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No Labels — Government
No Labels

No Labels

Latest Episodes:

Arguments for and Against the Inflation Reduction Act Aug 19, 2022
Show notes

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed the Senate on a 50-50 party line vote, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie, and passed the House on a party-line 220-207 vote. There have been many arguments both for and against the $437 billion spending bill, and a final Congressional Budget Office estimate is still weeks away. We have compiled the most up-to-date projections on the final bill as passed, as well as arguments on both sides.

Five Facts on Burn Pits and the PACT Act Aug 19, 2022
Show notes

Millions of U.S. veterans were exposed to smoke and fumes from burn pits during their time serving the country overseas. But limits on qualifications for benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs prevented many of them from getting healthcare once back home. In response, a bipartisan congressional group developed the bipartisan PACT Act to get veterans the care they deserve. Although a procedural holdup stalled the bill in summer — which led to days of media controversy after the delay was denounced at a press conference by Stewart — the bill ultimately passed the Senate 86-11. Here are five facts on what burn pits are, and how the new law will help.
1. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that as many as 3.5 million veterans may have been exposed to burn pits.
Burn pits were regularly used by the U.S. military outside of the U.S. to dispose of solid waste. Chemicals, paint, rubber, metals, food scraps, and human waste were among the types of items incinerated in burn pits, and the smoke and fumes can be toxic.
2. The military began phasing out burn pits in 2009.
Following critical investigative reports in The Military Times in 2008, President Barack Obama in 2009 ordered federal agencies to revise practices based on new scientific data, and later that year the VA began an 18-month study of the use of burn pits. While most were phased out in the early 2010s, as of July 2019 there were still nine sanctioned burn pits in operations in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Syria. President Biden has said he suspects there was a link between burn pits and the death of his son Beau Biden, an Iraq veteran, from a rare brain cancer in 2015.
3. The VA created the Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry (AHOBPR) in 2014.
The Disabled American Veterans began campaigning for a voluntary registry in 2007. As of July 2022, the VA had approved disability claims for respiratory conditions from nearly 573,000 veterans of post-9/11 service, but the claims of 315,000 veterans were denied due to the limited scope of qualification at that time.
4. The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act was signed into law on August 10.
Robinson, an Ohio National Guard veteran, died in 2020 after a three-year fight against lung cancer. He attributed his illness to smoke exposure from burning trash pits during his deployment to Iraq in 2006 and 2007, and his wife and mother became advocates for those denied VA benefits because the agency did not believe that their illnesses were service-related.
The PACT Act passed the House 342-88 and the Senate 86-11. It is the largest expansion of veteran protections in three decades, with benefits expected to exceed $300 billion over the next decade.
5. The PACT Act expands eligibility for VA healthcare benefits to veterans with toxic exposures dating back to the Vietnam era.
The new law adds more than 20 new presumptive conditions for burn pits and other toxic exposures, and will expand benefits to millions of veterans. It covers veterans of the Gulf War and post-9/11 military operations in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen, as well as additional eligibility for Vietnam-era veterans who served in American Samoa, Cambodia, Guam, Laos, and Thailand.

Five Facts on FBI Raids on Federal Officeholders Aug 12, 2022
Show notes

On August 8, the FBI raided former President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in search of what the bureau claims were official documents illegally taken from the White House. The details of the search warrant have not yet been made public. Here is more background on FBI raids on federal officeholders.

1. The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was the first-ever FBI raid conducted against a former president.
While the FBI investigated Richard Nixon while he was in office — and Bill Clinton both during and after his time as president — the August 8 raid on Trump’s Florida estate was unprecedented.
2. The FBI raided the home of Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) in 2005 as part of a grand jury probe of Cunningham’s ties to a defense contractor.
Cunningham was investigated over a real estate transaction with defense contractor Mitchell Wade that came months before the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on which Cunningham served awarded millions in contracts to Wade’s company. Cunningham pleaded guilty to tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud, and spent seven years in prison. He was released in 2013 and pardoned by former President Trump nine days before he left office.
3. The 2006 raid on the office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court.
The FBI first raided Jefferson’s home in August 2005 as part of a bribery probe, finding $90,000 in cash stashed in Jefferson’s freezer. In May 2006, the FBI raided Jefferson’s Washington office, leading then-Speaker Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to issue a joint statement condemning the action but calling for Jefferson to cooperate more fully with the probe. In August 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the raid was unconstitutional. In 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years in prison on multiple counts of bribery, but was released after five and a half years.
4. The home of Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) was raided in 2007 in an investigation of ties between Doolittle, his wife, and lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The FBI raided the Virginia home to gather documents from Julie Doolittle's fundraising firm, whose chief clients were her husband and Abramoff. Julie Doolittle also worked directly for Abramoff as an event planner. Rep. Doolittle denied any wrongdoing, but did not seek reelection. In 2010, the Justice Department closed its investigation without charging either of the Doolittles. Abramoff spent nearly six years in prison and was released in 2010.
5. The home and campaign office of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) were raided earlier this year, but Cuellar is reportedly not a target of the investigation.
Cuellar’s Texas home and campaign office were raided less than two weeks before voters went to the polls in a competitive primary that Cuellar nonetheless won by a narrow margin. Cuellar cooperated with the probe, which is related to links between the government of Azerbaijan and several U.S. businessmen. Cuellar’s attorney said in April that the Justice Department had told him that Cuellar “is not a target of the investigation.”

