Imagine you own a business.  There’s a knock on the door.  It’s the government, and they’re here to help.  “We’re going to give everyone enough money to buy your product.  We’re not going to make anyone buy it, but it won’t cost them anything if they do.  Your profit is going grow 20%, but we’re going to take half of the new profit so we can afford to pay people to buy it.  But you get to keep the rest.

That’s essentially what happened with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with respect to Medical Device Manufacturers (MDM).  MDM’s started paying a 2.3% excise tax on the sale of their wares in January 2013.  The logic behind the compromise was as simple as the opening scenario.  Prior to ACA, 30 million to 50 million people were either uninsured or uninsurable.  As a practical matter, people without insurance go without hip and knee replacements and similar procedures.  They just limp.

While there may well be more knee replacements, there will be many more people with insurance, and virtually everyone will have access to insurance if they need it.

Now the winds are shifting.  Tea Party Republicans, ostensibly opposed to deficit spending, have shut down the government and are threatening to cause the first credit default in US history.  In a particularly ironic twist, a compromise is emerging, most recently championed by Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, to repeal the tax on MDMs.

In other words, the government will be greatly expanding the market and increasing the profits of MDMs, but will not ask for anything in return for that expanded market.  The result will be an increase in the deficit of $30 billion over the next 10 years.

It’s time for a new post on how Iowa’s representatives in the U.S. House and Senate are handling the ongoing shutdown of non-essential federal government operations. (Click here for details on Congressional votes and Iowa political reaction up to October 1.)

Thousands of Iowans who work for the federal government or serve in the National Guard still have no idea when they’ll receive their next paycheck. The best news I’ve heard all week is that an estimated 66,000 Iowa women and children who receive benefits through the WIC program will get their checks for October, at least.  

Although there has been no progress toward an agreement on a continuing spending resolution, I’ve noticed one big change in Iowa Congressional voting during the last few days. Whereas Representatives Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) were sticking with most of their fellow Democrats in earlier votes on federal spending, this week both Braley and Loebsack have joined House Republican attempts to fund the federal government in bits and pieces. Follow me after the jump for more details.

The 2014 fiscal year began at midnight. Congress is ringing in the occasion with the first partial federal government shutdown since the mid-1990s. The U.S. House and Senate have been unable to agree on a continuing spending resolution, because most House Republicans insist on defunding or delaying the 2010 health care reform law as a condition of funding most government operations.

Details on Iowa Congressional votes on budget resolutions are after the jump, along with comments from all the Iowans in Congress and many of the candidates for U.S. House or Senate.

Authorization for most federal agricultural programs also expired at midnight, and it’s not clear when Congress will be able to agree on a short-term extension or a new five-year farm bill. Toward the end of this post I’ve enclosed some comments on the failure to pass a farm bill.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I’ve been thinking about math, or rather, the inability to do math. This fascinating article by Robert Charette exposes the “myth” of an alleged shortage of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workers. The real problem in the U.S., Charette argues, is “a STEM knowledge shortage.”

To fill that shortage, you don’t necessarily need a college or university degree in a STEM discipline, but you do need to learn those subjects, and learn them well, from childhood until you head off to college or get a job. Improving everyone’s STEM skills would clearly be good for the workforce and for people’s employment prospects, for public policy debates, and for everyday tasks like balancing checkbooks and calculating risks.

Speaking of public policy debates, Congressional Republicans are poised for another showdown over the debt ceiling, armed with phony concern about a “growing” federal deficit. In fact, the deficit is falling at the fastest rate in decades, but very few Americans realize that, and self-appointed fact-checkers bend over backwards not to acknowledge it.

Speaking of the inability to count, Governor Terry Branstad’s administration has touted misleading “job creation” numbers for a long time, but the latest propaganda is “inflated” even if you accept the governor’s “bizarre” practice of counting only jobs created while not subtracting jobs lost.

