Super Committee

Lost And Found: Papers Detailing Items On GOP Super Committee Wishlist

Susan Crabtree | September 23, 2011, 12:43PM

Image From Danny E Hooks / Shutterstock

In these times of secretive deficit super committee meetings, back-room pressuring on particular proposals and endless speculation on what the panel will wind up doing, it might be a good idea not to leave internal working deficit-reduction documents lying around the Capitol.

TPM got a hold of what appears to be an internal GOP Super Committee wish list -- a chart of working proposals for finding hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings. A source recently forwarded the documents after finding them lying on a table outside the Speaker's lobby at the end of August, just when members selected to serve on the joint-deficit panel were being announced.

Read more »

Jobs

GOP Jobs Plan: More Snakes?

Benjy Sarlin | September 14, 2011, 4:34PM

EcoPrint / Shutterstock

Democrats and Republicans all agree that the nation needs to move on a jobs agenda. And Republicans have a new plan: unleash the reins of snake commerce.

GOP members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today called attention to a proposed regulation that would restrict the transportation and importation of nine types of snakes, including the Burmese Python.

In a new report entitled "Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama's Promise of Regulatory Reform," GOP members cited the proposed snake ban as one of seven examples of red tape choking off job growth in an already ailing economy.

One witness invited to testify, snake breeder David Barke, told lawmakers that the rules "threatens as many as a million law-abiding American citizens and their families with the penalty of a felony conviction for pursuing their livelihoods, for pursuing their hobby, or for simply moving with their pet to new state."

Read more »

Darrell Issa

Issa: NLRB Has Until Friday To Hand Over Docs In Boeing Case

Susan Crabtree | August 8, 2011, 12:04PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the GOP's No. 1 Obama administration attack dog, has bitten down hard on the dispute between the National Labor Relations Board and Boeing and doesn't appear to be letting go anytime soon.

Issa issued a subpoena to the NLRB's Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon August 7 as part of its investigation into the merits of the NLRB action against the Boeing Company. The subpoena compels the NLRB to comply with earlier document requests submitted in May with a deadline of noon Aug. 12.

Read more »

unions

GOP, Dems Square Off Over NLRB Case Against Boeing

Susan Crabtree | June 17, 2011, 4:17PM

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

Republicans and Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee repeatedly clashed Friday over the politically charged National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing Co. and its decision to locate a nonunion plant in South Carolina.

Even before the field hearing in Charleston, S.C., got underway, Democrats were accusing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) of trying to intimidate the NLRB by hauling the agency's top lawyer, Lafe Soloman, before the panel.

Read more »

Scott Walker

On Capitol Hill, Walker Defends Fight With Unions: "We Are Doing Something Truly Progressive"

Benjy Sarlin | April 14, 2011, 2:00PM

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)

Testifying before the House Oversight Committee, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) defended his administration's combative approach to unions amid aggressive questioning from House Democrats and his fellow witness, Vermont Governor Pete Shumlin (D).

"In Wisconsin, we are doing something truly progressive," Walker said in his opening remarks. "In addition to holding the line on spending and finding efficiencies in state government, we are implementing long term budget reforms focused on protecting middle class jobs and middle class taxpayers."

Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and others repeatedly pressed Walker to explain why he targeted collective bargaining rights when unions had already agreed to budget cuts to help close a deficit.

Read more »

Scott Walker

Rep. Cummings, Vermont Governor Shumlin Rip Into Scott Walker At Hearing

Benjy Sarlin | April 14, 2011, 10:28AM

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), on Capitol Hill for a hearing held by the House Oversight Committee on state budgets, had yet to even speak before Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) ripped into the Republican leader's anti-union record.

"I strongly oppose efforts to falsely blame middle-class American workers for these current economic problems," Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in his opening statement. "This recession was not caused by them. Working America - fire fighters, teachers and nurses - are not responsible for the reckless actions of Wall Street, which led to this crisis in the first place."

Cummings said he also "strongly object[s] to efforts by politicians who try to use the current economic downturn to strip American workers of their rights - the right to negotiate working conditions that are safe, the right to negotiate due process protections against being fired arbitrarily, and the right to negotiate fair pay for an honest day's work."

Read more »

Vincent Gray

Issa Launches Probe of D.C. Mayor's Spending

Susan Crabtree | March 17, 2011, 5:40PM

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray

Mayor Vincent Gray and Council Chairman Kwame Brown spilled blood in the water when they started spending taxpayers' money on apparently nepotistic hiring, extravagant travel and luxury SUVs.

Incoming House Republicans are dead set on cutting spending anywhere they can, including vulnerable D.C. city services, and now Gray and company will have a tougher time defending them while fending off investigators from Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Read more »

Henry Waxman

Waxman On Issa: 'He's Not Gotten Off To A Good Start'

Brian Beutler | March 1, 2011, 5:20PM

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)

You know whose first days as chairman of the House Oversight Committee didn't involve having to fire a high-profile staffer? Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who ran the committee from 2007 through 2009.

I caught up with Waxman in the Speaker's Lobby during a House vote on short-term spending Tuesday afternoon and asked him to weigh in on his heir Darrell Issa, who's had tougher luck.

"He's not gotten off to a good start," Waxman said, "and he's got to figure out how to make corrections in his own operation."

Read more »

Elijah Cummings

Cummings Backs Obama With Mortgage Fraud Investigation

Susan Crabtree | February 25, 2011, 4:59PM

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is backing President Obama's hard line on mortgage abuses with his own wide-ranging investigation into foreclosure fraud.

Obama has been trying to broker a deal that would have the nation's largest mortgage lenders agree to cough up as much as $30 billion in fines to settle state and federal claims they abused borrowers and illegally foreclosed on homes, according to media reports citing state and federal officials engaged in the discussions.

Read more »

Darrell Issa

Welch to Issa: Step Away -- Or At Least Step Back -- From FOIA Demands

Susan Crabtree | February 8, 2011, 11:25AM

Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT)

Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) is pushing back against Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) investigation into whether the Obama administration is politicizing Freedom of Information Act requests.

It's not that Welch opposes the general thrust of Issa's probe. He's just worried about what could turn out to be some pretty serious unintended consequences -- squelching interest in filing FOIA requests by revealing the identities of the private citizens making them.

Read more »