Senate Republicans released their budget resolution for the next fiscal year. In it, they abandon—to a degree—the idea of repealing Obamacare and finally admit to the world that they don't care about deficits. At all.
The 89-page plan, which the Senate Budget Committee spent months drafting, sets up the special power of budget reconciliation GOP leaders can use to advance tax reform with just a 50-vote threshold in the Senate. Nov. 13 is the tentative deadline for tax writers to submit their plans for an overhaul to the budget panel.
Under the budget proposal, Republican tax writers can add up to $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, giving lawmakers more flexibility as they attempt a once-in-a-generation revamp of the U.S. tax code. With more wiggle room to slash revenue, GOP legislators hope they will be able to go even lower on tax rates for individuals and corporations.
They can do tax cuts with just 50 votes in these new instructions, but didn't include Obamacare repeal—not directly anyway. The instructions it includes for the Senate Finance committee allows that $1.5 trillion in added deficits between both revenues and outlays—it doesn't rule out changes to the subsidies for Obamacare, the various taxes included in it, or changes to Medicaid expansion or Medicaid itself. So while "repeal" isn't allowed with 50 votes in the new instructions, a partial repeal is definitely in there.
Here's another tricky thing it does, as discovered by David Kamin, a former staff adviser on economic policy to President Obama: it gets rid of the Senate rule requiring a Congressional Budget Office score for votes under budget reconciliation. Without the CBO score, the old rules say, a budget resolution bill—like the one they'll have for tax cuts—would have to get a supermajority vote. Their excuse is that requiring the accountability of a CBO score is "unnecessarily restrictive to the deliberative nature of the institution."
That's a blow to both accountability and transparency. They don't want the public to know how damaging their proposals are. Period.
Last month, a Forbes article detailed the dire state of finances for communities of color in this country. In his article, “Median Wealth of Black and Latino Families Could Hit Zero by the Middle of the Century,” Erik Sherman explains that by 2053, the median wealth of black households will be zero. According to Sherman, it is wealth inequality that continues to disadvantage black and Latino households. Though income inequality remains persistent, “wealth transfer and the advantages wealth provides—come together in ugly ways” to disadvantage these two groups, particularly black Americans.
But there’s more. For centuries, legal structures have been used to systemically prevent blacks from obtaining wealth. By examining the modern bankruptcy system, we find yet another way that blacks are marginalized and continue to be saddled with debt. This is particularly true in the South, Memphis in particular, which has some of the highest black bankruptcy rates in the nation.
When ProPublica analyzed consumer bankruptcy filings nationwide, the district [the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Tennessee] stood out, both for the stunning number of cases in which debtors were unable to get relief, and for the reasons why.
In Memphis, an entrenched legal culture has made bankruptcy a boon for attorneys while miring clients in a cycle of futility.
Under federal bankruptcy law, people overwhelmed by debt have a choice: They can either file under Chapter 7, which wipes out debts and, since most filers lack significant assets, allows them to keep what little they have. Or they can choose Chapter 13, which usually requires five years of payments to creditors before any debts are eliminated, but blocks foreclosures and car repossessions as long as debtors can keep up. In most of the country, Chapter 7 is the overwhelming choice. Only in the South, in a band of states stretching from North Carolina to Texas, is Chapter 13 predominant.
Unfortunately, many people confuse the difference between the two. Both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 prevent garnishments and debt collections—but unlike Chapter 7, the relief under Chapter 13 is not permanent and only lasts as long as payments are made for five years on outstanding debts.
The nonprofit government watchdog Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint Tuesday with the Travis County (Texas) District Attorney alleging thievery by the Heidi Group because it accepted millions of dollars in state funds to provide services that it never provided. It also filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service, asking that the Heidi Group lose its tax-exempt status on the grounds it’s engaging in political activities not permitted by groups holding that status. Nicole Knight at Rewire reports:
“Texas taxpayers deserve to know where their hard-earned money has gone,” Katie O’Connor, the Campaign for Accountability’s legal counsel, said in a statement.
Texas officials contracted with the Heidi Group to provide $7 million in family planning services to families with low incomes when it barred health-care provider Planned Parenthood from the state health-care program. Reports showed the Heidi Group shifted the money to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers, or fake clinics. A six-month investigation by the Campaign for Accountability found the Heidi Group misspent the money. [...]
Through a public records request, the Campaign for Accountability discovered the Heidi Group had spent as much as 11 percent of its annual expenditures in one year on the “Heidi Group Cruise.” The anti-choice organization allegedly engaged in unreported lobbying and prohibited acts, such as electioneering and endorsing political candidates for state and federal office.
Texas authorities chose several years ago to fund crisis pregnancy centers instead of Planned Parenthood. As noted here, CPCs are forced-birther propagandists notorious for lying to women about abortion, failing to discuss contraception, and offering few if any of the health services that Planned Parenthood has justly been widely applauded for over many decades.
