Where The Rubber Meets The Road (3/6/10)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week (posting will continue to be flaky for a little while, and I still don't know what I'm going to do about the pic).

Antitrust exemption. Voting 406-19, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 4626) to end the health-insurance industry's 64-year-old federal antitrust exemption under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. Health insurers are regulated on the state level and are subject to state antitrust laws. Under this bill, the Justice Department would provide another layer of enforcement against monopolistic activities such as collusion in the setting of premium rates, allocating market shares, and rigging bids on contracts. The bill exempts medical-malpractice insurers.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Not voting: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.).

Interesting vote for Pitts to miss (and by the way, here is more info to consider on PA-16’s waste of space…and to do something about it, click here).

2010 spy budget. Voting 235-168, the House approved a classified 2010 U.S. intelligence budget unofficially estimated at $50 billion or higher. The bill (HR 2701) funds operations of the CIA, National Security Agency, and several other spy agencies. The bill awaits Senate action.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Castle, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Not voting: Dent (official leave).

So the next time you hear Cheney or some other GOP sugar daddy yakking on the Sunday morning gab fests about how they’re supposedly the party to keep us safe as opposed to those bedwetting liberal Democrats, remember this vote in which they chose not to fund our spy operations.

Native Hawaiian sovereignty. Voting 245-164, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 2314) empowering Native Hawaiians to form a sovereign government comparable to the Native American and Native Alaskan nations in the United States.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Sestak, and Schwartz.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Not voting: Andrews.

I couldn’t hope to summarize the complex issue of Hawaiian sovereignty here even if I tried, but it looks like this bill sponsored by Dem Neil Abercrombie will set forward a process allowing Hawaii the right of self governance without undercutting Federal authority, very possibly en route to building casinos to generate revenue as noted here (though that is in dispute also, apparently).

Senate

Jobs creation. Voting 70-28, the Senate sent the House a bill (HR 2847) that would temporarily exempt businesses from having to pay the 6.2 percent employer's share of Social Security withholding taxes on workers they hire this year from the jobless ranks. Employers also would receive a $1,000 tax credit for each new hire that stays on the job for one year. The two incentives would cost the Treasury about $13 billion.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), and Arlen Specter (D., Pa.).

Not voting: Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.).

Travel to America. Voting 78-18, the Senate sent President Obama a bill (HR 1299) that would establish a federal corporation to increase foreign travel to the United States. The Corporation for Travel Promotion would be funded initially by about $100 million in assessments on the U.S. hospitality industry and another $100 million in special visa fees collected by the Department of Homeland Security.
A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Menendez, and Specter.

Not voting: Lautenberg.

Establishing this agency is important for the following reason (noted here, and comparable to what other countries do, by the way)…

International travel to the United States took a significant hit after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, research shows.

Images of long lines and bomb-sniffing canines at U.S. airports have lingered. And while international travel boomed over the last decade - the U.S. Travel Association says 46 million more foreign travelers took long-haul trips in 2009 than in 2000 - this country lost visitors, welcoming 2.4 million fewer last year than in 2000.

The net loss, according to the travel group: 68 million visitors and more than $500 billion in total spending.

This week, the Senate took up a short-term extension of unemployment and COBRA health benefits for those who have lost jobs (after Jim Bunning decided to stop being an a-hole on this subject). The House schedule was to be announced.