Health Care for America Now! – CBO: Republicans and Right-Wing Media Spreading Falsehoods on ACA Costs

If you only got your news from the right-wing media, you might think the Congressional Budget Office’s report last week on the Affordable Care Act meant that the bill cost more than it was originally expected to — a lot more. But the fact is, and as Talking Points Memo pointed out last week, the [...]

Economic Policy Institute – Report to Congress confirms large benefits, modest costs of new EPA rules

The Office of Management and Budget just posted a draft of its annual report to Congress on the benefits and costs of federal regulations. This official documentation of all major regulations reviewed by OMB includes an individual listing of the benefits and costs of all such rules finalized by the Obama administration through Sept. 30, [...]

Economic Policy Institute – A jobs bill in substance or acronym only?

The House of Representatives passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act in overwhelming bipartisan fashion (390-23). The JOBS Act is a package of six bills, four of which had already passed the House, and all of which would lift or relax Securities and Exchange Commission rules. The bill is intended to make it easier [...]

Public Citizen – Bringing the heat of reality to a GOP freeze on public safeguards

The U.S. House of Representatives refuses to let up on its quixotic mission to destroy public safeguards. Its latest incarnation is H.R. 4078, the “Regulatory Freeze for Jobs Act of 2012,” a misguided bill that seeks to halt regulatory protections until the unemployment rate is equal or less than six percent. It was the topic [...]

People for the American Way – ALEC Gives Cash to Congressmen?

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) strategy of corporations enact favorable legislation at the state level across the country by wining and dining state legislators at fancy conferences and then presenting them with model bills to shepherd into law is well documented. Apparently, ALEC also sees value in currying favor at the federal level as [...]

DEMOS – Small Businesses Aren’t Concerned About Regulations, So Why is Washington?

The headline for next week’s edition of The Economist is “Over-regulated America,” with the subtitle “The home of laissez faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written legislation.” Sounds dramatic, but in reality the only things getting “suffocated” here are the facts about regulations. To be fair, this article does recognize (as few tend [...]

U.S. PIRG – We Tell the Financial Regulators: Don’t Let Big Banks Make Taxpayer-Backed Bets

U.S. PIRG and the AFL-CIO joined Americans for Financial Reform in a detailed comment letter urging issuance of a strong Volcker rule by the financial regulators. It’s a 72-page pdf comment letter that basically comes down to one simple thing. We tell the financial regulators: don’t let big banks make taxpayer-backed bets. The rule implements [...]

NRDC — Worst. Transportation Bill. Ever.

Partisanship is the reason for constant gridlock in Congress. One exception has been the issue of transportation. NRDC is on the record — analyzing and critiquing yet supporting — the bipartisan federal transportation bill that passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Passage of that bill through committee was made possible by the collaboration [...]

DEMOS — State of the Union: Holding the Powerful Accountable for Bad Behavior

President Obama made a strong stab at outlining a progressive narrative last night that envisions a nation where “everybody plays by the same rules.” It’s a pretty simple idea, tapping the powerful American ideal of egalitarianism — that all of us should get a “fair shot” and that nobody is too high and mighty to [...]