President Barack Obama asked Speaker of the House John Boehner and Majority Leader Harry Reid to hold a joint session of Congress on September 7 to correspond with Obama’s major job speech. In a completely unprecedented move, and sort of reeking of an adolescent, Boehner said no.

Later on Wednesday, Boehner responded and asked Obama to move his major speech to September 8 instead of the 7^th. An Obama administration stated that the date had already been worked out with Republican leadership before the announcement was public.

Boehner’s office stated they were given a small advance notice but never okayed the date. “No one in the speaker’s office — not the speaker, not any staff — signed off on the date the White House announced today,” Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said. The joint session would provide the president with the type of audience that usually accompanies a State of the Union address. Obama wants to shift political discussion to job creation.

A Republican debate is scheduled for the same day, which may be motivating both sides. Asked if the White House chose the date specifically to upstage the Republican presidential field, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney responded, “No, of course not,” adding that the Sept. 7 debate, which will be co-hosted by NBC and Politico, was “one debate of many.”

Speaker Boehner responded to the president in a letter. He stated his reasoning for postponing the speech is because the House officials would not have enough time to pass the resolution and conduct the security measures necessary in order to officially invite the president to a joint session on Wednesday , but apparently that one extra day will help. This seems highly unlikely because Congress has passed massive legislation on shorter notice.

Boehner’s response is not only juvenile; it apparently has never been done before.”The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which Congress refused the president permission to speak before a Joint Session of Congress,” said Betty K. Koed, an associate historian for the U.S. Senate, in response to an inquiry from The Huffington Post.

“From 1800 to 1913, presidents chose not to address Congress in person. Since 1913, every president has appeared before Congress at least once during his term(s) in office. Permission to speak in a joint session is given by resolution of the House and Senate, and arrangements are made through the leadership offices of each chamber.”

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The debt ceiling was raised in the last possible moment in a deal that has no one really satisfied. The debt ceiling was raised along with a creation of a “secret super committee” that will dramatically slash spending.

Democrats in the Senate supported the bill despite the huge spending cuts. Forty-five voted “yes” on the bill and six voted “no.” Meanwhile 28 Republicans voted in favor of the bill and 19 opposed it. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted “yes” and “no,” respectively.

The compromise allows Obama to increase the borrowing limit by $400 billion immediately but also mandates $917 billion in cuts over the next decade. The bill also sets up a committee of 12 lawmakers that will find another $1.5 trillion cuts over the next decade.  The bill “puts in place a powerful committee that will ensure further much-needed reform,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

“There must be a sharing of sacrifice,” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. “It’s very unfair for millionaires and billionaires not to be contributing.”

Very few lawmakers had positive reactions to the deal.

“This compromise that we reached is not perfect,” said Reid. “We settled for less than we wanted, but so did my friend [McConnell].”

He also complained that the country was forced to such an impasse because of the “very, very disconcerting” impact of the Tea Party.

McConnell was more satisfied with the outcome. “It was a debate that Washington very much needed to have,” he said. “The American people agree with us on the nature of the problem … if you’re spending yourself into oblivion, the solution isn’t to spend more, it’s to spend less.”

“The bill doesn’t solve the problem, but it forces us to admit we have one,” McConnell added.

Other tea-party backed Republicans were less optimistic over the outcome. “To me it comes close to violating our oath of office,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) about the potential cuts to military spending.

Economists also have mixed reactions about the deal. Raising the debt ceiling provides some stability in an already fragile economy however the huge spending cuts will continue to slow the economy.

“The federal government spends huge amounts of money, and to the extent, in the short-term, that it’s not spending that amount of money, there will be an impact to the economy,” said Ernie Patrikis, a banking partner at White & Case and former vice president of the New York Federal Reserve. He said that while he thought the stability would encourage more investment, “the impact on unemployment is not terribly helpful.”

“It’s definitely a drag — the only question is how much,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “We’re going backward when we desperately need to go forward.”

According to the Huffington Post, the Democrats began the debate stating that the hike in the debt ceiling be “clean” and not tied to spending cuts. They gave ground continually for months, and McConnell happily pointed out that the White House once labeled any linkage to future spending “insane.”

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In an interesting turn of events, the Congressional Budget Office rating Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)’s debt ceiling plan. Just one day after the CBO scored Speaker John Boehner’s plan, the non partisan congressional scorekeeper released their findings on Reid’s plan.

On Tuesday, the CBO stated that the Speaker’s plan would save $850 billion over the course of 10 years. Reid’s plan would reduce the deficit by $2.2 trillion over the next decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said. The Speaker was already forced to pull his bill over the low score from the CBO and stated that he was going to “rework” it. Reid’s plan also included no tax hikes or increases in revenue, a demand of the Republican Party.