Table detailing legislation that has passed and what it does — Bipartisanship Isn’t Dead in Washington After All Aug 09, 2022
Show notes

On many days, Washington seems more dysfunctional than ever. But over the past year, Congress has also managed to pass several hugely consequential pieces of bipartisan legislation. As these examples below show, leaders in Washington can still get the people’s business done when they put their minds to it.

Five Facts on the Senate 'Vote-a-Rama' Aug 03, 2022
Show notes

After months of delay, Democrats are moving a budget reconciliation package through the Senate that features significant climate and energy, tax and healthcare provisions. But the final bill must first survive a “vote-a-rama” — a unique and recent Senate custom that requires dozens of votes on all sorts of amendments. The practice — which is often deployed by the minority party — can delay legislation by forcing senators to take difficult stands on many issues, and divide the coalition needed for passage.
Here are five facts on the vote-a-rama.
1. Vote-a-ramas date back to the late 1970s.
The practice was developed between Senate leaders of both parties to quickly dispatch with remaining amendments after the 50 hours for debate for a given bill allotted by the 1974 Budget Act had elapsed. There have been 61 vote-a-ramas since the first one, in 1977. Rules for vote-a-ramas in their current form were first set in 1993 to rectify a budget impasse. Then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott coined the term “vote-a-rama” in 1996.
2. The Senate defines a “vote-a-rama” as 15 or more votes on a single piece of legislation in a single day.
While vote-a-ramas are most common on budget resolutions, they can take place on any legislation. There have been vote-a-ramas on energy legislation, the Farm Bill, and on the final version of the Affordable Care Act.
3. The highest-ever number of votes during a vote-a-rama was 44.
The 1974 Budget Act limits the time set for debate, but not for the “consideration” of budget measures, meaning that any amendment ruled by the parliamentarian as germane to the bill must get a floor vote. Most amendments introduced are “messaging” amendments — that often relate to issues completely unrelated to the underlying legislation — intended to force senators to go on the record on tough questions, or to delay passage of the final bill. There are no limits on how many amendments can be introduced, and vote-a-rama sessions often last through the night.
4. Debate on each vote-a-rama amendment is limited to just 30 seconds per side.
No real debate is held on each vote-a-rama amendment, and the time senators have to vote is slightly reduced from the standard 15 minutes. However, senators still get 10 minutes to vote on each, which adds up. A 2013 vote-a-rama took nearly 16 hours to complete.
5. Last year’s budget resolution vote-a-rama included 43 proposed amendments.
It took senators 14 hours to handle the amendments to the $3.5 trillion Fiscal Year 2022 budget resolution, with the final bill passing 50-49 at four in the morning. Among the amendments introduced and rejected were measures to increase funding for expulsion of migrants from COVID-heavy countries, reduce federal funding for municipalities that decline to prosecute violent crimes, block funding for the United Nations Human Rights Council, block changes to the SALT tax deduction, and fund reopening of schools five days per week.

