Did You Know This: 1. Obama Issues Most Presidential Memoranda in History President Barack Obama and the Democrats have touted the fact that that he has issued fewer executive orders than almost all of his predecessors. But he has actually issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history. And like executive orders, presidential memoranda dont require action by Congress, and they have the same force of law as executive orders. Obama said in July: Im issuing executive orders at the lowest rate in more than 100 years. Also in July, Majority Leader Harry Reid said: While Republicans accuse President Obama of executive overreach, they neglect the fact that he has issued far fewer executive orders than any two-term president in the last 50 years. Obama has issued 195 executive orders as of Tuesday, according to USA Today. But in addition, 198 of his presidential memoranda have been published alongside the orders in the Federal Registry. When the orders and memoranda are combined, Obama is on track to institute more high-level executive actions than any president since Harry Truman. He has signed 33 percent more presidential memoranda in less than six years than George W. Bush did in eight years, and he is the first president to issue more memoranda than executive orders. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and George H.W. Bush all issued fewer than 50 presidential memoranda. The White House and its defenders can say, He cant be abusing his executive authority. Hes hardly using any orders, Andrew Rudalevige, a presidential scholar at Bowdoin College, told USA Today. But if you look at these other vehicles, he has been aggressive in his use of executive power. Among his recent memoranda, Obama on Tuesday used one to declare Bristol Bay, Alaska, off-limits to oil and gas exploration. In January, he issued a memorandum telling the Treasury Department to develop a pilot program for a new retirement savings account for low-income workers. In April, an Obama memorandum directed the Department of Labor to collect salary data from federal contractors and subcontractors to determine if they are paying women and minorities fairly. In June, he instructed the Department of Labor to allow certain borrowers to cap their student loan payments at 10 percent of income. In September, he used a memorandum to authorize military and other aid to the embattled government of Ukraine. A controversial recent memorandum directed the administration to overhaul the countrys immigration system, an action that Republicans claim exceeded his authority. While presidential memoranda and executive orders have the same force of law, there is one significant distinction: Due to an executive order signed by President Kennedy in 1962, an executive order must contain a citation of authority, saying what law it is based on. Presidential memoranda have no such requirement. 2. GOP Congress Planning 5 Changes on Taxes Now that Republicans are poised to take control of the Senate as well as increasing their majority in the House in 2015, they are reportedly planning at least five major changes to the tax system that could have far-reaching effects for many Americans. In the Senate, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch will become chairman of the Senate Finance Committee — and he is a proponent, along with incoming House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, of revising the tax code. President Obama could veto the GOP plans, but congressional Republicans will advance some narrowly targeted bills they think can become law and set the stage for their next moves, the Washington Examiner observed. The five plans include: Repeal of the medical device tax: The tax was included in Obamacare to help pay for the expansion of healthcare coverage, and imposes a 2.3 percent sales tax on a range of medical devices, including CT scanners and even hypodermic needles. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he wants to eliminate the tax, which is estimated to bring in nearly $30 billion over 10 years — with most of that passed on to consumers in higher prices. The repeal has enough broad support that it could overcome a presidential veto, according to the Examiner. Lowering tax rates: Ryans stated goal is to reduce the top individual income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, and the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. However, households could lose credits and deductions to pay for the rate reductions. Limiting mortgage interest deductions: The mortgage interest deduction is the third largest tax break after employer healthcare expenditures and reduced tax rates on dividends and capital gains, according to a congressional report, and accounted for $93 billion in forgone tax revenue last year. But as the Insider Report has noted earlier, the deduction primarily benefits upper-income earners and encourages excessive borrowing. Current law allows deductions for loans up to $1 million. Tax reform could gradually reduce that cap for new loans to $500,000. Increasing tax breaks for families with children: Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah have proposed boosting the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,500, applicable to income and payroll taxes. To help low-income families, Rep. Ryan instead prefers boosting the Earned Income Tax Credit, which supplements earnings. Simplifying tax returns: The Internal Revenue Service says the average American spends 13 hours managing and filing taxes. Republicans believe the tax code could be streamlined by eliminating a number of tax breaks and preferences, according to the Tax Policy Center, and by reducing the number of filers who need to itemize deductions. House Speaker John Boehner said in October: Americans should be able to do their taxes on two sheets of paper. 3. Ditching Pennies and Nickels Would Save $100 Million It costs the United States almost twice as much to mint a penny than a penny is actually worth — nearly 1.7 cents per penny, according to the U.S. Mints latest report to Congress. Minting a nickel costs $8.09 cents. So the Mint spends $1.66 to make a dollars worth of pennies, and $1.62 to make a dollars worth of nickels. As recently as the early 2000s, the Mint was turning a small profit on the penny and nickel. But the cost of producing the coins began rising in 2006 due to an increase in metal prices and the Mint hasnt broken even on the coins since then, The Wall Street Journal reported. The penny was originally 100 percent copper, but since 1983 it has been 97.5 percent zinc. The nickel is 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel. As of 2013, taxpayers were losing $105 million a year producing pennies and nickels. Other coins turn a profit. It costs 8.95 cents to make a quarter, and 3.91 cents to mint a dime. A dollar bill costs 5.4 cents. President Obama included a provision in his 2015 budget to assess the future of currency and ultimately develop alternative options for the penny and nickel, but those options are not specified. One option is to change the metal composition of pennies and nickels. Canadian nickels, for example, are 95 percent steel and are cheaper to produce than their face value. But that would require vending machine operators to upgrade their machines and would cost billions of dollars. Another option is to simply get rid of the penny and the nickel, saving more than $100 million annually. Canada discontinued using pennies when their production cost approached 1.6 cents. But ditching those coins is strenuously opposed by the metal alloy industries and by Coinstar, which operates the change-redeeming machines found in many American grocery stores. Americans redeeming their coins pay Coinstar 10.9 cents on the dollar. The Journal concludes: In essence, were paying $100 million a year to make coins that nobody wants, so that people can take them to a Coinstar kiosk and pay again to get rid of them.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 08:09:02 +0000
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