The stimulus package is lumbering its way through Congress.  Using the House of Representative’s $820 billion stimulus bill as a model, the Senate came up with its own bill of $900 plus billion, and then carved it down to nearer $800 billion.

After more than five days of Senate conference negotiations, more than $110 billion has been cut from the $937 billion proposal.  The latest figure runs around $780 billion plus another possible $47 billion more in already promised tax incentives to aid auto and home sales broken down to about 40 percent tax cuts and the rest in spending. 

Major spending items cut from the bill were $40 billion in aid to the states, $16 billion for school construction and around $6 billion for public health projects.  Up to $100 billion will be spent to buy and modify some troubled homeowner mortgages.

The 58 Democrats in the majority are enough to pass a vote on the bill if they can get it to that position.  However, at least 60 Senators must vote to proceed to a vote before the vote is actually taken.  Currently, Republicans blocked a vote on Friday saying they have not had time to read the bill.  Debating sessions have been set for Saturday and Monday, with a vote expected midday Tuesday. 

The Republicans complained that the bill that came from the House contained a wish list of everything the Democrats ever wanted, and to some extent, I think some of that may be true.

Republicans Arlen Specter R-PA, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both R-MN have stated that they will vote for the bill in or near its present form.

Senator Arlen Specter is not totally happy with the bill, but said, “I do believe that we have to act and I believe that under all the circumstances this is the best we can do and we ought to do it.”

Senator Susan Collins said, “This project, this bill is not perfect.  It would be difficult to get a bill that everyone agrees on; but it represents an effective, targeted approach to the economic crisis facing our country.”

Once the bill is passed in the Senate, representatives from both chambers will meet and reconcile any differences in the two bills, making it a single bill to be voted on by both houses and signed by the president.  Obama’s signature is what makes it law.

Moving to act quickly, the provisions of the bill target around 80 percent of the total package to be distributed into the economy in the first two years.

In addition, Senators voted Friday to direct the U.S. Treasury to spend at least $50 billion of the $350 billion remaining in the TARP fund on home foreclosure relief efforts. 

Democrats and the few Republicans who consider the welfare of the people they represent are working on a compromise stimulus bill that, although imperfect, can be put into action.  The Do-Nothing Republicans of the male Caucasian cadre who voted against equal pay for women, minorities, disabled and older workers, rail out against any action except their own.

Two of the most notable are John McCain R-AZ, still stinging over his last hurrah at trying to be President, and Michael Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Party.

Steele advocated in the latest Republican radio address that keeping more money in their pockets would help families the most.  I wonder if Chairman Steele understands economics at all, or is purposely looking to destroy America for his party’s purpose.  People keeping money in their pockets will extend the recession indefinitely and deepen it.  It is the flow of money in consumer spending that will start and drive the economic engine.  But then, they know that.

As a result of the census each state has its Congressional districts apportioned. By the rules of Title 2 of the U.S. Code, Congress reapportions the 435 seats in the House of Representatives among the states. The apportionment population consists of the resident population of the fifty states, including expatriates who can be counted as residents of a state.  Expatriates are overseas civilians, military, and federal employees along with their dependents living with them.

Currently, each member of the House represents a population of about 647,000.

Excluded in the apportionment are the populations of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico because they do not have voting seats in the U. S. House of Representatives.

Regionally, the South and West picked up most of the nation’s population increase. A new Election Data Services prediction, finds if the 2010 reapportionment were held when the report was written (December 21, 2006), six states would gain one seat apiece in the House of Representatives — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, and Utah — and Texas would gain two seats. Seven states would lose one seat each — Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Population dynamics from the 2000 census:
· 75.1% of respondents said they were White or Caucasian and no other race;
· 12.3% are of Black or African-American descent;
· 12.5% are Hispanics — who may belong to any race;
· 3.6% of respondents are Asian;
· 2.4% are multiracial (2 or more races).