Five Facts on Electoral Vote Challenges Jul 29, 2022
Show notes

The seeds of the Capitol Hill violence on January 6, 2021 were sown by both then-President Trump and House Republicans challenging the validity of electoral slates from the states. Unfortunately, baseless challenges of electoral votes have become common in the aftermath of presidential elections. The recently introduced Electoral Count Reform Act — introduced by a bipartisan group of 16 senators — has several provisions that would make it harder to challenge or overturn presidential vote counts.
Here are five facts on electoral vote challenges.
1. The results of the 2004 election faced an electoral count challenge even though John Kerry lost both the popular and electoral vote and was not contesting the result.
Kerry lost the popular vote by a margin of more than three million, and lost in the electoral vote 286-252. But his loss in Ohio by fewer than 119,000 votes led Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) to object to the certification of that state’s electors for President George W. Bush. The Senate rejected the objection with only Boxer supporting it and 25 senators not voting; the House voted it down 267-31, with 132 representatives not voting. It was only the second challenge to an electoral slate in U.S. history, following the contentious election of 1876.
2. In two of the challenged cases, the candidate who won the electoral vote lost the popular vote.
In 2000, Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote by a margin of about 544,000, but lost the electoral vote 271-267 after the controversial Florida recount. Though many Democrats believed Gore to be the legitimate winner, he conceded defeat in December following the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Several members of the House attempted to object to certification, but Gore — in his role as presiding officer — rejected these attempts.
Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump in 2016 — with Trump winning a comfortable 306-232 Electoral College majority but losing the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million — led to a grassroots effort to deny Trump the presidency by convincing electors to vote for other candidates. In the end, just seven electors voted for candidates other than Clinton or Trump— and five of them were Clinton electors, with the official tally being a 304-227 Trump win. As in 2000, House Democrats tried to challenge, but lacked Senate support. Vice President Joe Biden, presiding, told one representative, “It is over.”
3. Trump was the only defeated candidate who did not accept the results.
Clinton, Gore, and Kerry each accepted their loss before Congress gathered in January to certify the results. The only time a defeated candidate did not accept the loss was in 2020, when Trump refused to concede to Joe Biden despite losing the electoral vote 306-232 and the popular vote by more than seven million.
In December 2020, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) announced plans to challenge the electors in at least five states, but on January 6, 2021 — in part because of the violence of that day — official objections were filed only to the results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. About two-thirds of House Republicans voted to agree to both objections (121 for Arizona and 138 for Pennsylvania), but only six senators backed the Arizona objection, and seven the Pennsylvania objection.
4. Just one in five Americans is “very confident” about the nation’s elections.
An ABC News poll in December 2021 found that just 20% of Americans are “very confident” that our elections are free and fair — down from 37% in a poll conducted just after January 6, 2021. A Morning Consult poll taken in the wake of January 6 found a huge partisan divide: 82% of Democrats said they trust the U.S. election system “a lot” or “some”; just 33% of Republicans said the same.
5. The Senate Electoral Count Reform Act, focused on fixing the original Electoral Count Act of 1876, has 16 co-sponsors: nine Republicans and seven Democrats.
The bill was introduced by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Susan Collins (R-ME), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Rob Portman (R-OH), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mark Warner (D-VA), and Todd Young (R-IN).
The legislation would make each state’s governor exclusively responsible for submitting a slate of electors, provide expedited court review of any claims regarding certification of electors, and clarify the roles of the vice president and Congress in counting electoral votes, among other components.

Five Facts on the Money Supply Jul 22, 2022
Show notes

The Federal Reserve oversees the nation’s money supply — the total amount of cash, coins, bank balances, and other liquid instruments in circulation. In addition to raising and lowering interest rates, the Fed can choose the rate at which it creates new currency, which can impact both economic activity and inflation.
Here are five facts on America’s money supply.
1. The broadest Federal Reserve measure of the U.S. money supply is up 36% since before the pandemic.
The Fed measures the money supply in several ways, but under the broadest and most widely used measure, the current U.S. money supply is about $21.8 trillion dollars. That’s compared to just under $16 trillion in early March 2020. During the pandemic, the Fed created nearly four times as much money as had been issued in the two preceding years. Today’s money supply is three times what it was 25 years ago in today’s dollars.
2. During the pandemic, the Fed purchased at least $120 billion per month in securities.
The Fed created dollars during the pandemic, and used much of the new money to buy bonds in an effort to hold down long-term interest rates. In June 2020, the Fed set a rate of purchase of at least $80 billion in Treasuries and $40 billion in residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities each month. It reduced the rate of these purchases in late 2021 and ended purchasing earlier this year.
3. More than $2 trillion of the money created during the pandemic was not spent.
The Fed purchased nearly $5 trillion in mortgage-backed and government securities in all. However, the banks that the Fed paid did not spend more than $2 trillion of that money and instead “parked” it, keeping it out of circulation while seeking investment opportunities. Some economists say this limited the impact of the Fed’s purchases on inflation.
4. The growth in U.S. money supply is now at its slowest rate since the Great Depression.
With the end of pandemic lockdowns in the U.S. and the increase in inflation, the Fed is now significantly slowing money supply growth. “Deposit liabilities” — all the deposits at a bank except for term deposits — are a fair measure of the broad money supply. Since the start of 2022, deposit liabilities have grown at an annual rate of just 0.4%, compared to 18% growth during 2020 and 2021. The long-term average is about seven percent.
5. China’s money supply is up 10.5% since before the pandemic.
China also increased its money supply during the pandemic, but kept it more tightly controlled. Beijing regulates its money supply through a process called “sterilization.” The People’s Bank of China increases the supply of currency domestically, but offsets this by selling the same amount in currency bonds, removing the excess cash from open markets. China also requires commercial banks to keep a percentage of total deposits with the PBOC.