Two major differences account for the conflicting scores. In Reid’s plan, the very expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will completely end. Also, Boehner’s plan only raised the debt ceiling by one trillion dollars and was only trying to find a trillion cuts to match the amount of raising the debt ceiling. Under Reid’s plan, the debt ceiling would be raised until 2013.

Rep. Boehner defends his plan, calling the CBO results “misleading.” Boeher spokesman Michael Steele explained why the report was misleading.

This report shows the Senate plan for what it is: a grab-bag of gimmicks that gives the President a blank check. In contrast to the bill House Republicans have offered, the Senate Democratic bill counts as ‘savings’ a trillion dollars in war money that would never have been spent — and on top of that, slashes the defense budget in a manner that would hurt our men and women in uniform in a time of war.

It relies on smoke and mirrors for half of its ‘savings,’ yet still cuts $500 billion less than promised. In reality, the Reid plan would only save taxpayers about $1 trillion while giving the President the largest debt limit increase in history. Despite previous claims, it significantly falls short of the requirement that we cut more than we increase in the debt limit.

President Obama and other Democrat leaders are supporting Reid’s plan. Reid has hinted that Congress may be working on a compromise. “Magic things can happen here in Congress in a very short period of time under the right circumstances,” said Reid, the Senate majority leader.
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The House of Representatives has passed the Budget Control Act proposed by their Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH), by a vote of 218-210.

The bill passed without any support from the Democrats and, despite an intensive lobbying effort by Boehner and the rest of the House GOP leadership, twenty-two Republicans broke ranks to vote against it as well.

Speaking in support of his bill, Boehner said that he “stuck my neck out a mile trying to get an agreement with the president of the United States. I stuck my neck out a mile. And I put revenues on the table in order to try to come to an agreement to avert us being where we are.”

“But a lot of people in this town can never say yes. This house has acted and it is time for this administration to put something on the table, tell us where you are,” he continued.

The House was originally supposed to vote on the bill last Thursday, but Boehner abruptly postponed the vote at the last minute when it became apparent that he did not have enough support. Another round of intensive arm-twisting ensued, and Boehner agreed to tweak the bill to make it more palatable to the Tea Party faction of his caucus.

The original bill called for a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling and spending cuts worth $917 billion. This increase would only tide the government over until 2012, at which point the issue would have to be revisited. However, Boehner’s legislation contained provisions for a bipartisan committee to come up with further spending cuts, at which point the debt ceiling could be raised again. As a result of pressure from the Tea Partiers, Boehner agreed to a further amendment that would require Congress to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and send it to the states for ratification before the debt ceiling could be raised a second time.

Once the bill arrived in the Senate, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) moved to ‘table’ (i.e. kill) it. That motion was agreed to by a vote of 59-41 that saw several Republican senators join the Democrats in opposing Boehner’s plan. Now the Senate will likely turn its attention to Reid’s own proposal to solve the debt ceiling crisis, with a final vote likely to occur sometime during the early hours of Sunday morning. But it is almost certain to receive a chilly welcome from the House, and, with only days to go before the August 2^nd deadline, a solution to the debt crisis seems as remote as ever.

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In a bid to end the protracted stalemate over raising the debt ceiling, President Obama and senior Democrats have met to hash out a solution that they hope will be palatable to the Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) unveiled the Democrats’ plan on Sunday night after the latest round of talks with Republicans broke down. It offers a $2.7 trillion package of cuts, an increase in the debt ceiling through 2012, and (perhaps most crucially) none of the tax increases that Republicans found so galling.

“We hope Speaker Boehner will abandon his ‘my way or the highway’ approach, and join us in forging a bipartisan compromise along these lines,” Reid said in a statement.

The Democrats’ maneuver comes as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner (R-OH), announced that the Republicans would press for a short-term increase to the debt ceiling along with $3-4 trillion-worth of spending cuts and a program of long-term deficit reduction.

Under US law, Congress sets a maximum cap on the amount of money that the government can borrow. Currently, that cap is set at $14.294 trillion. On August 2, the government is projected to reach that cap and, according to the US Treasury, failing to increase the debt ceiling would leave the government in default of its obligations.

Although both Republicans and Democrats agree in principle that a default would be a bad thing, many Republicans are eager to use the issue as leverage in their bid to achieve their long-term financial objectives. Spurred on by the Tea Party, the Republicans want to see drastic spending cuts put in place before any increase in the debt ceiling is voted through. Because they control the House of Representatives, a certain amount of bipartisan agreement is essential before any plan can pass into law.

Vice President Joe Biden led bipartisan talks aimed at finding common ground which produced a plan for $1.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years, mostly through discretionary spending. But further agreement proved impossible when the Republican participants refused to countenance any tax increases.

