Steve Scalise Not Mentioned as Speaker in 2002 Press Release by White Supremacist Group

    While the controversy surrounding House GOP whip Steve Scalise continues to simmer, a 2002 press release (first uncovered by John Sexton) by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO) promoting the May 17-18 "workshop" to "train future civil rights activists" fails to mention Scalise as a speaker. The 2002 website of the EURO organization no longer exists, but is available via the Internet Archive here:

    While the press release may not be completely exculpatory for Scalise, it lends credence to the story reported by Betsy Woodruff of Slate that Scalise apparently did not address the EURO gathering at all, but rather a more informal community meeting at the same location as the EURO conference that began later that same day. Scalise has already apologized for his connection to the event, but the press release above seems to indicate any connection he had to it is indeed tenuous.


UPDATE: John Sexton later wrote his own post about this at Breitbart.

Note: A version of this post before the update first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Obama: GOP House 'Not Doing Anything', But House Passed Five Times As Many Bills as Senate

    Twice in the past week, President Obama has needled Republicans in the House of Representatives by saying that while he's doing his job, the GOP House is "not doing anything." The first time was when he was in Minneapolis to spend a "day in the life" of Rebekah, a mother concerned about making ends meet:

And, now, some of you may have read -- so we take these actions and then now Republicans are mad at me for taking these actions.  They’re not doing anything, and then they’re mad that I’m doing something. 

    The second time the president used the phrase was Monday in Georgetown in Washington DC in a speech on a familiar topic for the president, upgrading roads and bridges:

It’s not crazy, it’s not socialism.  (Laughter.)  It’s not the imperial presidency -- no laws are broken.  We’re just building roads and bridges like we’ve been doing for the last, I don’t know, 50, 100 years.  But so far, House Republicans have refused to act on this idea.  I haven’t heard a good reason why they haven’t acted -- it’s not like they’ve been busy with other stuff.  (Laughter.)  No, seriously.  (Laughter.)  I mean, they’re not doing anything.  Why don’t they do this?

    While the president is hardly the first to label the legislature a "Do Nothing" Congress (Harry Truman famously did so in the 1950s), the president has directed his ire at the House rather than the Congress as a whole, leaving the Senate unscathed. But an analysis of the numbers shows that his shots may be misdirected.
    According to GovTrack.us, a privately run website that tracks congressional activity, so far in the 113th Congress, the House has passed 297 bills (280) or resolutions (17) that originated in the House. By contrast, the Senate during the same time has passed only 59. In spite of his words that the House has "done nothing," the president has put his signature on 90 House bills and resolutions and 35 Senate bills and resolutions for a total of 125.
    Even compared to prior Congresses, this House does not appear to be as idle as the president suggests. Bills spiked during the 110th and 111th Congresses, but otherwise the 297 passed by the House in the 113th Congress is not far from the historical norm for the past several decades, particularly given that the 113th Congress is still in session (again, from GovTrack.us):

    Again in contrast, bills passed by Senate have been down sharply since Harry Reid took over as Majority leader, with the Senate in the 113th Congress on track to pass the fewest number of bills of any Senate as far back as 1973 (as far as the records at GovTrack.us go):

    While the significance of the bills passed by the House and Senate may be debated, and while the president's frustrations with the House center around legislation (such as comprehensive immigration reform) where wide differences separate the parties, the numbers indicate that it's not so much that the GOP House isn't "doing anything"; the GOP is just not doing what the president wants.

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

House to Consider Tax on New Flu Vaccines [Update: Bill Passed House and Senate]

    The House of Representatives is scheduled Tuesday to consider a bipartisan bill to add new seasonal flu vaccines to the IRS definition of taxable vaccines.  The Senate has already reached an agreement to vote on its version of the bill without further debate if the House passes an identical version.  If passed into law, all new seasonal flu vaccines would become subject to the 75¢ per dose vaccine tax, and also become eligible to be included in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).  A summary of the bill provided by the House Republican Conference explains:

The VICP is a federal program designed as a no-fault alternative to traditional tort law for resolving vaccine injury claims arising from covered vaccines.  The program is funded through a 75¢ excise tax on each dose of specified vaccines.  However, current law only covers “trivalent” (three-strain) vaccines against influenza.  Recently, many manufacturers have begun producing more effective “quadrivalent” (four-strain) vaccines, but have held off on bringing the vaccines to market until the statute is updated.  H.R. 475 amends the statute to cover all seasonal influenza vaccines under the VICP, ensuring that new, more effective vaccines are made available to the greater public.

    The balance in the VICP fund as of November 2012 was more than $3.5 billion. The fund has paid out only $2.5 billion since it was established in 1988 for cases involving all vaccines. At that rate, the balance in the fund could last another 25 years with no new revenue.  However, in response to initial reports on the legislation in April, Julia Lawless, the press secretary of U.S. Senate Finance Committee issued the following statement:

First off, the Joint Committee on Taxation is clear this bill is not a tax increase.  Secondly, the legislation is about ensuring vaccine manufacturers produce vaccines for the next flu season – not past flu seasons.  Thirdly, the threat of litigation has been so severe against these manufacturers that this compensation fund had to be created or they would not have produced these vaccines.  That threat of litigation still exists and so does the need for vaccines.  We need to be careful how that fund is financed, because having it run a deficit could be dangerous when our goal is to ensure the production of safe vaccines.

     A representative of the Biotech Industry Organization emailed The Weekly Standard to weigh in as well, and largely echoed the response of Ms. Lawless, concluding with:

This is an extremely important public health matter. 

