Serious question! - sm

Oh my...please disregard my typo - sm

The obstructionists - do not want improvement

I personally feel that this current - sm

I hope you are right. Obama almost destroyed this country. - Wish we could vote him out now!.nm

I so agree. - Dallas

Its obvious he has never run ANYTHING.nm - mtt22

Can you post a link to this - Backwards Typist

All I could find was the vote on cloture to the bill.

Senators Grassley and Stabenow had these comments (long but worth reading):

Mr. GRASSLEY: "This bill before us has not been vetted by the Finance Committee. Does anyone believe that if my friend the chairman were to put this bill before the Finance Committee, it would be approved in the form it is right now? If the idea in this bill had the kinds of merits claimed by their proponents, then they should welcome the Finance Committee reviewing it. Let members ask questions as they review the language. Test the strength of ideas through the committee process.

   The Democratic leadership has short-circuited the opportunity to methodically test the bill as good tax policy. Unfortunately, this process defect has been more the rule than the exception. Since the stimulus bill in January of 2009, the Finance Committee has only marked up one tax policy bill, and that was the health care reform bill.

   My sense is the Democratic leadership simply does not want this bill to undergo scrutiny of a regular-order process--in other words, the way the Senate normally does business. This bill is presented as a ``take it or leave it'' proposition. Republicans are not supporting cloture because they are not being offered the opportunity to amend this bill with amendments that go to the supposed purposes of the bill. No amendments are allowed on any tax incentives for job creation. No amendments are allowed on measures to prevent offshoring of jobs. In other words, the Senate being a deliberative body of a bicameral Congress--and, obviously, the House is not a deliberative body--the purpose of this body is being neutered by the procedure this bill is going through. For instance, I have amendments dealing directly with the offshoring of jobs. They are bipartisan amendments. But if I vote for cloture, I have no assurance from the Democratic leadership that these amendments will be in order. I will describe these amendments.

   The first amendment mirrors a bill the junior Senator from Vermont and I have coauthored. It is the Employ America Act. It would prevent any companies engaged in the mass layoff of American labor from importing cheaper labor from abroad through temporary guest worker programs if they lay somebody off.

   The second amendment I filed today mirrors a bill the senior Senator from Illinois, a Democrat, and I have worked on for several years. It is the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2009. It would improve two key visa provisions while rooting out abuse while making sure Americans have the first chance of obtaining high-skilled jobs in this country.

   Many Americans are unemployed. Yet we still allow companies to import thousands of foreign workers. These businesses should be asked to look first at Americans to fill those jobs, and they should be held accountable for displacing Americans to hire cheaper foreign labor.

   These two amendments go directly to the concerns about job creation and the prevention of offshoring of U.S. jobs. Both amendments are bipartisan. Yet if cloture is invoked, these amendments would fall on the Senate cutting room floor.

   Furthermore, I have no confidence, even if the Democratic leadership were to follow regular order for floor purposes, that we could expect anything like a conference committee to work out the issues between the House and the Senate.

   In sum, the bill's substance would more likely lead to an increase in offshoring of American jobs and would make American companies less globally competitive. The bill's procedure is very irregular and not in the thoughtful traditions that so dignify the Senate.

   For purposes of the contents of the amendments, as well as this procedure, I ask that we vote against this bill.

   Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise today asking that we vote to proceed to this measure so that we can have a full discussion and debate and work on the issues that are so important to middle-class families related to incentives for jobs being shipped overseas versus incentives to have jobs in America.

   I agree with my distinguished colleague from Iowa--we have worked together on many issues--that there is a larger set of issues. It is very important that in the next Congress we focus on comprehensive tax reform. Permanently extending the research and development tax credit, as the President has proposed, which I strongly support, is very important to us for long-term innovation and the ability to invest in America. I believe it is important to have fair trade agreements, agreements that are enforced. When we look at a country such as South Korea, where our manufacturers have been blocked from selling into South Korea, where automakers have been at a disadvantage, we need to make sure those issues are fixed before that trade agreement or any trade agreement moves forward. There are many issues on which we need to focus under the whole commitment that we want to export products, not jobs.

   I will talk about specifically what is in this bill, this piece of it, because this goes to the question of whether, in Michigan or in any State, if there is a decision made to close operations and take it to another country, lay off people in Michigan and move those jobs overseas, whether the workers, their families, Americans should subsidize that through a tax system that provides that you can take a deduction, a loss, or a credit for amounts paid in connection with reducing or ending an operation in America if you are starting the same kind of operation overseas--in other words, shipping your jobs overseas. Right now, you shut down, you get business tax deductions for what it costs you to shut down the operation and start it up somewhere else. To add insult to injury, we have workers training folks to take their place. We heard over and over what a challenging, humiliating, angering situation that is for too many of our workers.