Politicians aren’t the only ones who let ideology interfere with basic numeracy. This must-read piece by Chris Mooney summarizes findings from a new study: “people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs.”  Regardless of party affiliation, research subjects with higher math skills were better at solving a problem about the effectiveness of skin cream. When the same numbers were presented as evidence related to handgun bans, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicanss were more likely to arrive at the wrong answer if the correct answer went against their opinions about gun control and crime.

This is an open thread.

Happy Labor Day! The U.S. Department of Labor provides a short history of the holiday here. A couple of years ago, Bleeding Heartland readers discussed favorite labor-themed music, inspired by Peter Rothberg’s top ten Labor Day song list. Here are three dozen reasons Americans should be grateful to the organized labor movement. After the jump I’ve posted excerpts from President Abraham Lincoln’s December 1861 State of the Union address.

Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer for many people. The heat wave smothering Iowa for the last week finally broke, so I hope everyone is able to enjoy some time outside today.

This is an open thread. The big news of the weekend is that President Barack Obama will seek Congressional authorization for military intervention in Syria. A post is in progress about Iowa political views on how and whether the U.S. should get involved militarily there.

The national unemployment rate is down somewhat this year, but our economy would be a lot healthier if we hadn’t sacrificed so much job-creating potential on the altar of federal budget austerity. We should have been taking advantage of low interest rates to invest in high-speed rail, clean water infrastructure and other long-lasting public works. But those efforts have been a dead letter since Republicans took back the U.S. House. The sequester set in motion by the 2011 clash over raising the debt ceiling is not only affecting federal employees directly, but also many people who rely on federal programs. Even some of the fact-checkers have bought into the “growing deficit” propaganda, despite the fact that the deficit is falling faster than it has in decades.

Yesterday I heard an ad on a Des Moines radio station criticizing Representative Steve King for taking a “five-week taxpayer-funded vacation instead of working to create jobs.” The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid for the ad in IA-04 and 17 other Republican-held House districts. The ad script is in a press release I’ve posted after the jump. This radio campaign is not targeting Representative Tom Latham in IA-03 for whatever reason. (The National Republican Congressional Committee recently added Latham to its incumbent protection program.) King has received so much unflattering media attention over the past two weeks because of his comments about undocumented immigrants that the DCCC may have felt it was the right time to focus on driving up King’s negatives with Iowans.

Meanwhile, during an interview with Sioux City-based KSCJ Radio, King criticized the Obama administration’s decision to close some U.S. embassies this week. Excerpts from his comments are after the jump, along with reaction from IA-04 Democratic candidate Jim Mowrer, who accused King of politicizing national security.

The future of most U.S. farm programs is in question today, as the House of Representatives voted down a new five-year farm bill that had bipartisan support in the House Agriculture Committee. Background, details on today’s vote, and some Iowa reaction are after the jump.

Governor Terry Branstad signed into law today a bill setting Iowa’s health and human services budget for the next fiscal year and establishing a new “Iowa Health and Wellness Plan” for low-income Iowans not currently covered by Medicaid. The full text of Senate File 446 is available here. Division XXXIII contains the language on the Iowa alternative to expanding Medicaid, a compromise struck in the closing days of the legislative session last month.

After the jump I’ve posted some links and comments on today’s news. As far as I can tell, Branstad has not yet explained why he is happy to accept federal funding for the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan, likely to be more expensive than expanding Medicaid would have been. Earlier this year, he made a huge fuss about how we can’t afford such a program because of the federal deficit, and how we can’t trust the feds to live up to their funding promises.

Sam Clovis announced yesterday that he will seek the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Clovis is ending his conservative talk radio program and has a sabbatical for the coming academic year from Morningside College in Sioux City. After the jump I’ve posted more background on Clovis, including the statement of purpose he posted on his campaign website, as well as highlights from his news conference yesterday. You can watch clips from his speech here, and he is on Twitter here. Many Iowa conservatives will buy what Clovis is selling, but can he raise the money to run a strong statewide campaign?

