Vote Tally Count: STEM Jobs Act, immigration H.R. 6429

Looks like no matter what the GOP does now, the meme is racist. So here we go. Nothing to improve our nation, we must only bring in  “the tired, the poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores” as the song goes.

Vote Details and individual votes click on Gov Track Here– may take a moment, then scroll down on page

H.R. 6429: STEM Jobs Act of 2012 (On Passage of the Bill)

Number:

House Vote #613 [primary source: house.gov]

Date:

Nov 30, 2012 (112th Congress)

Result:

Passed

Related Bill:

H.R. 6429: STEM Jobs Act of 2012
Introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith [R-TX21] on September 18, 2012
Current Status: Failed Under Suspension

This was a vote to approve or reject a bill or resolution.

 

	Totals		Republican	Democrat
Yea	245	<!– 245 –>     57%	218	27
Nay	139	<!– 139 –>     32%	5	134
Not Voting	48	<!– 48 –>     11%	17	31
Required:	Simple Majority

Vote Details and individual votes click on Gov Track Here

The US House of Representatives passed a controversial bill this morning that would grant 55,000 new visas to foreigners who graduate from US universities with science, technology, engineering or math degrees (so-called STEM graduates). The vote comes just two days after the Obama administration said it was opposed to the bill.

The bill, called the STEM Jobs Act, passed on a 245-139 vote mostly along party lines, with about two dozen Democrats joining Republicans in supporting the bill, according to a report from the blog The Hill. Most Democrats opposed the bill, though, because the STEM Jobs Act adds the 55,000 new visas at the cost of a diversity-visa program that grants the same number of visas to countries with historically low levels of immigration to the US.

About half of the diversity visas would go to African immigrants, and some minority Democratic representatives today accused the bill of being shortsighted or even racist. Shutting down the main program that provides visas to African immigrants “is racist, if not in its intent, then certainly in its effect,” said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), according to The Hill report. “Republicans have just received a historically low vote from minorities in the past election, yet they want to create an immigration system that gives visas with one hand while taking visas away from minorities with the other.”

Arstechnica

McConnell ‘Burst into laughter’ over Tim Geithner’s Obama Plan

While the more optimistic think Obama will want to come to sort of agreement rather than go over the “fiscal cliff”, others of us are less optimistic, and apparently McConnell is one, Those that think that Obama is concerned about his legacy and will want to turn the corner and try to save our country from bankruptcy are in for a surprise. There is nothing in his background, nor his minions he has marching to who knows whose orders, that would indicate it. To take down a super power what could be more grand. His anit-colonialist feelings are well-known. The more optimistic of us believe he can not achieve it during his tenure, and we shall rise again into fiscal sanity. Here we go:

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, says he “burst into laughter” Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined the administration proposal for averting the fiscal cliff. He wasn’t trying to embarrass Geithner, McConnell says, only responding candidly to his one-sided plan, explicit on tax increases, vague on spending cuts.

Charles Krauthammer on Obama’s ‘Insulting’ Fiscal Cliff Offer: ‘Republicans Ought to Simply Walk Away’

 

Geithner suggested $1.6 trillion in tax increases, McConnell says, but showed “minimal or no interest” in spending cuts. When congressional leaders went to the White House three days after the election, Obama talked of possible curbs on the explosive growth of food stamps and Social Security disability payments. But since Geithner didn’t mention them, those reductions appear to be off the table now, McConnell says.

Besides raising taxes, Geithner was reported to have proposed a one-year delay in scheduled $1.2 trillion spending cuts to defense and domestic, and a $400 billion reduction in Medicare funding. The $1.2 trillion in cuts was mandated after Congress failed to reach an agreement in 2011 on reductions. From The Weekly Standard