The issue before Congress is whether the newest seasonal influenza vaccine will be covered by the VICP in time for the 2013-14 flu season. 

The other issue raised by the article about the balance in the fund is an entirely separate matter that would require in-depth analysis by experts in the field[.]

     The documentation accompanying the proposed legislation does not indicate whether or not any such analysis of the fund has been conducted.  The tax on flu vaccines raises about $100 million each year.  The "trust fund" is invested in Treasury Bills, helping to finance the national debt.



UPDATE: The bill passes the House, the Hill reports:

The House on Tuesday afternoon approved legislation meant to ensure an ample supply of the latest flu vaccine is available by the next flu season.
By voice vote, members approved H.R. 475, which would include a flu vaccine that attacks a new strain of flu on a list of taxable vaccines.

UPDATE 2: The Senate has also passed the bill, the Hill also reports.  The legislation now heads to the White House for the president's signature.



Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Congress Prepares Flu Vaccine Tax [Clarification added]

    Congress is preparing to take action on a bipartisan proposal to raise taxes on flu vaccines. This is not a tax on the wealthy, but rather on a broad swath of Americans, or at least those who choose to be immunized against the flu.
    In February, identical bills were introduced in the House and Senate to add seasonal flu vaccines to the IRS code as taxable.  The legislation would exact a 75¢ per dose tax on any "vaccine against seasonal influenza."  Given that the Centers for Disease Control projects that 135 million doses of flu vaccine will be used this year, the government's take on flu vaccines alone is over $100,000,000 per year.
    Along with taxes on other vaccines, this tax would fund the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund.  The fund is a "no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system for resolving vaccine injury claims that provides compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines."  However, the fund is by no means in the same kind of trouble that other government "trust funds" are.
    The balance in the fund (as of November 2012) was more than $3.5 billion.  Since the program's inception in 1988, the fund has paid out only $2.5 billion in 25 years for cases involving all vaccines, not just the flu vaccine.  This means the balance in the fund could conceivably last another 25 years with no further tax revenue.
     The House bill (H.R. 475) was submitted on February 4th by Republican Jim Gerlach with Democrat Richard Neal co-sponsoring, and the Senate version (S. 391) was submitted by Democrat Max Baucus and co-sponsor Republican Orrin Hatch.  The same legislation had been introduced in the 112th Congress just months ago.  The House version died in committee, but the Senate version actually passed by unanimous consent the day it was introduced.
    Now, a posting on the Senate website reports that the Senate has reached an agreement on the current legislation. Although this flu season is winding down now, the tax could easily be in place by next winter if the House follows suit and the president signs it:

The Senate reached an agreement that if the Senate receives H.R.475 from the House of Representatives and the bill is identical to the text of which is at the desk, then the bill be read three times and the Senate proceed to a vote, at a time to be determined by the Majority Leader in consultation with the Minority Leader, with no intervening action or debate. H.R.475, a bill to amend the internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include vaccines against seasonal influenza within the definition of taxable vaccines.

    As is the case with all government "trust funds," there is no cash set aside to pay out claims.  According to the November 2012 report on the vaccine trust, the $3.5 billion balance is invested in "US Treasury Securities."  In other words, financing a portion of the $16.5 trillion national debt.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.



Clarification:
The current IRS code definition of a “taxable vaccine” already includes “Any trivalent vaccine against influenza.”  The new law reads that “Subparagraph (N) of section 4132(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by inserting 'or any other vaccine against seasonal influenza' before the period.”  This is to make sure that all future flu vaccines are taxable in addition to the current ones.  Some interpreted my original article to mean that no flu vaccines were previously taxable, and now they would be.  The discovery that previous flu vaccines have ben taxable all along is not likely to assuage the anger many have expressed, especially in light of the $3.5 billion balance in the "trust fund."

Democratic Governors: GOP Stole the House Elections

    With President Obama's State of the Union address coming up Tuesday night, the Washington Post's David Ignatus (on Chris Matthew's show) is wondering...

whether Obama can get out of the zero sum game Washington where to do something good on immigration reform, he's got to, you know, destroy Marco Rubio who is the Republican symbol of progress on that. 

    If the President is taking civility cues from the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), the answer will be a resounding "no."  The DGA posted the following on its website on Monday:

DON'T LET REPUBLICANS STEAL THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AGAIN 

In the 2012 election, more Americans voted for Democratic members of Congress than Republicans.  Yet tea party darling Eric Cantor is the Majority Leader and John Boehner serves as Speaker -- and they're blocking President Obama's pro-jobs legislation and pushing a right-wing ideological agenda.  They didn't earn those positions; they stole them.

    On the eve of President Obama's most significant speech of the year, the annual address to Congress and the nation from our chief executive, an organization representing the chief executives of nineteen of the states called the current leadership of one of the house of Congress illegitimate. The DGA goes on to cite "gerrymandering" as the explanation for how the GOP managed to steal the elections and maintain control of the House of Representatives.

    Certainly political organizations are terminally hyperbolic in their rhetoric, but the DGA has outdone itself here. The DGA did not specify which of the 17 races required to give the Democrats the House majority were stolen by Cantor and Boehner, but in any case, the leader of the Democrat party will be forced to address the nation Tuesday night with the latter of these two election thieves looking over his shoulder.  One thing is certain: the president will either disappoint the Democratic Governors Association or David Ignatus depending on the tone he chooses.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard on February 12, 2013.