Meanwhile, Alexander Burns reported at Politico yesterday that State Senator Joni Ernst is consulting with GOP strategist David Polyansky as she lays the groundwork for a Senate campaign.

“She’s making all the steps necessary to advance towards a campaign,” said one Republican close to Ernst. “I think she has the core nucleus [of a campaign] in place so that, should she decide to pull the trigger, she’d be able to do so fairly soon.”

The Sunday Des Moines Register featured a guest editorial by Mark Jacobs, a former energy company executive who is also considering the Senate race. After the jump I’ve posted some bullet points from that editorial, which focused on next steps for Iowa in education reform.

If no candidate wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the June 2014 primary, a statewide convention will determine the GOP nominee for Senate.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Polyansky previously worked for the presidential campaigns of Mike Huckabee and Michele Bachmann, although he bailed on Bachmann a few months before the Iowa caucuses.

SECOND UPDATE: I keep forgetting Paul Lunde, who is also seeking the GOP nomination for Senate. James Lynch reports that if elected, Lunde “plans to introduce what he calls the ‘second Bill of Rights’ – 12 constitutional amendments that include making Social Security and Medicare permanent, changing the Electoral College, instituting a limited national sales tax and setting term limits for members of Congress.”

Chief Deputy State Auditor Warren Jenkins will investigate Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s use of Help America Vote Act funding, William Petroski reported today for the Des Moines Register. Democratic State Senator Tom Courtney requested the audit immediately after Governor Terry Branstad appointed Mary Mosiman as state auditor last month. Mosiman’s predecessor, David Vaudt, did not act on Courtney’s request for an audit last year. Schultz has used federal HAVA funding to pay for a law enforcement officer charged with investigating alleged voter fraud full-time. Courtney contends that such a use falls outside federal law, which calls for HAVA funds to cover “educating voters concerning voting procedures, voting rights and voting technology.”

Mosiman delegated the audit to Jenkins because until last month, she was working as Schultz’s deputy in charge of the Secretary of State’s elections office.

Please share any relevant comments in this thread. After the jump I’ve posted reaction from Schultz and Democratic candidate for secretary of state Brad Anderson.

This year’s cool, wet spring was a blessing at first, reducing drought conditions substantially across Iowa. But now that the state has chalked up the wettest spring in 141 years of record-keeping, many communities are dealing with major flooding again. Flooding forced the closure of Highway 14 north of Marshalltown and prompted emergency sandbagging in downtown Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. You can see high water threatening downtown Cedar Rapids on Friday, and today the basement of the rebuilt city hall flooded. Water was pumped across some lanes of Highway 30. The lack of rain on Friday may have prevented the worst-case scenario in some cities.

At the downtown Des Moines Farmers Market this morning, several vendors told me they have “more water than they need” but not a devastating amount of moisture–yet. Farmers in many parts of the state haven’t been so lucky. Either rains have prevented them from planting, or floodwaters are washing away recently-planted crops.

Governor Terry Branstad was on vacation for most of the past week but has issued disaster emergency proclamations for 47 Iowa counties. He and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds plan to tour flood-affected areas in eastern Iowa on Monday.

Any news or comments about the Iowa flooding are welcome in this thread.

JUNE 3 UPDATE: Dry weather over the weekend helped mitigate the flooding in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, but Coralville Lake is not expected to crest until June 7.

Speaking to reporters in Des Moines on June 3,

Branstad resisted the notion that this year’s floods or last year’s drought conditions could be linked to climate change or that the state could do anything to prevent such events from happening.

“Weather is always going to change,” said Branstad, who’s serving his fifth term as Iowa’s governor. “I’ve been governor during droughts and floods and we just went from a drought to a flood.

Time for another discussion thread on the race for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat. Recent news on the campaign is after the jump.