Between 1990 and 2000, the population aged 45 to 54 grew by 49% and those aged 85 and older grew 38%.  Women outnumber men two to one amongst those aged 85 and older.

Families (as opposed to men or women living alone) still dominate American households, but less so than they did thirty years ago.

Since 1993, both families and nonfamilies have seen median household incomes rise, with “households headed by a woman without a spouse present” growing the fastest.

People in married-couple families have the lowest poverty rates.

Almost one in five adults had some type of disability in 1997 and the likelihood of having a disability increased with age.

The poor of any age are more likely than others to lack health insurance coverage.

Interesting Facts about Presidents:

The Presidential oath of office has been taken 55 times.

18 presidents have been former members of the House of Representatives, but only one sitting member of the House of Representatives has ever been elected President (James A. Garfield).

Starting with Lincoln, there have been 37 Presidential elections with 23 Republicans elected (6 were elected twice) and 14 Democrats elected (3 were elected twice or more).  

16 presidents have previously served in the Senate, including four of the five Presidents who served between 1945 and 1974, but only (Warren G. Harding in 1920 and John F. Kennedy in 1960) and most recently Barack Obama in 2008 were sitting U.S. Senators at the time they were elected to the Presidency.

14 Presidents have previously served as Vice Presidents.

42 people have been sworn into office, for 43 presidencies. Grover Cleveland served as the 22nd President and was re-elected as the 24th President.

31 Presidents had military service records; all but one of them (James Buchanan) served as an officer.

Four Presidents died in office of natural causes (William H. Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt)
Four were assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, John F. Kennedy)
One President resigned (Richard M. Nixon).

Gerald Ford was the only President who accepted office without first being elected either Vice President or President. Congress appointed him Vice President in 1973, after Nixon’s first Vice President (Spiro T. Agnew) resigned. Gerald Ford became President when Nixon resigned.
He stood for re-election and lost.

At least one out of every three Presidents (on average) dies in office.

The most unsettled period was 1933 to 1977. Of the seven Presidents in that 40-year period, Eisenhower was the only truly conventional President, that is to say, the only one didn’t
a. die in office (Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy)
b. resign (Richard M. Nixon) or
c. succeed to the presidency as a Vice President (Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford).

William Henry Harrison spent the shortest time in office at 32 days (caught pneumonia at the inauguration), followed by James A. Garfield who was shot four months after taking office and died two months later.

Franklin D. Roosevelt spent the longest time in office (more than 12 years), and is the only President to serve more that two terms.

Theodore Roosevelt spent his entire $50,000 Presidential salary (equivalent to $865,000 today) on entertaining guests at the White House. John F. Kennedy donated his $100,000 salary to charities.

Every president to date has been a white male of the Christian faith, all Protestants, with the exception of John F. Kennedy who was Roman Catholic.

Few Presidents spoke any language but English. Martin Van Buren spoke Dutch. George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter have limited knowledge of Spanish.

Martin Van Buren was the eighth President and the first President born in the United States (1782). The first seven Presidents were all born before the American Revolution and therefore before the United States was formed. Martin Van Buren was a key organizer of the Democratic Party.

Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first President to appoint a woman (Frances Perkins) to his cabinet. Lyndon B. Johnson was the first President to appoint an African-American to his cabinet (Robert C. Weaver).

Warren G. Harding was the first President to speak on the radio. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first President to speak on television.

James A. Garfield could write with both hands at the same time in two different languages (Latin and Ancient Greek).

Harry S. Truman did not attend college (financially unable).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

The Table of the Presidents shows political parties and term dates of each President in the history of the United States, as well as links to each individual President for his biography.

Prior to 1792, the U.S. Government was non-partisan.  The Constitution says nothing about political parties.  Up to the Civil War, political parties sometimes had multiple candidates.  In the election of 1824, Andrew Jackson had the most electoral votes, but not a majority. The U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams instead.

After the Civil War, the two largest parties (Republican and Democratic) remade themselves into broad political coalitions of conservatives and liberals, which resulted in all Presidents being nominees of one of these two parties.

