Republicans United at last

A CNN/ORC International poll showed on Tuesday that Romney's popularity is starting to rebound now that the divisiveness of the Republican primaries appears to be all but over. According to the survey, 44% of people questioned said they have a favorable view of Romney, up 10 points from February, while 43% said they have an unfavorable opinion, down 11 points, and 13% were unsure. According to the poll, 53% of Americans plan to give Romney a second look when the primaries are officially over, with 45% saying they already know enough about Romney to decide whether he would be a good president.The survey indicates Romney's popularity still lags well behind Obama's: 56% have a favorable view of the president, with 42% saying they see Obama in a negative light.

"The Republican Party's favorable rating has also rebounded now that the nomination fight is all but over, from 35% in March to 41%," said Polling Director Keating Holland. "That still puts the GOP several points behind the Democratic party's 46% rating, but it is an indication that the wounds have started to heal from the primary season."

In addition, both House Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday they back Romney's nomination. The statements a few hours apart were intended to show growing Republican support for Romney despite mistrust among some conservatives over his moderate policies when he was Massachusetts governor.

Keystone XL Pipeline

President Obama plans to announce in Cushing, Oklahoma Thursday that his administration will expedite the permit process for the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline. In January, the Obama administration denied a permit for the 1,700 mile long Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would stretch from Canada's tar sands development to the U.S. Gulf Coast. But late last month, TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL Pipeline, announced it would move forward with the process to build the southern portion of the pipeline, which would begin in Cushing. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner balked at the idea that President Obama could claim credit for speeding up the approval process of the southern segment of the pipeline. “This is like a governor personally issuing a fishing license,” Brendan Buck said. “The President’s attempt to take credit for a pipeline he blocked and personally lobbied Congress against is staggering in its dis-ingenuousness. This portion of the pipeline is being built in spite of the President, not because of him.”

Tuesday's Primaries

The Republican presidential candidates' campaigns were downplaying expectations as Alabama and Mississippi voted Tuesday, an indication of how tight the two primaries are and the importance of momentum on the long road to the GOP convention. Forty-seven delegates are up for grabs in Alabama, with 37 at stake in Mississippi, all being divided proportionally. Both states hold open primaries, which mean Republicans, independent voters and Democrats can cast ballots in the GOP contests. Hawaii and American Samoa also hold caucuses Tuesday, with 17 delegates to be allocated in Hawaii and nine in American Samoa. Romney is far short of the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination -- he holds a 459-203 lead over Santorum, with Gingrich at 118 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 66, but every little bit, including what Tuesday has to offer, will matter in this nomination.

Santorum seeks Democrat Voters

Rick Santorum's presidential campaign is actively seeking the support of Democrats in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, running a robo-call that sounds oddly like one that would be run by an organized labor group. “Michigan Democrats can vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday,” the narrator says in the automated call to Democratic voters. “Why is it so important? Romney supported the bailout for his Wall Street billionaire buddies, but opposed the auto bailout. That was a slap in the face to every Michigan worker. And we’re not going to let Romney get away with it.” Then the ad closes with: “This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for President.” “Rick Santorum has moved beyond just ‘taking one for the team;’ he is now willing to wear the other team’s jersey if he thinks it will get him more votes,” said a Romney spokesman. We will see if this strategy can prove to be effective in Michigan’s open primary today.

The Decisive Phase

The battle for the republican presidential nomination heads into a potentially decisive phase over the next two weeks with contests in 13 states that could finally answer some of the questions that have defined the race. The upcoming races offer Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, a chance to show what he and other conservatives have long claimed: that a moderate like the former Massachusetts governor cannot beat one of them in a head-to-head matchup. But it also gives Romney a chance to finally put to rest the question of whether he can defeat a concerted conservative challenge and solidify his claim that he is the party’s inevitable nominee. The debate Wednesday will also either help or hurt the nominees support for Super Tuesday, as we have seen debates can be crucial in the deciding factor of the voters. Without a doubt these next contests will be the main deciding factor for the republican nomination.

Source: Fox News

Florida Primary

Mitt Romney jumped out to a strong lead in Florida's Republican primary, according to unofficial early returns. If the trend holds, a Romney victory in Florida would regain his status as the front-runner in the race to take on President Barack Obama in November. With 41% of the unofficial count, Romney had 50% of the vote compared to 30% for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 12% for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and 7% for Texas Rep. Ron Paul. "I think the winner of Florida is in all likelihood going to be the nominee of our party," Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said, "Florida is a mini America." With three different winners in the three contests so far, Florida is a vital state in the nominating process and although Romney is leading, the night is still young with less than half of the votes having been counted so far.

Romney's Tax Returns

Mitt Romney's campaign released hundreds of pages of tax documents this morning, providing an inside glimpse into his many investments, in an effort to dampen the attacks on his wealth that have become a main focus of the Republican presidential nominating battle. Romney had an effective federal income tax rate in 2010 of 13.9 percent, paying about $3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million. For 2011, Romney estimates that he will pay about $3.2 million, for an effective rate of 15.4 percent. That’s in line with his earlier estimates, but sharply lower than the rates paid by President Obama and Romney’s Republican rival, Newt Gingrich. The revelation that Romney pays a significantly lower tax rate than most wealthy Americans underscores his image as a multimillionaire financier, an image that some Republicans believe would hurt his chances in the general election.