Last night the Iowa House approved by 51 votes to 49 a version of Governor Terry Branstad’s alternative to expanding Medicaid. Two Republicans opposed the plan, but State Representative Dave Heaton fell in line despite his major doubts about the bill.

Details on the vote and highlights from the debate are after the jump.

President Barack Obama formally presented his draft budget for fiscal year 2014 today. Click through for details, but here are the top numbers:

The $1.058 trillion budget for fiscal year 2014 – which arrived on Capitol Hill about two months late – includes $3.77 trillion in total spending, including entitlements.

It would add $5.3 trillion in new deficit spending over 10 years and increase spending in 2014 by $160 billion compared to current law.

Statements from Representatives Dave Loebsack, Tom Latham, and Steve King are after the jump, along with press releases from several Iowa advocacy groups. I am seeking comment on the president’s budget from all the members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation and will update this post as needed. Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement called attention to the fact that Representative Bruce Braley has not explained his position on changing the Social Security cost of living adjustment to calculate benefits with a chained consumer price index. The president’s budget includes the “chained CPI” proposal, a truly terrible idea. The AARP said today it is “deeply dismayed that President Obama would propose cutting the benefits of current and future Social Security recipients, including children, widows, veterans and people with disabilities, to reduce the deficit.”

Also today, the U.S. Postal Service announced that it has delayed plans to cancel Saturday mail delivery. Comments from Loebsack and Representative Bruce Braley are at the end of this post. Both of them had strongly criticized the idea when floated in February.  

Preserving battlefield sites from early American history would seem to be promising ground for bipartisan agreement. Don’t we all want future generations to be able to visit and learn about historically important places in this country’s pasts?

Today more than half the Republicans in the U.S. House, including Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04), voted against a bill designed to preserve Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields. As Pete Kasperowicz reported for The Hill, the vote reflected a call to arms from conservative Heritage Foundation.

Appearing on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” program today, Representative Steve King (IA-04) acknowledged that the open U.S. Senate race will be a “slight uphill battle” for any Republican, but asserted that he can see a “path to victory” if he decides to run.

I am still 100 percent convinced that King will opt out of the Senate race eventually, citing personal reasons (not political reality). Nevertheless, his comments on the Senate race are worth reading closely, so I’ve enclosed them below. You can watch the whole interview or read the full transcript here.

King claimed to be unable to think of any positions he has taken that are “out of step with Iowans.” Near the end of this post, I’ve suggested two issues that would become central features in Bruce Braley’s case against King.

President Barack Obama is taking another stab at the “grand bargain” he wants to strike with Congressional Republicans. Yet again, he wants to cut Social Security benefits for low- and middle-income seniors in exchange for token tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. He is offering this deal despite evidence that Social Security benefits are a growing percentage of retired Americans’ total income.

Obama’s biggest fans need to stop deluding themselves about “eleven-dimensional chess” and acknowledge that for whatever reason, the president wants Social Security cuts to be part of his legacy.

Representative Steve King told reporters in Des Moines today that the chances he will run for the U.S. Senate in 2014 are “a little more than 50-50.” He dropped similar hints last month and has indicated to the Sioux City Journal’s Bret Hayworth that he’s leaning toward running as well.

I don’t care how many times King insists that he is carefully analyzing the pros and cons of a U.S. Senate bid. He’s neither dumb enough nor brave enough to leave the safe confines of Iowa’s fourth Congressional district.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread.

Governor Terry Branstad didn’t draw the right lessons from Indiana’s experience when he proposed his Healthy Iowa Plan as an alternative to expanding Medicaid. Below I’ve posted excerpts from Laura Hermer’s recent commentary on the Healthy Indiana Plan.

Iowa’s top economic development official, Debi Durham, still can’t answer basic questions about why the state offered more than $100 million in tax incentives to a company that was going to build a fertilizer plant in Iowa anyway. Follow me after the jump for Durham’s non-responsive response on the Orascom deal during this week’s “Iowa Press” program.

