One portion of the new law reduced the number of days that Florida's 67 counties may offer early voting from 14 days to eight days. It also continued to allow that Sundays be offered for early voting with the exception that the Sunday before the election could not be available for early voting. Many African Americans in Florida object strenuously to cancelling voting on the Sunday two days before the election because traditionally, that's their big day to get out the vote after church services. The Washington Post observed that "on the Sunday before the election, church vans and church members" ferried those without transportation to early voting stations. In the 2008 presidential election, on the Sunday prior to that election, 43 percent of the early votes cast that day came from African Americans even though they make up only 28 percent of the country's electorate.
As Ryan himself has pointed out, financial aid is driving up the cost of going to college when it is supposed to have the opposite effect: "college costs have risen at twice the rate of inflation for about thirty years and economists have pointed out that these rapid increases would have been constrained if the federal government had not stepped in so often to subsidize rising tuitions." On Pell Grants, Ryan states that spending on the program has doubled since 2008, with Obama increasing the maximum Pell Grant by more than $900 while advocating for another increase next year.
However, these increases will apply only through the 2014-2015 school year, "creating a 'funding cliff' that puts the program at risk of breaking its promises to students" which "could force sudden, deep cuts in Pell Grant support to eligible students or necessitate cuts to other education programs to prop up this out of control spending." Because Ryan's House-passed budget actually cuts spending, it can ensure that the maximum Pell Grant award is kept for the next 10 years--unlike Obama's promise.
The Post goes on to say that the report makes clear the increasing number of regulations has harmed the manufacturing sector's production. All aspects of the manufacturing sector's production are impacted negatively by the myriad of regulations. For example, the report shows that the regulatory burden on manufacturers has more than doubled over ten years, growing from about $80 billion in 2001 to more than $164 billion in 2011.
Mitt Romney, according to the Post, has called such regulation a 'hidden tax' and says that "the economy has been harmed by the whims of the unaccountable bureaucrats pursuing their own agenda."
President Obama's health care law raided $716 billion from the Medicare trust fund; and
Obama's health care law puts in place a board of 15 unelected bureaucrats and gives them the power to make additional cuts to Medicare without even having to get approval from Congress.
◼ Legislative News for the Week of August 22, 2012
