tamara lytle

How Much Clout Does Your State Have in Washington?

Posted on 05/7/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsPolitical power ends up in some interesting places. Roll Call measures just how much clout each state has in Washington and even figures out how much influence each state has per member of Congress. Why does clout matter? Billions in federal aid are at stake, and the ability to influence everything from how much citizens are taxed to legislation on Medicare, Social Security, guns, immigration and countless other matters. Roll Call’s clout index factors in leadership positions held by lawmakers …

Have You Prayed Today? Probably

Posted on 05/3/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | Home & FamilyFor more than 60 years now, Congress has set aside one day to be a National Day of Prayer (May 2 this year) — which, it turns out, older Americans may observe the most faithfully. More than two-thirds of all Americans 50 and older (67.1 percent), in fact, say that they pray at least once a day, according to the most recent survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Only 53.8 percent of adults under …

Public Needs a Dose of Info on Health Care Law

Posted on 05/2/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal Health | PoliticsMore than 40 percent of American adults don’t know that President Obama’s health care legislation is now the law of the land. Call it the Affordable Care Act. Call it Obamacare. But call it the law. The Obama administration is already rolling out application forms for individuals who need coverage. Yet 12 percent of those polled by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they thought that Congress  repealed the law. Another 7 percent said they thought the Supreme Court overturned it. …

Is Your Job Killing You … Literally?

Posted on 05/1/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin TodayThe rate of fatal work injuries across the nation is dropping. But workers 65 and older are more than four times as likely to sustain fatal on-the-job injuries as workers in their 20s, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, the BLS’s Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries shows that once workers hit the age of 35, their risk of sustaining fatal on-the-job injuries — everything from roadway deaths involving motor vehicles to work-related homicides and …

Is Congress Trying to Sneak Out of Obamacare? Don’t Bet on It

Posted on 04/29/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsFew things rile some people as much as the new health care law and the benefits that Capitol Hill lawmakers give themselves. So it’s not at all surprising that the idea of Congress exempting itself from Obamacare would make political commentators’ tongues wag and an angry public Tweet like mad—real mad. But is it much ado about nothing? John Breshnahan and Jake Sherman of Politico touched off the venting with their report that lawmakers are worried that Obamacare could raise …

Chained CPI: 4 Opinions From the Press

Posted on 04/22/2013 by | Washington Watch | Comments

Bulletin Today | PoliticsIt’s not only politicians who have mixed reactions to a different way of calculating cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits. Newspaper editorial writers and columnists are conflicted, too. The chained consumer price index, included in President Obama’s budget proposal, would mean that seniors’ checks would go up a little slower each year. The chained CPI assumes that as prices go up, consumers buy cheaper substitute goods to make up for it. Here’s how it’s playing among the mainstream press’s opinion …

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