Speaking of which, the Branstad administration is stonewalling Iowa Watchdog reporter Sheena Dooley’s efforts to obtain more information about the Orascom deal.

UPDATE: For the hundredth time, family budgets are not comparable to the federal budget. Plus, Michael Tomasky summarizes three basic principles of fiscal policy that should be conventional wisdom already: “Modest deficits are perfectly sustainable. Budget cutting, far from being ‘responsible,’ hurts the economy. And balanced budgets don’t create jobs-it’s the other way around.”

The U.S. Senate approved a budget for fiscal year 2014 at 4:38 am on Saturday after voting on amendments for most of the night. The budget passed by 50 votes to 49 (roll call). Iowa’s Senator Chuck Grassley and the rest of the Senate Republicans voted no, joined by four Democrats representing red states. The rest of the Democrats, including Senator Tom Harkin, voted for the budget.

As is often the case, Senate votes on various amendments were more interesting than the final party-line vote on the budget. Follow me after the jump for details on how Grassley and Harkin voted on some of those amendments. I’ve also enclosed statements from Grassley and Harkin.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced yesterday that beginning on April 7, it will close 149 air traffic control towers across the country. The Dubuque Regional Airport tower is the only Iowa facility on the list (pdf). An airport official told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald that service in and out of the airport will continue. I haven’t seen any reports confirming which facility will route air traffic in and out of Dubuque after April 7.

The cuts are related to the “sequester” of federal budget funds, which began last month. Originally the FAA had planned to close more air traffic control towers, including those in Waterloo and Sioux City. However, a press release stated that the agency decided “to keep 24 federal contract towers open that had been previously proposed for closure because doing so would have a negative impact on the national interest.” Another salient fact is that Dubuque “hires privately contracted employees,” whereas “Waterloo and Sioux City employees are unionized FAA workers.”

I’ve posted the whole statement from the FAA after the jump, as well as Representative Bruce Braley’s comment. The first Congressional district includes Dubuque and Waterloo. Braley voted against a continuing spending resolution on Thursday, in part because it did not reverse the “sequester” cuts.

Yesterday the U.S. House approved a fiscal year 2014 budget prepared by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. The bill also sets budget levels for fiscal years 2015 through 2023. Bleeding Heartland covered Iowa reaction to the latest Ryan budget here. After the jump I have details on yesterday’s vote and statements released by members of the Iowa delegation.

Despite the spin from some Congressional Republicans and Governor Terry Branstad, it’s important to remember that Ryan’s budget is not balanced and will not be balanced even 10 years from now. Both the non-partisan Tax Policy Center and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have noted that Ryan does not say how he would offset trillions in lost revenue from income tax cuts he proposes. In addition, the Ryan budget “understates defense spending by $100 billion over the next ten years” and assumes that the 2010 health care reform law will be repealed, which obviously won’t happen. The Ryan plan isn’t about eliminating the federal deficit, it’s a plan to end Medicare as a single-payer program and change the role of the federal government in the lives of low-income Americans.

This week Congress approved a continuing spending resolution to fund the federal government through the end of the current fiscal year on September 30. Iowa’s delegation split on this compromise, but not strictly along party lines. Details on the budget compromise and how the Iowans voted are after the jump.

The Republican National Committee released a so-called “autopsy” on the 2012 election results today. You can read the full report on the “Growth and Opportunity Project” here. I’ve posted a few excerpts, links and thoughts after the jump.

Any comments about the GOP’s rebuilding and rebranding effort are welcome in this thread.

Iowa Senate Democrats offered Governor Terry Branstad a compromise this week to address his concerns that the federal government will not keep its promises to fund the Medicaid expansion provided under the 2010 health care reform law. Follow me after the jump for details on their latest offer and a cost comparison of Medicaid expansion and Branstad’s “Healthy Iowa Plan.”

