American Government
Three forum responses 150-200 words MLA format with peer reviewed references. American Government is the topic. Listed below are the three posts that require a forum response.
Post 1:
Congress recently finalized the bill that would set up the federal budget for the 2017 fiscal year. The bipartisan bill calling for 1.1 trillion in funding for the next fiscal year was passed with a vote of 309-118 in the House of Representatives (Scholtes & Ferris 2017). The bill was then passed to the Senate where it was also blessed off on by a vote of 79-18 (Fox News 2017). The budget plan has been in the works for 14 months and comes 7 months after the original deadline Congress had. Both political parties had given a bit of ground in the budget plan to avoid a government shutdown similar to the shutdown of 2013. The main points of the new plan for Republicans are a 15 billion dollar increase to the Pentagon, 1.5 billion dollar increase to emergency border security funds, it needs to be noted that within the funding increase for border security there was no money set aside for President Trump’s border wall he wants to build, on the other hand domestic programs that Republicans were calling to be cut maintained their funding, these include the Environmental Protection Agency, foreign aid, and economic development grants to name a few (Fox News 2017). The bill was met with optimism from both Democrats and Republicans alike, with a small amount of backlash coming from some congressional Republicans that feel they gave up too much, with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R- N.C.) claiming “a lack of conservative priorities on the bill” (Scholtes & Ferris 2017).
Federal appropriations are one of Congress’ main responsibilities allotted to them through the Constitution, with the House of Representatives specifically being in control of the budgeting (Lenz & Holman 2013). The federal budget can be considered an enumerated power delegated to Congress via the Constitution, while there are implied powers that allows Congress to conduct business as needed to meet completion of the federal budget. According to the Constitution under Article I, Section 8 Congress has enumerated power to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States” under the Constitution, Congress also has the power to “borrow money on behalf of the United States” (Lenz & Holman 2013). Under this Article of the Constitution Congress has all the power needed to pass bills of this manner for the economy through either enumerated powers allotted or implied powers covered under the Constitution. As the fiscal year will come and pass quickly, hopefully both political parties involved can continue this trend of finding middle ground and compromising in order to meet deadlines for our important federal budget that allows the economy and the nation to operate at the level it is capable of operating.
Resources
Fox News. (2017, May 04). $1.1 trillion spending bill passes Congress, en route to Trump. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/04/1-1-tri…
Lenz, T. O., & Holman, M. (2013). American Government. Florida: Orange Grove Text Plus.
Scholtes, J., & Ferris, S. (2017, May 03). House passes $1 trillion spending bill to avoid shutdown. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/03/house-pas…
Post 2:
Due to illegal immigration being a very popular topic during this last election race more than ever, a lot of people have been talking about the issue and ways to stop anyone from coming into this country illegally to be helped out so much, or be able to get work, etc. The Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, was passed by the Judiciary Committee. Congressman Jason Chaffetz is the one who introduced these bills. This Act is not here to prevent foreign workers from being able to work jobs, but it is telling employers to first hire the able, and available American citizens. It can be quite a set back to those who come to America the legal way, and than to find that someone who has not been here that long, is not on a legal waiting list, is getting employment. This Act was to be extremely beneficial to Indian and Chineese who come to America with green card cases pending, because the wait list can sometimes be decades long. This bill was originally trying to pass in the year 2011 and be active in 2015 but it was placed on a hold because the senator (Senator Grassley) who was reviewing it than did not see how it could be beneficial in the future, he said“I am placing a hold on HR 3012, the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act. This bill would eliminate the per-country numerical limitations for employment-based visas and increase the numerical cap for family-based immigrants. I have concerns about the impact of this bill on future immigration flows, and am concerned that it does nothing to better protect Americans at home who seek high-skilled jobs during this time of record high unemployment.” The hold was than offered to be released two weeks after but the Senate rejected what Grassley was trying to pass as an amendment to resolve this issue. All in the end this is an Act that is supposed to make things more fair for the people who are already US Citizen, and those who are on a waiting list, being punished or held back from work and came into this country the legal and fair way. It says on the congress website that the bill was passed January 10th, 2017.
Tony Rhodes
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house…
http://chaffetz.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx…
http://immigration-lawyer.com/fairness-for-high-sk…
Post 3:
For this week’s forum topic, I found House Bill 979 that was sponsored and introduced to Congress by Representative Albio Sires (D-NJ) on February 7th of this year. The bill titled “Promoting Tourism to Enhance our Economy Act of 2017” is aimed at making it a bit easier for Canadian citizens to come to America for extended periods of time, up to 240 days (Congress.gov, 2017). It is geared towards a niche crowd, as the individual has to be over 55 or own land in the United States, and they are not permitted to seek employment or any sort of paid labor as it is for leisure only, but this would eliminate the need for passports or Visas to cross over the border, and their spouse and immediate family is also covered under the proposed legislation. In doing so they hope to bolster tourism from our friends up North and stimulate the economy.
The federal government and adjusting legislations like this is a pivotal factor in the American market and the economy. While passing legislation aiming at stimulating the economy through heightened tourism, this boost to the market will also in turn provide more revenue back to the government through increased production, taxation, employment and investment (Aikins, 2009). It is a critical cycle that keeps the country competitive in the world market and ensures continuity of the government.
Thus far, the bill has been referred to the Sub-Committee on Immigration and Border Security as of early March; it has not been brought to the table for a vote yet, and it still needs to pass through the Senate and across President Trump’s desk as well before it may become law.
The reason Congress has been delegated this authority is because Article I, Section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution states that the federal legislative branch is entrusted with managing immigration (Chacon, 2014). In addition, Article I, Section 8, clause 3 also provides Congress with the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States” (Weissbrodt & Danielson, 2004). As stated above, the House of Representatives has a committee dedicated specifically to Naturalization and immigration legislation for proposals such as this.
Sources:
Aikins, S. K. (2009). “Political economy of government intervention in the free market system.” Administrative Theory & Praxis, 31(3), 403-408.
Chacon, Jennifer. (2014). “Who Is Responsible For U.S. Immigration Policy?”. Americanbar.org. N.p., 2017. Web. 17 May 2017.
Congress.gov. (2017). “Text – H.R.979 – 115Th Congress (2017-2018): Promoting Tourism To Enhance Our Economy Act Of 2017”. Congress.gov. N.p., 2017. Web. 16 May 2017.
Weissbrodt, David, and Laura Danielson. (2004). “Chapter 2: The Source And Scope Of The Federal Power To Regulate Immigration And Naturalization”. Hrlibrary.umn.edu. N.p., 2004. Web. 17 May 2017.
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The Federal Budget Bill has currently been passed by the house members when they feared that the government was going to shut down. The bill has appropriate more than 1 trillion dollars to fund programs through the month the month of September. The bill received both the support of the republicans and that of democrats. However, some congressional republicans were…
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