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“Today Senator Patrick Leahy introduced a new version of the USA FREEDOM Act. The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) supports the Senate version of the USA FREEDOM Act and urges Congress to pass the bill quickly without weakening it. This bill addresses many issues identified by CDT as problematic in the House version of the bill, and includes many key changes …
“To date, fiscal year (FY) 2014 has been an active year for the IRS. In addition to accepting the National Taxpayer Advocate’s proposal to adopt a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR), the IRS ran a generally successful filing season (although taxpayer services were sub-optimal largely due to staffing limitations), instituted a more equitable approach to …
Free Exercise of Religion by Closely Held Corporations: Implications of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. Cynthia Brougher, Legislative Attorney. July 23, 2014 “One of the ongoing controversies related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been the scope of exemption from certain health care coverage requirements, including the contraceptive coverage requirement. Though closely divided, the U.S. Supreme Court’s …
Moyers & company: “This week, the Center for Community Change (CCC) released new research that details the way low-income Americans think and talk about living on the edge. It found that the language being used by policymakers and others to describe them is turning off the very people it is supposed to help. The project surveyed over 1,700 …
EPIC – “According to reports, President Obama is set to issue an executive order on drone privacy. The order would call for the development of voluntary best practices for the commercial use of drones. Senator Markey and Representative Welch immediately responded to the reports with a letter to the President urging “strong, enforceable rules – not voluntary best …
EFF – “Today, the House Judiciary Committee [held] a hearing on “remedies” in copyright law—that is, the penalties, injunctions, and other means of challenging and penalizing alleged infringement. This is hugely important: fixing copyright’s remedy provisions (like excessive, unpredictable monetary penalties and government seizures of domain names) is key to ensuring that copyright does its job—helping …
“Each year, after the President releases his budget request, CBO analyzes the proposals in that request. Using its own economic projections and estimating procedures, CBO projects what the federal budget would look like over the next 10 years if the President’s proposals were adopted. CBO usually provides that information in two reports: The first examines …
CRS – “Black Boxes” in Passenger Vehicles: Policy Issues – Bill Canis, Specialist in Industrial Organization and Business; David Randall Peterman, Analyst in Transportation Policy July 21, 2014. “An event data recorder (EDR) is an electronic sensor installed in a motor vehicle that records certain technical information about a vehicle’s operational performance for a few seconds immediately prior to …
CRS – The Kurds and Possible Iraqi Kurdish Independence. Jim Zanotti, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs; Kenneth Katzman, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs. July 15, 2014 (IN10105) “Approximately 30 million ethnic Kurds inhabit a largely mountainous region at the intersection of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. In recent years, Kurdish populations have increasingly influenced regional developments, particularly given ongoing conflict …
Follow up to Report: Dodd-Frank Act Does Not End Too Big to Fail But Perpetuates It as Official Policy – today, the Democrat’s interpretation of the same subject – The Fourth Anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Protection Act of 2010, Democratic Staff Report Prepared for Democratic Members of the House Committee on Financial Services – The Honorable …
“Two global banks and more than a dozen hedge funds misused a complex financial structure to claim billions of dollars in unjustified tax savings and to avoid leverage limits that protect the financial system from risky debt, a Senate Subcommittee investigation has found. The improper use of this structured financial product, known as basket options, is …
“House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) today released a committee staff report [prepared by the Republican Staff of the Committee on Financial Services] that concludes the Dodd-Frank Act did not end “too big to fail” as the law’s supporters claim, but actually had the …