U.S. House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan presented his new federal budget blueprint today. As before, he would end Medicare as a single-payer system for all Americans under age 55, slash spending on programs for the poor such as food stamps and Medicaid, and cut taxes for some, though the details there are fuzzy. He would not cut the defense budget or Social Security. Ryan says his budget would be balanced in 10 years, but he relies on some assumptions that won’t happen, such as repeal of the 2010 health care reform law.

I’ve enclosed Iowa political reaction to the Ryan budget below and will update this post as needed.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a better than expected jobs report on Friday, but not all the numbers were encouraging. States have continued to cut jobs even after the end of the “Great Recession,” and the “sequester” federal budget cuts will lead to more public-sector job losses later this year. Disappearing state government jobs are a drag on the national economy.

Surprise, surprise: the Iowa Chamber Alliance thinks shoveling more taxpayer dollars to large corporations is the best way to create jobs. The Iowa Policy Project disagrees and points out that Iowa is already writing large subsidy checks to some companies that paid no income tax in 2012. UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Iowa just agreed to give the Principal Financial Group $22.5 million in tax credits for its $285 million renovation plan in downtown Des Moines. Why should Iowa taxpayers underwrite office remodeling for a profitable company? That’s part of the cost of doing business.

Conservatives who think high tax rates can’t coexist with economic prosperity should explain why “the average Canadian household is now richer than an average American household for the first time ever.” My guess is the answer is related to Canada’s efficient, single-payer health care system (no medical bankruptcies or huge out of pocket costs because of health problems).

Senator Tom Harkin has introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 over three years before “before indexing it to keep up with the rising cost of living.” Indexing the minimum wage to inflation should have happened a long time ago.

This is an open thread.

Yesterday the U.S. House approved a bill to fund the federal government through the remainder of the current fiscal year. Dave Loebsack (IA-02) was one of 53 House Democrats to vote for the spending bill, along with most of the Republican caucus. Follow me after the jump for details and the latest sleight of hand by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

President Barack Obama announced two new cabinet appointments yesterday: Ernest Moniz as secretary of Energy and Gina McCarthy as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. Bleeding Heartland posted background on Moniz and McCarthy here; I’ve added more information after the jump.

McCarthy has served as the EPA’s top air quality official since 2009. Because she is well-qualified for the position and committed to making the country’s air cleaner, environmentalists are excited about this choice. I hope that Obama is not merely “promoting a climate change champion” to soften the blow when he approves the KeystoneXL pipeline. The State Department’s draft report on KeystoneXL whitewashed the impact that project would have on the environment.  

Also yesterday, Obama formally nominated Sylvia Matthews Burwell to be the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. The White House announcement notes, “She served as Deputy Director of the OMB from 1998 to 2001, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration.” UPDATE: I should have added that Burwell is a former president of the Gates Foundation’s Global Development Program, and that her most recent job was running the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The president has not yet announced his picks to run the departments of Labor, Transportation, or Commerce.

Following up on Saturday’s post about the possible closure of three Iowa airports air traffic control towers, the White House has released more details on how automatic federal spending cuts could affect Iowa, beginning on March 1, if Congress and President Barack Obama don’t agree on a deal to replace the “sequester.”  

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood warned yesterday that air traffic control across the country may be severely disrupted if the “sequester” goes into effect. Budget cuts may prompt the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down air traffic control towers at three Iowa airports as early as April.

CORRECTION: Closing the air traffic control towers would not necessarily shut down all traffic at the affected airports. On the other hand, “many corporations won’t fly into airports that don’t have an active tower.”

Nine days from now, approximately 85 billion in federal spending cuts will go into effect unless Congress and President Barack Obama can agree on an alternative to the so-called “sequester.” After the jump I’ve posted details on how the spending cuts might affect Iowa, as well as recent comments and actions by some of the Iowans in Congress.

