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GOP Senators Ask Trump Administration to End ‘Too Big to Fail’ Policies

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A group of Republican senators is leading an effort to end government-backed “too big to fail” bailout policies.

In an effort to end the practice of taxpayer bailouts of private companies, 10 Republican senators from the Senate Banking Committee penned a letter to the Trump administration requesting to terminate these policies for nonbanks, claiming they have resulted in significant expenses.

“Too big to fail” is a policy implemented by the Obama administration under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that allowed the Financial Stability Oversight Council—a federal board—to offer nonbanks taxpayer support for bailouts.

The letter said, “You have our strong support for using all the tools available as Secretary of Treasury to end ‘too big to fail’ and ensure that hard-working Americans are not responsible for any new bailouts.”

The senators specifically targeted the Financial Stability Oversight Council, as they claimed the council carries out “inconsistent practices,” which result in “unnecessary regulatory costs” that can hurt U.S. businesses.

The letter demanding the end of “too big to fail” policies was signed by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton from Arkansas, Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania, Richard Shelby from Alabama, Mike Crapo from Idaho, Mike Rounds from South Dakota, John Kennedy from Louisiana, Ben Sasse from Nebraska, David Perdue from Georgia, Thom Tillis from North Carolina, and Tim Scott from South Carolina.

The lawmakers also added that Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin should evaluate the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s practices to rethink other financial rules and regulations.

In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that allowed the Department of the Treasury to review fiscal regulations, which include policies put in place by the Dodd-Frank Act that allowed for the creation of Financial Stability Oversight Council and “too big to fail.”

“Get rid of the designation process altogether. If you want to end ‘too big to fail,’ the last thing you want is to have the federal government identifying the firms that are too big to fail,” said Norbert Michel, a finance expert at The Heritage Foundation.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have defended these policies, claiming they play a vital role in preventing financial institutions from causing another economic catastrophe.

Jack Lew, the treasury secretary under the Obama administration, defended the Financial Stability Oversight Council last year.

“[Financial Stability Oversight Council’s] authority to designate nonbank financial companies is a critical tool to address potential threats to financial stability, and it has made our financial system safer and more resilient,” Lew said. “We intend to continue defending vigorously the process and the integrity of FSOC’s work, and I am confident that we will prevail.” (For more from the author of “GOP Senators Ask Trump Administration to End ‘Too Big to Fail’ Policies” please click HERE)

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Former Senators Say U.S. Has Left Dangerous Power Vacuum Around World

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The world needs the U.S. to lead — and not just from behind — according to a report by two influential former senators, who argue that political pressure on the Obama administration from the far left and far right for America to disengage from the world has created a power vacuum that unpredictable and unsavory actors are all too eager to fill.

“An increasingly brazen China, revanchist Russia, volatile North Korea, and ruthless Islamic State collectively underscore the need for more, not less, American leadership abroad,” write former Sens. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat turned independent, in “Why American Leadership Still Matters,” a 40-page report being released Thursday through the American Enterprise Institute.

While the center-right think tank may be known for its hawkish positions, Mr. Kyl, who served from 1993 through 2013, stressed in an interview the need for both parties to come together in understanding America’s vital position in the world.

Despite his former National Journal ranking as the fourth most conservative senator on Capitol Hill, he lamented how biting partisanship increasingly trumps honest debate on foreign policy.

“All too often in recent years, partisanship has been the driving force rather than ideological considerations,” he said, suggesting that the disagreement between isolationists and interventionists on both sides of the aisle could be healthy — if it did not lead so often to partisan smearing of the other side. (Read more from “Former Senators Say U.S. Has Left Dangerous Power Vacuum Around World” HERE)

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Republican Senators Rally Behind Abortion Ban

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Photo Credit: Lauren SchneidermanRepublican senators facing primary challenges are rallying behind the most exhaustive congressional push to restrict abortion rights in a decade.

