On November 2, millions across the nation anxiously sat awaiting the results of the senatorial elections. Many expectations were riding on these results. Would the house remain full of Democrats or be taken over by ambitious Republicans? The Republicans were victorious in the House of Representatives, and in January there will be a Republican majority.
In the meantime, the Democrats have seemingly impossible and unrealistic goals that they would like to achieve by the end of what they are calling a ‘lame duck session’. Their main goals are to place new restrictions on the tax cuts that are currently in effect, pass an omnibus spending bill, and the cutback on Medicare reimbursement for doctors.
Ever since President G.W. Bush put tax cuts into effect, Democrats have bitterly opposed the tax cuts for upper class Americans. The goal of the tax cuts was to allow citizens to have more spending money, thus spurring our economy using a snowball effect. When the bill for the tax cuts expires at the end of December, they plan to only extend the cuts to individuals with an income of $200,000 or less, and families with an income of $250,000 or less. Even if the extension goes through, it is only supposed to be temporary.
The purpose of ending the tax cuts is to give more money to the government. With this money, there would be more bailouts such as Obama’s trillion-dollar bailout. During this bailout, money was given to many major companies to help keep them afloat instead of having to attract business. The only difference now would be that not only would the bank accounts of many citizens be wounded by raises in taxes, but companies would be receiving millions of dollars to stay in business. The money earned from tax raises would be given to the government, and would be used for the government’s needs. Using the tax raises, America would be more of a government funded society rather than being economically self-sufficient.
Every year, different bills are proposed concerning the funding of separate departments within the United States government. This year, Democrats would like to advance with the idea of an omnibus spending bill. An omnibus spending bill is one that includes the budgets for all of the departments of the government. The budgets would be set and the price for it all would stick. Each department would have their own budget and all of the money would go towards domestic spending. The Republicans would like to cut domestic spending down by about 100 billion dollars, but the Democrats seem determined to get the balls rolling for their bill before the newly elected Republican House of Representatives meets for the first time to discuss government spending.
Medicare is the healthcare service offered to senior citizens aged 65 years or older. In the past, doctors have always been reimbursed for offering their services to these citizens for little or no cost. Democrats have plans of cutting back reimbursement rates for these doctors. The reimbursement rates are scheduled to slowly decline bit by bit every year, but if congress doesn’t step in soon and the Democrats follow through with their plans, it is projected that the rates will plummet about 23%.
Whether these changes occur or not, there is no question about whether major changes will be coming to the senate in the near future. Opinions on whether these will be for the better or not are personal, but fire will be fighting fire and disputes over new policies are inevitable.