Last week, the Republican-controlled House passed the Cut, Cap and Balance Act. It would have cut total spending by $111 billion in Fiscal Year 2012 and scaled back total federal spending by a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product. Also, it would have increased the debt ceiling, provided that the states ratified a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Obama made it quite clear that he would veto the act if it ever reached his desk, but it ended up dying in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

No doubt the president and his party leaders hope that their latest proposal will win the Republicans’ approval by giving them much of what they have been clamoring for. Even if this plan becomes law, America’s credit rating may still be downgraded, which could result in higher interest rates for mortgages, credit cards, and student loans.

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The Republicans argument over the debt ceiling is becoming increasingly ridiculous. And apparently, asking for millionaires to share some of the sacrifice is pathetic, at least according to Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama.

The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee called the idea “pathetic” after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) proposed a measure. The non-binding resolution states: “It is the sense of the Senate that any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should require that those earning $1,000,000 or more per year make a more meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort.”

Reid’s measure includes how the income gap continues to grow. He cited statistics that state the median income of S&P 500 companies chief financial officers jumped $2.9 million last year alone, even though the “median family income has declined by more than $2,500″ in the last 10 years. The resolution also notes that 20 percent all income goes to the top 1 percent, and 80 percent of the nation’s income growth over the last quarter century has also gone to the top 1 percent.

Sessions and his colleagues did not express any interest in the growing income disparity in the United States, stating only delays getting around to major cuts. “It’s a sense of the Senate,” Sessions scoffed. “We’re supposed to have legislation in place by Aug. 2 to deal with raising the debt limit — and that’s got to be real numbers and real figures.”

“So I guess we can say we’re beginning to talk about something with this rather pathetic response from the majority leader,” he said. “I’m not happy about that.”

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn) was also not impressed with the resolution, but suggested it was a sign Democrats were getting ready to listen to the GOP. “While today, obviously, we’re not going to have anything really serious to talk about — it’s just a sense of the Senate — my sense is that very quickly we’re going to have something before us that actually is real,” Corker said.

Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson commented on the GOP statements: “Apparently, nothing irritates Republicans more than the prospect that millionaires and billionaires might be asked to share in the burden of deficit reduction.”

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Over the years, certain immigrants have always been targeted as scapegoats in America. Ben Franklin thought Germans should not be allowed into the country because of their “swarthy complexion.” Catholics were not well received because they only listen to the pope. Irish were not popular and thought to be just a small step above African Americans.  Southern and Eastern Europeans were hated and prompted the quota laws to be passed. Italians were thought to be violent. Only a small number of Jewish people were allowed into our country even during the Holocaust because of our ongoing xenophobia. We have discriminated against almost all Asians at one point or another because of fears. Our latest target is Mexicans and anyone that looks Hispanic. Although the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, they have always been very selective of who is okay.

The current fear mongering with Latinos is not justifiable.   Every year or so, illegal immigration gets brought up and spun around on all the media outlets by all sorts of politicians but for no good reason. Since 9/11 and the major recession, immigration to the United States is down.   Most undocumented immigrants do not become permanent residents. They come to the U.S. to be with family or to work. They stay a few years and leave.  It doesn’t sound so bad.  But, many people in America still feel that immigration is a problem.

Anti-immigration activist believe that immigrants sneaking over the border are more likely to take part in criminal activities.  It is unclear why someone would take all that time and energy to sneak over a border to get caught for a crime and be deported when they could be criminals in their own country.  Research also indicates that undocumented citizens are not more likely to engage in crime than natural citizens. The exact numbers vary but native born Americans are between 5 and 10 times more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants. In Arizona, state senators used crime to justify their “papers, please” legislation.  The lawmakers claimed that crime in Arizona had increased.  However, crime rates in Arizona have steadily decreased since 2006 for both violent and property crime.  Another reason anti-immigration activists want to seal the American borders is because of the economy.  They claim that undocumented immigrants are not paying taxes and draining the social services.  This again is false.  Immigrants contribute as much as $10 billion to the U.S. economy each year. Legalization of low skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. would result in a net increase in the U.S. GDP of $180 billion over the next ten years. Immigrants, legal and illegal alike, spend their money in the U.S. which is good for the economy.  Most immigrants come to U.S. for jobs so they are working and not using social services. Many are too afraid of deportation to take advantage of any programs even if they needed it.  Others against immigration worry about overpopulation.  They claim that with more and more undocumented immigrants, the public school system will be overwhelmed.  Yet, the U.S. continues to push fertility drugs, glorify families like the Duggars, and many want to outlaw abortion, so it cannot be a concern for overpopulation.

As the state of Arizona pushes a slew of more anti-immigration measures through, you can be sure that immigration fears are alive and well in the U.S.  However, the Hispanic community re-elected Senator Harry Reid during last midterm elections so they might not be such a good scapegoat any longer.

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