Eleven of the 14 GOP senators up for reelection next year support a new bill to ban the fraction of abortions that take place after 20 weeks of fetal development.

A nearly identical bill passed the House this summer. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is fending off four opponents on the right, introduced the Senate measure on Thursday.

“In light of medicine and what we know about the unborn child in 2013, is it time to do more [to stop abortions]?” Graham asked. “We expect a robust debate.”

The bill stems from an assertion that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks, and follows the murder conviction of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, whose trial drew attention to the practice of late-term abortion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senators Now Attempt to Regulate Gun Powder as an Explosive, Limiting Quantity, Requiring Background Checks

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Photo Credit: APAfter reports that the Boston Marathon terrorists had used black powder for the explosive component of their pressure cooker bombs, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) proposed major changes to federal laws regulating loose gun powder and explosives.

On April 23, Lautenberg introduced S. 792, the Explosive Materials Background Check Act. Originally, the Senator submitted the bill as a shell bill–meaning it was not fully written–but this month he has finally submitted the full text of his bill.

An analysis of the text reveals profound changes to current law. Lautenberg’s changes in the explosives law would seriously hamper history reenactor hobbyists, black powder hunters, sportsmen, target shooters, and anyone that loads their own ammo with modern smokeless gun powder or the older style black powder.

One change would require those that want to buy and store either smokeless powder or black powder to get a new license–at a rate of $50 every three years–to allow them to do so. The bill also says that they will only be allowed to have “limited” supplies but does not seem to say what amount would exceed those limits.

Read more from this story HERE.

Scam: Gang of Eight's Immigration Bill

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Photo Credit: Politico

[T]he part of the [Gang of Eight Immigration Bill] that dictates who owes taxes and how much they will have to pay raises several questions, the answers to which could mean millions of dollars in tax revenue and whether the government has a realistic shot at collecting taxes owed by undocumented workers.

“I think no one can go back and guess or surmise how much the unpaid taxes would be for the entire group,” said David Marzahl, the president and CEO of the Center for Economic Progress, a group that works on tax issues with low-income and immigrant groups.

Negotiators had to choose between a hard-line approach favored by Republicans, like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), that would have required immigrants and employers to painstakingly piece together a tax history so the government could collect what is owed and a less burdensome option of focusing on people who already have a past-due bill with the Internal Revenue Service.

They chose the milder approach and punted the details to the Treasury Department and IRS to hash out down the road.

“Getting back taxes is incredibly difficult, particularly when someone has paid into a fraudulent Social Security number,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a member of the gang, told POLITICO. “You might have a case where the government owes more back than it gets in. So I don’t know. We’ll leave that up to the IRS to figure how we do it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ricin Letter to Senator Roger Wicker Intercepted at Screening Facility

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Photo Credit: Kevin Steinhardt

Police intercepted a letter laced with the poison ricin that was sent to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), senators told reporters Tuesday.

The Senate sergeant-at-arms broke the news to members in a classified briefing, saying that the substance was intercepted at an off-site facility where Congress gets its mail, according to several lawmakers. It was tested repeatedly.

“It was caught in the screening facility. That’s why we have an off-site screening facility for mail,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “The system worked the way it was supposed to.”

She added that authorities may suspect an individual who often wrote to senators. Other senators did not describe a suspect.

“There is an ongoing investigation,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters as he left the briefing with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano that the letter was addressed to Wicker. Mueller and Napolitano also presented detailed information on the Boston bombings.

Read more from this story HERE.

McCain, Schumer: Obama Supports our Immigration Bill

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Photo Credit: White House

Sens. John McCain and Chuck Schumer said they were encouraged after a meeting with President Obama at the White House Tuesday, saying he supports the immigration reform bill they plan to introduce tonight and hope to pass by June.

“We’re feeling very good about this,” Schumer said outside the West Wing. “The president’s supportive of our proposal.”