Source: CNN

Can Gingrich make a Comeback?

Newt Gingrich had one of his best debates of the 2012 presidential race on Monday night. The former House speaker began with the debate moderator challenging him on his earlier pledges to remain positive in the presidential campaign. Gingrich also headed off some questions about race that could have tripped up a lesser debater. Through it all, Gingrich was cool, calm and collected, picking his spots and coming off as the clear onstage alternative to frontrunner Mitt Romney— just as the other candidate for that position, former senator Rick Santorum was largely an afterthought and struggled to get his voice heard. This exactly what Gingrich needs. But even more so than Santorum, it appears Gingrich might have a little room to grow.

On to South Carolina

The state is gearing up for what might be the decisive fight of the Republican primary race -- a showdown between Mitt Romney and a clutch of conservative challengers scrambling to derail the front-runner before the race heads to Florida and other expensive states where television ads trump handshakes. "The other campaigns have decided Romney is the dragon they have to slay," said one well-connected Columbia insider who talks regularly with all of the presidential campaigns. "This is their last chance to stop Romney." But the question that concerned conservatives in Iowa remains true and even more pressing in South Carolina: Who will be the one to stop him?

House defies Obama on Payroll Tax Bill

A Washington political showdown took place Tuesday, as the House of Representatives passed a Republican plan that would extend the payroll tax cut and speed the process for government approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The bill, passed on a 234-193 vote, now goes to the Senate, where it was unlikely to pass due to strong opposition from Democratic leaders. Also the White House says President Barack Obama will veto the plan if it reaches his desk. The White House made a statement urging Congress to “do its job and stop the tax hike that’s scheduled to affect 160 million Americans in 18 days.” “The American people are asking, ‘Where are the jobs?,’” Speaker John Boehner said. “The House is listening, and we’ve passed a large bill that contains many of the priorities of our caucus and the White House.”

Source: Washington Post

Obama's Speech

“This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules, ” Obama told a crowd packed into a school gymnasium in Kansas. Obama’s speech was the most direct condemnation of wealth and income inequality, and the most expansive moral defense of the need for government activism to combat it, that Obama has delivered in his career. Using the type of populist language that has emerged in the Occupy protests around the nation, Obama warned that growing income inequality meant that the United States was undermining its middle class. He said it “gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try.” This speech was notable for its more direct emphasis on inequality itself as a moral scourge and as a threat to the country’s future. He cast the question of whether government can and should act to combat inequality as a referendum on American values and our national identity.

Herman Cain reassessing presidential candidacy

Businessman Herman Cain told senior members of his campaign on a conference call this morning that he is reassessing whether or not to remain in the Republican presidential race. On the conference call Cain denies the allegations of an affair with an Atlanta woman named Ginger White, which came to light on Monday, but acknowledged that the “firestorm” had caused a rethinking. “We have to do an assessment as to whether or not this is going to create too much of a cloud, in some people’s minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth,” Cain said. He suggested on the call that a decision will be made over the next few days and told supporters that “if a decision is made, different than to plow ahead, you all will be the first to know.”

Source: CNN

Time running out for the "super-committee"

With time running out, senior Democrats and Republicans remained unclear Tuesday about the prospects of success for the so-called congressional "super committee". The 12-member panel has not yet found a deal to cut $1.2 trillion from the nation’s borrowing over the next decade, the minimum requirement outlined in the August debt deal that resulted in the creation of the powerful super committee. California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democratic member of the panel, told reporters this could be a "magical week" for the committee. "I think it can be done, but the clock is ticking," Becerra said. It simply "has to be a balanced deal." House Speaker John Boehner said there was no deal, but predicted that if "there is an agreement ... it can, in fact, pass." And as the committee members grope to find a way to fulfill at least their legal mandate without leaving their political bases feeling betrayed, a bipartisan group of senators and representatives will renew a call Wednesday for the group to agree to a much larger deal, a bargain to reduce the debt by as much as $4 trillion that would virtually require major entitlement program and tax changes painful to both parties.

Obama's Health Care Law upheld again

A federal court in Washington has held that President Obama's health care law is constitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed a claim from a Christian legal group that a provision in the law requiring almost all Americans to get health insurance, known as the individual mandate, violates the Constitution. The opinion was written by Judge Laurence Silberman who is known as a conservative. The suit was just one of several that have sought to have the law brought down. Of four appellate court rulings on the health care law so far, this is the third to deal with the law on the merits, and the second that upholds it a tally compiled by Kaiser Health News. It's almost certain that the issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court, perhaps as early as June 2012.

Justice Department Sues South Carolina

On Monday the federal government filed a lawsuit looking to stop enactment of South Carolina's tough new immigration law, arguing that the legislation that requires law officers to check suspects' immigration status is unconstitutional. The government wants a judge to stop enforcement of the legislation, which would require the police to check the immigration status of every person they detain. In a written statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday his department will not hesitate to challenge laws that interfere with the federal government's enforcement of immigration. A spokesman for Gov. Nikki Haley said the state would continue with plans to implement the law. "It is understandable that communities remain frustrated with the broken immigration system, but a patchwork of state laws is not the solution and will only create problems," Holder said.