Catching up on news from last week, all four Iowans in the U.S. House supported a bill seeking to “freeze the pay of federal workers for the third year in a row” as well as the salaries for members of Congress.

The Iowa Democratic establishment continues to consolidate around Representative Bruce Braley for the open U.S. Senate seat. Representative Dave Loebsack (IA-02) posted on his Facebook page this morning,

Bruce, I’m in.

I’m proud to endorse Bruce Braley. We need someone in the U.S. Senate who’ll continue Tom Harkin’s legacy of fighting to strengthen the middle class and speaking out for those who don’t have a voice. I’m pleased to stand with him.

Looking forward to seeing you tonight at the Red, White, and Blue dinner!

We need someone who will continue Harkin’s legacy of speaking some unpopular truths, such as pointing out that a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget “would require massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and many other crucial programs” the middle class rely on. Sadly, we won’t hear that message from either Braley or Loebsack in the years to come.

UPDATE: Added the Braley for Iowa press release below.

SECOND UPDATE: Former Representative Leonard Boswell chimed in with his endorsement on January 18. I’ve posted it below. He praised Braley as “a tireless advocate for Iowa’s veterans.” That was a strong theme in Braley’s latest re-election campaign.

President Barack Obama delivers another State of the Union address tonight, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is set to give the Republican response. I will miss most of the president’s speech but plan to watch the replay later and will update this post with highlights. Meanwhile, feel free to comment on any topics raised during the speeches in this thread.

UPDATE: Highlights from the speeches and reaction from the Iowans in Congress are after the jump.

I find it depressing that when I came home to catch up on the news, the blogosphere and twitterverse were obsessing over Rubio taking a drink of water during his remarks. So sue him, he’s not the most camera-savvy politician in Washington (yet). Who cares?

Yesterday the U.S. Senate approved by 64 votes to 34 a bill that would suspend the country’s debt ceiling until mid-May and withhold the salaries of senators unless the Senate approves a budget by April 15. Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin supported the bill, as did all but one Democrat. Senator Chuck Grassley opposed the bill, like most other Senate Republicans. Details on the bill and on the amendments considered yesterday are after the jump.

The House approved this bill last week, with three of Iowa’s four representatives voting yes.

The U.S. House voted today to suspend the country’s debt ceiling until May 18 and withhold pay from U.S. senators if the upper chamber does not approve a budget by April 15. House Republican leaders didn’t have enough votes in the GOP caucus to pass the bill, but dozens of Democrats crossed over to delay a potential default by several months. Three of Iowa’s four House members supported the “No Budget, No Pay” act; details and comments are below.

The U.S. House approved a Disaster Relief Appropriations Act primarily aimed at Hurricane Sandy victims tonight, but Iowans Tom Latham (IA-03) and Steve King (IA-04) were among the majority of House Republicans who voted against the bill.

UPDATE: Added King’s comment below.

President Barack Obama and Republicans in the U.S. House are still on a collision course over the debt ceiling, which needs to be raised sometime in the next month or two.

President Barack Obama announced today that his Chief of Staff Jack Lew is his pick to replace Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. I have low expectations, since Lew has been a “central player in two failed attempts at a grand bargain on deficit reduction with House Republicans.” The “grand bargain” would have paired token tax hikes on the wealthy with significant benefit cuts for middle-class and low-income Americans. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama did not rule out filibustering Lew’s nomination.

I was surprised to hear that Hilda Solis is leaving as Labor secretary. She was one of Obama’s better cabinet picks, but White House officials have undermined her on several issues, notably efforts to regulate child labor at agricultural facilities. Brad Plumer posted a good summary of Solis’ record.

According to the White House, the following cabinet members will stay on for now: Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. I’m concerned that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was not on that list.

Any comments about Obama’s cabinet and/or the “embarrassing as hell” lack of diversity in the president’s “inner circle” are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: I did not realize that the Commerce secretary position has been vacant for almost six months.