“The president realizes that everybody didn’t get what they wanted,” McCain said. “We appreciate the president’s support. We believe that that’s important as we move forward with the process.”

One of the things the president didn’t want, Schumer said, was a trigger that tied the opening of a pathway to citizenship to tighter border security. But, he said, he and the other members of the Gang of 8 senators who brokered the legislation felt it was important to prevent a so-called third wave of immigrants, who would flood the country and require another immigration-reform bill in the future.

McCain credited the election in November with helping to build support for the measure, and he said it has a much better chance of succeeding than previous efforts. “Most Americans support this proposal far more than did in 2007,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Senators Uncertain how Vote on Gun Bill Will Swing; Co-Sponsors Look for GOP Support

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Photo Credit: AP

Lawmakers on both sides of a proposal to expand gun-purchase background checks to sales online and at gun shows said Sunday that they don’t know whether it will pass — a hurdle that, if not cleared, likely would kill the prospects of significant gun control legislation on Capitol Hill.

The circumspect posturing underscores the sensitivity of negotiations on the issue and flies in the face of a long tradition of predetermined outcomes on Capitol Hill, even on high-profile legislation.

“I think it’s an open question as to whether or not we have the votes,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, Pennsylvania Republican and co-sponsor of the amendment, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think it’s going to be close.”

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said his party hasn’t started formally counting votes on the measure, which was crafted by Mr. Toomey and Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat.

“We haven’t whipped it,” Mr. Durbin said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I can tell you this: When it gets down to it, we’ve got to ask the basic question, ‘Should we try to keep guns out of the hands of felons and people so mentally unstable they shouldn’t own a firearm?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ Manchin-Toomey is a step in that direction.”

Read more from this story HERE.

1,500 Page Immigration Bill to Drop One Day Before Only Hearing?!

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Photo Credit: AP

According to an ABC News report, senators from the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” pushing immigration reform are expected to drop their bill, estimated at around 1,500 pages, on Tuesday, mere hours before the only scheduled Senate hearing on the topic.

“A bipartisan group of senators plans to introduce its long-awaited immigration bill on Tuesday, Senate sources confirmed to ABC News,” Jim Avila and Jordan Fabian wrote on Friday. “Four Democrats and four Republicans, known as the ‘Gang of Eight,’ wrapped up months of hard-fought negotiations this week and will put forth a bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.”

If the Senators actually do wait until Tuesday to roll out their lengthy proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system, that will give members of the Senate Judiciary Committee less than a full day to read it before the only Senate hearing on the topic. Despite ardent pleas from Senate conservatives, including ranking Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee’s chairman, Sen. Pat Leahy, has only agreed to one hearing on the legislation.

Leahy scheduled that single hearing for Wednesday at 2:30 PM, and the hearing’s sole scheduled witness is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Napolitano would have less than a full day to read the bill she is scheduled to testify about.

“Gang of Eight” member Marco Rubio (R-FL) has said he supports multiple hearings and an open and transparent immigration reform process, but his actions do not necessarily back his words. He has not pushed Leahy to force multiple hearings; he appears content with the single hearing Leahy has scheduled on the issue and now appears to be backing down from his demand for multiple hearings.

Read more from this story HERE.

Saying "The Lord Made Homosexuals," Another US Senator Jumps on the Gay Marriage Bandwagon

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Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) announced his support for gay marriage Thursday, becoming the 51st senator to do so.

“If we are endowed by our Creator with rights, then why shouldn’t those be attainable by gays and lesbians?” Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times. “Simply put, if The Lord made homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, why should I discriminate against their civil marriage? I shouldn’t, and I won’t.”

Nelson’s support came after numerous Democratic senators backed gay marriage in advance of Supreme Court cases on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s gay marriage ban, Proposition 8. Two Democratic senators, Bob Casey (Pa.) and Tom Carper (Del.), declared their support earlier this week. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) became the second Republican senator to back gay marriage, following Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio.

Read more from this story HERE.