Presidents are elected indirectly in the United States.  A number of electors, collectively known as the Electoral College, select the President.  Each state is allocated a number of electors, equal to the size of its combined membership in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The number of Representatives in the House was set at 435 in 1911.

The Twenty-third Amendment (1960) grants electors to the District of Columbia as if it was a state but limits it to the number of electors in the least populated state (currently Wyoming with three electoral votes for its two Senators and one House representative).

Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates that win the most votes in a state win all of that state’s electoral votes, except for Maine (4 votes) and Nebraska (5 votes).  In those two states two electoral votes go to the statewide winner (representing the Senate electoral votes) and one electoral vote goes to the winner of each Congressional district (representing the House electoral votes).  In modern elections, neither state has ever split electoral votes between candidates.

The winning party electors for that state meet at their state’s capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, to vote, and send the vote count by certified mail to Congress.  There are a total of 538 votes from all the states (435 Congressional districts plus 100 Senate posts plus 3 electors from the non-state District of Columbia).

A majority is reached with 270 votes.

There is always the danger of a faithless elector, a member of the Electoral College who does not cast their electoral votes for the candidates they have pledged to vote for.  There are laws in 24 states to punish faithless electors, but the Supreme Court has never decided the Constitutionality of those laws.

There have been occurrences of faithless electors in the elections of 2004, 2000, 1988, 1984 and many previous elections, but faithless electors have never changed the otherwise expected outcome of the election.

The vote count is opened on January 6 at 1:00pm EST (mandated by the Twelfth Amendment) by the sitting (outgoing) Vice-President, acting in the capacity of President of the Senate. He reads the vote aloud to a joint session of the incoming Congress (those continuing terms or newly elected).

Incoming members of Congress can raise an objection to any state’s vote count, provided that the objection is supported by at least one member of each house of Congress (three minimum: objector, House member, Senator).

A successful objection will be followed by debate, but objections to the electoral vote count are rarely raised.

Electoral Tie

In the event that no candidate receives a 270-vote majority by the electors, the House of Representatives chooses the President.

The Vice-President is chosen through individual voting in the Senate, two votes to each state.

Side note: An improbable possibility could be a Republican President elected in the House and a Democratic Vice President elected in the Senate (or the reverse).

If the House has to elect, each state has one vote (with the exception of Washington D.C. which is not a state and has no voting Congressional representation).  The one vote for each state gives smaller states more weight in the vote.

It is technically possible that this too may result in a tie unless a member is absent or abstains.

If there is a tie, the House votes repeatedly until one candidate gets a 26-vote majority.

In the election of 1800, Congress was deadlocked for 35 ballots before the issue was resolved and Thomas Jefferson became the third President.  This is the precedent for multiple votes.

As a result of that deadlock, the Twelfth Amendment (1803) was passed, with some changes to the election procedure.  The Amendment provided that if the House cannot choose a President before March 4 (the first day of a Presidential term at that time), the individual elected Vice President would act as President.

The Twentieth Amendment (1933) changed the date for the commencement of Presidential terms to noon EST on January 20, and permits the Congress to direct, through legislation, “who shall then act as President” if there’s no President-elect or Vice President-elect.  The incoming Congress is the one who gets this job since the Amendment also sets the start date for the new Congress at noon on January 3rd.

Side note: The District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) has a non-voting House delegate, but no Senators.  A Delegate to Congress is a non-voting member of the House of Representatives who is elected from a U.S. territory or the District of Columbia. A non-voting delegate may vote in a House committee of which the delegate is a member, but not in a full House vote.

The Twenty-second Amendment (1947) prevented Presidents from being elected more than twice.  Since the ratification, only three presidents have served two full terms: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. George W. Bush will become the fourth.

Richard Nixon was elected to a second term, but resigned and did not serve his full term.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-third_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The Table of the Presidents shows political parties and term dates of each President in the history of the United States, as well as links to each individual President for his biography.