   The question is, on this policy, knowing there is much more that needs to be done, which I support--and I do support looking at the entire tax system and how we are competing in a global economy and making sure our businesses in America have every advantage, every opportunity to compete successfully. But the question is, the single question on this vote that is coming up very shortly is whether we are going to allow companies that shut down operations and start similar operations abroad to write off their American taxes, whether the same people who are losing their jobs are going to have to help pay for the jobs going overseas. That is No. 1. We say no. We say that as a basic premise, that is wrong.

   No. 2, the question is whether we should end Federal tax subsidies that reward firms that move their production overseas under something called deferral. This bill says no.

   No. 3, the question is whether we are going to provide incentives--among many incentives we have and need to have--whether we will say: If in the next 3 years you as a company choose to bring back jobs from overseas and hire Americans, we want to provide an incentive by giving a 24-month, a 2-year payroll tax holiday for those workers--if you are bringing jobs back from overseas.

   That is simply what this is. It is not everything, but it is a very important piece of the puzzle. That is what this is all about.

   For me, this is a fight about whether we are going to make products in America. If we make a commitment, as we have begun to do through the Recovery Act, through the advanced manufacturing tax credit, through the focus on manufacturing that has begun to get business moving again, we are going to have the ability to make it in America. And when we make it in America, we are going to make a lot of it in Michigan. The reason I am very committed to strengthening our manufacturing base is because I know that is going to strengthen Michigan because we have the engineers, we have the skilled workforce, we have the know-how, we have the innovation and the ingenuity. If we make it in America, we are going to be making a lot of that in Michigan.

   We are committed more broadly to doing that. We cannot have a middle class if we do not make products. If we do not make products and grow products and add value to it as a country, we will not have a middle class. The reason we are losing our middle class is because there has been in the last decade much more interest in how cheaply we can buy something rather than where it is made. Every other country has understood that it matters where it is made. China thinks it matters where it is made. India thinks it matters where it is made. Germany, Brazil, Japan--go around the globe. They look at us. They look at what created the middle class of this country. They want that, so they are focusing on manufacturing. They are putting in place their own barriers--and China, of course, wins the prize on this--to keep our companies out, to say, you have to make it in China, to say it has to be a Chinese patent, you have to turn over your technology, and so on.

   This bill is part of our effort to say that we are committed to fight for America, American businesses, American workers. This is not about punishing folks; this is about fighting for America. It is about fighting for a way of life. It is about fighting for the middle class of this country. We want to make it in America, and this bill sends a very simple message: Stop shipping our jobs overseas. Stop having loopholes in the law, incentives in the law that ship our jobs overseas.

   We have lost over 4.7 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade. We can debate the 8 years of the former Presidency and the incentives that caused job loss and too many of those in my State of Michigan. We know that if we focus on making products in America, we will bring those jobs back; that if we close loopholes, if we create incentives, we will bring jobs back.

   One example, and then I will close--I see my colleague from Ohio is here--when we focus on the right incentives, we do bring jobs back. In the last Energy bill, section 136--which I was pleased to author on tooling older plants to help businesses get retooling loans--caused Ford Motor Company to bring jobs back from Mexico to Wayne, MI. The jobs came back because of the right incentives. This bill is about the right kinds of incentives and closing the wrong kinds of incentives.

   I ask our colleagues to give us the opportunity to get to this bill, to work together to stop the bleeding, stop the shipping of jobs overseas, and give us the opportunity to make it in America again."

What link? McConnells? - the law?, the economic report?

Not covered on Fox - so that would be the problem

Oh please - here's the problem - how typical

FYI: I don't watch Fox except between 2-4 p.m. - Backwards Typist

I watch GMA, Today Show, local news, Dylan Rattigan, national news on ABC, C-Span when I can get to the TV that has that station. I watch Fox between 2-4 p.m. when  there's nothing else on.  I like Meghan K and Shep S.

I watch Keith O when I want a laugh or need to wake up in the morning, and Bill O whenever the wars start; i.e., Joy Bigot and him last week. I even watch Hardball at times.  Don't need that idiot Ed Shultz because I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down; same with Rachel M.

I do a lot of research on line through different sites, mostly ones I can depend to give fair reporting.

So don't assume I watch Fox just because I don't agree with you.

Continuing Claims - Improve, too.