Thursday, January 30, 2014

As President Obama travels through the nation to ask support from the people.

The GOP has a lot to review in the bills they noted in their letter to him.

There are a "SKILLS Act" in US Senate as well as House having past theirs. The House bill is egregious.

S.1127 - SKILLS Act (click here)
113th Congress (2013-2014) 

The House Bill (click here) 

The House bill amends an existing law passed during the Clinton Administration in 1998.
WORKFORCE INVESTMENT ACT OF 1998 (click here)
The House bill seeks to change definitions in Section of 101 of this existing law.
It seeks to remove this paragraph:
(13)  Eligible youth.--Except as provided in subtitles C and D,
            the term ``eligible youth'' means an individual who--
            (A) is not less than age 14 and not more than age 21;
            (B) is a low-income individual; and
            (C) is an individual who is one or more of the following:
                (i) Deficient in basic literacy skills.
                (ii) A school dropout.
                (iii) Homeless, a runaway, or a foster child.
                (iv) Pregnant or a parent.
                (v) An offender.
                (vi) An individual who requires additional assistance 
            to complete an educational program, or to secure and hold 
            employment.
And this definition: 
(24) Lower living standard income level.--The term ``lower 
    living standard income level'' means that income level (adjusted 
    for regional, metropolitan, urban, and rural differences and family 
    size) determined annually by the Secretary based on the most recent 
    lower living family budget issued by the Secretary.
And these definitions: 
 (52) Youth activity.--The term ``youth activity'' means an 
    activity described in section 129 that is carried out for eligible 
    youth (or as described in section 129(c)(5)). 
 (53) Youth council.--The term ``youth council'' means a council 
    established under section 117(h).
All those definitions come out and are replaced with this:
‘‘(1) ACCRUED  EXPENDITURES.—The term ‘accrued expenditures’ means charges incurred 
by re-cipients of funds under this title for a given period requiring the provision 
of funds for goods or other tangible property received; 
services performed by employees, contractors, subgrantees, 
subcontractors, and other payees; and other amounts becoming owed under 
programs assisted under this title for which no current services or 
performance is required, such as annuities, insurance claims, and other 
benefit payments....
And the bill goes on from there. The changes to the Definitions of the original
law is extensive. It seeks to remove child labor restrictions. There is no 
replacement definition for "Youth." There are just additional definitions to 
change the original law into a Republican designer law. 
This is another interesting twist in the house bill:
‘‘(2) ADMINISTRATIVE   COSTS—The term ‘ad-ministrative costs’ means 
expenditures incurred... blah, blah, blah...and both direct and 
indirect.’’; 
Anything goes. That is what that is. Administrative costs have no limit to 
it's definition. It invites corruption as if legitimate activity.
The House goes on to change the definitions in the "Carl D. Perkins Career
and Technical Education Act with is referred to the 1998 law. The definition of
Administration is as follows in the Perkins Law.
(1) ADMINISTRATION
.—The term ‘‘administration’’, when
used with respect to an eligible agency or eligible recipient,
means activities necessary for the proper and 
efficient performance of the eligible agency 
or eligible recipient’s duties under
this Act, including the supervision of such activities. Such term
does not include curriculum development activities, personnel
development, or research activities

This is what the House is doing and why the Senate can't consent 
to the laws they pass. The House bills are corrupt. I am not going 
to read the entire House bill. Why should I? I don't get paid the 
money these legislators get paid. Besides that, these provisions 
of the House bill is enough to throw it out.
The House has no viable legislation. There is too much corruption written in them.

The House or Representative Letter states there aren't enough natural gas pipelines as the reason for the spike in costs. Really? Those paragraphs would be a lie. So, the American people are suppose to build more gas pipelines for jobs because that is what is driving up the price. Let's spend money on political favors to GOP cronies? Is that right?

The U.S. natural gas pipeline network (click here) is a highly integrated transmission and distribution grid that can transport natural gas to and from nearly any location in the lower 48 States. The natural gas pipeline grid comprises:
  • More than 210 natural gas pipeline systems.
  • 305,000 miles of interstate and intrastate transmission pipelines (see mileage table).
  • More than 1,400 compressor stations that maintain pressure on the natural gas pipeline network and assure continuous forward movement of supplies (see map).
  • More than 11,000 delivery points, 5,000 receipt points, and 1,400 interconnection points that provide for the transfer of natural gas throughout the United States.   
  • 24 hubs or market centers that provide additional interconnections (see map).
  • 400 underground natural gas storage facilities (see map).
  • 49 locations where natural gas can be imported/exported via pipelines (see map).
  • 8 LNG (liquefied natural gas) import facilities and 100 LNG peaking facilities (see map).
Then there is the mention of SOME words the President spoke:

"A woman deserves equal pay for equal work. She deserves to have a baby without sacrificing her job. A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship - and you know what, a father does, too. It's time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a Mad Men episode."

Those words are taken out of the context of the entire paragraph:

"Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns," he said. "That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work. She deserves to have a baby without sacrificing her job. A mother deserves a day off to care for a sick child or sick parent without running into hardship - and you know what, a father does, too. It's time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a Mad Men episode."

Then the letter goes on to quote a 1938 prohibits private sector compensation time instead of overtime pay. Then the option of 'comp time' was provided to for government workers in 1985.

The House bill overlooks The Family and Medical Leave Act passed during the 
Clinton Administration in 1993.

The problem is NOT compensatory time. The problem is that when employees take time off they LOSE their jobs. "She deserves to have a baby without sacrificing her job." The President's statements are not about compensation time. The President's statement is far more serious than that. The compensation time isn't going to make a darn bit of difference if a parent doesn't have a job to go back to.

The problem citizens face is that the laws that are suppose to protect them and their families require litigation when they are broken. With the poor wages citizens receive there is no room for lawyers. The majority of Red States don't have consumer agencies that take these complaints. In other words, the employers get away with it. I am quite sure the politicians that receive their funding from these same employers like it just fine the way it is.

I wrote about the Gabrielle Miller Kids First Research Act. It takes money from election funding, DRAINING a cash reserve for elections, and assigns it to this purpose. The CDC and NIH already does this research. And that is the other thing, it isn't just a reserve of cash for campaign funding that would disappear, the NIH would be defunded. 

There are reasons why these bills were never taken up by the Senate. They are corrupt, assault well established institutions the USA cannot replace should another venture prove a failure. What I thought was laughable is removing campaign finance monies to this purpose. Evidently, the US House believes the Presidency will continue to escalate in cost. Odd. I would expect the opposite. 

There were four signators to this letter, the Speaker, Cantor, McCarthy and Rodgers. I assume they read this letter by their signators. In that case, they are guilty of attempting to corrupt the USA government. I do believe it is at least an ethics complaint and quite possibly impeachable. 

The activities of the US House since 2010 has been detrimental to the country, used for political purposes, nearly bankrupt the country and have been hostile to the well being and improvement of the lives of our citizens. That is completely impeachable. The problem is there aren't enough members in the House that would actually vote for impeachment of all these people. That is where the weakness in our government results in obstruction. President Obama and the US Senate would have to consent to the corruption in order to work with the US House.