Sources: New York Times and Fox news

Perry’s Economic Plan

Presidential candidate Rick Perry of Texas unveiled a plan on Tuesday to scrap the graduated income tax and replace it with a 20 percent flat rate while granting a major tax cut for the wealthy by throwing out rates as high as 35 percent and eliminating estate and investment taxes. Mr. Perry said his proposal would also offer benefits to middle-class Americans by giving a $12,500 deduction for every member of a household while preserving exemptions for state and local taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions for anyone making less than $500,000. He said anyone could still file under the current code, and he also pledged to lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, from 35 percent. “Taxes will be cut on all income groups in America,” said Mr. Perry, “The net benefit will be more money in Americans’ pockets, with greater investment in the private economy instead of the federal government.”

Sources: CNN and Washington Post

Deficit Panel: Not much progress

The 12-member bipartisan committee is just over halfway through the 76-day interval from its first meeting to the date its final report is due on Nov. 23, but has made very few decisions. The lawmakers have not agreed on basic elements like a benchmark against which savings will be measured. The panel’s members, evenly divided between the two parties, spent most of September in a standoff. Republicans refused to budge from their position against new taxes. Democrats said they would not discuss cuts to entitlement programs like Medicare unless Republicans made a firm commitment to accept additional revenues. They have said very little publicly about their discussions or whether any progress has been made on the politically explosive issues of tax hikes and spending cuts for government healthcare and retirement programs. Several committee members said they were afraid of failure. They know that voters, investors and credit-rating agencies will take the panel’s work as evidence of how well Congress functions. Failure by the super committee to reach agreement would trigger $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, starting in 2013, evenly divided between military and domestic programs.

New GOP Bids

Rick Perry’s fading, Herman Cain’s surging and what about Mitt Romney? He’s running in place. After a quick rise in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has experienced an almost equally dramatic decline, losing about half of his support over the past month, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Perry’s slide, which comes after several uneven performances in candidate debates, has allowed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to resurface atop the GOP field. But the most direct beneficiary of the disenchantment with Perry is businessman Herman Cain, who is now tied for second place. Rick Perry’s support has plummeted from 29 percent last month to 16 percent in October. Herman Cain, who quadrupled his support in the span of one month, has blasted off from 4 percent in September to 16 percent in today’s poll. In September, Romney was the choice of 25 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in our poll, and one month later, he’s still the choice of 25 percent of them. Although not fully satisfied with their choices, Republicans are optimistic about their chances of winning the election. More than eight in 10 say the eventual GOP nominee is likely to beat President Obama next year. In the new poll, Obama’s approval remained at a low point in his presidency.

Health Insurance

As the United States continues to grapple with a stubbornly weak economy, the cost of health insurance for many Americans this year has climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs. Health insurance, unlike other industrialized countries, is largely provided by employers. Although the latest Census found more Americans losing company-sponsored insurance, almost 170 million Americans were on employer-based plans in 2010. Many businesses cite the high cost of coverage as a factor in their decision not to hire, and health insurance has become increasingly unaffordable for more Americans. Over all, the cost of family coverage has about doubled since 2001, when premiums averaged $7,061, compared with a 34 percent gain in wages over the same period. A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year. “The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases,” said Drew Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation. Slowing down those soaring costs is one of the main issues on the agenda of a bipartisan congressional deficit-reduction panel that is due to make recommendations by November 23 on how to slash the U.S. budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion.

Federal Regulations

“The current regulatory burden coming out of Washington far exceeds the federal government’s constitutional mandate, and it’s hurting job creation in our country at a time when we can’t afford it,” Cantor’s fellow House Republican, Speaker John Boehner, said in a speech to the Economic Club of Washington last week. Whether it’s in a Republican job agenda, a presidential executive order or a think tank report, some government regulations have been targeted as avoidable burdens. And at a time when job creation is the most important goal of most lawmakers, decreasing businesses’ regulatory burden is one way politicians, especially Republicans, are looking to motivate private businesses to create jobs. Even with claims that American businesses have too many regulations and are over-burdened “ the United States still ranks as one of the best countries to start a business. Worldwide, only Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have a more business friendly environment” according to the 2010 International Finance Corporation and World Bank “Doing Business” report. In spite of the U.S. having an overall good rankings worldwide, regulations still remain a major hardship for American businesses, although the exact price tag for federal regulations is highly disputed. Federal regulations are divided into four categories: environmental, economic, workplace and tax compliance. All told, in 2000 federal regulations cost small firms (less than 20 employees) nearly $7,000 per employee annually. Compliance costs for medium size firms (20 to 499 employees) and for large firms (500+ employees) were close to $4,320 and $4,460 per employee respectively. “There’s no bright line in the sand that tells you this is too much this is too little,” said James Gattuso, a senior fellow for regulatory policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “That’s one thing that makes regulatory policies so tough.”

Source: CNN and New York Times online newspaper