Chart comparing inflation among U.S., Japan, China, EU, and UK — Why Is Inflation Running So Hot in the U.S.? Jul 20, 2022
Show notes

Inflation in the U.S. is running hotter than at any time in the last 40 years. COVID lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, and Russia’s war on Ukraine have all played a role — but so too has the classic driver of inflation taught in Economics 101:
Too much money chasing too few goods.
As shown in the charts below, both the U.S. Federal Reserve and Congress have injected more money into our economy than our counterparts abroad, which helps explain why America has one of the higher inflation rates among developed economies.

Why Is Inflation Running So Hot in the U.S.? Jul 20, 2022
Show notes

Inflation in the U.S. is running hotter than at any time in the last 40 years. COVID lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, and Russia’s war on Ukraine have all played a role — but so too has the classic driver of inflation taught in Economics 101:
Too much money chasing too few goods.
As shown in the charts below, both the U.S. Federal Reserve and Congress have injected more money into our economy than our counterparts abroad, which helps explain why America has one of the higher inflation rates among developed economies.

Five Facts on the Global Semiconductor Industry Jul 15, 2022
Show notes

Semiconductors are essential to U.S. economic and national security and are one of our top five exports. But now America is at serious risk of falling behind Asia, particularly China.
The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which has already passed the Senate 68-32, could provide essential funding needed to jumpstart the U.S. semiconductor sector, but the House and Senate are still haggling over the final shape of a bill.
Here are five facts that explain why it’s so important for the U.S. to maintain its lead in the global semiconductor industry.
1. In 1990, the U.S. made 37% of the world’s semiconductors. Last year, the U.S. made 12%.
In addition, in 2019, 100% of the world’s most advanced logic semiconductors — which are used to control the operation of electronic devices by processing digital data — were produced outside the U.S.
But despite the overall decline, U.S. semiconductor exports totaled $49 billion in 2020 — the nation’s fourth-largest export market behind only airplanes, refined oil, and crude oil.
2. Global semiconductor sales are estimated to hit $573 billion this year, up from $527 billion last year and $440 billion in 2020.
The market is expected to top $800 billion by 2028 and $1 trillion by the end of the decade. By 2025, there will be at least 75 billion connected devices that run on semiconductor chips, more than three times the 22.6 billion in 2019. These devices include consumer electronics, telecommunications devices, and connected devices such as sensors and thermostats.
3. For each of the 277,000 Americans directly employed by the semiconductor industry, an additional 5.7 jobs are supported in the broader economy.
That amounts to nearly 1.6 million jobs. Furthermore, more than 300 domestic economic sectors employing more than 26 million Americans rely on semiconductors.
The Semiconductor Industry Association of America says an investment on the scale of USICA would create at least 10 new manufacturing hubs and trigger about $279 billion in additional private sector investment.
4. Eighty percent of semiconductors are now produced in Asia.
The Chinese government is investing $161 billion over 10 years to build the nation’s semiconductor industry. In 2020, China produced just 16% of its semiconductor demand domestically, but Beijing aims to domestically meet 70% of China’s semiconductor demand by 2025 and 80% by 2030.
Taiwan alone produces 92% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, and Taiwan’s TSMC makes nearly 90% of the chips used by Amazon, Apple, Google, and other major U.S. tech firms.
5. The European Union produces about nine percent of the world’s semiconductors.
That’s down from 35% in 1990. The European Commission is taking steps to revive Europe’s semiconductor industry, creating the €2 billion EU Chips Fund to back semiconductor start-ups and bolster the European sector and advancing the European Chips Act, which will invest an additional €15 billion in technology-related programs.

Chart comparing prices of goods today to a year ago displaying rise in inflation — Headline Inflation Numbers Hide Real Impact Jul 06, 2022
Show notes

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up 8.6% over the last year, which is the highest inflation reading since 1981. But this headline figure obscures the fact that prices of many essential goods — from supermarket staples to gasoline and housing — are rising even faster, with prices up by double digits over the past year.
This chart shows why, in poll after poll, inflation is now the top concern of voters heading into the 2022 midterm elections.

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