Bren

Miller

Yea

Me coming back here. 

I get what they were trying to do with that ad, but JHC it's awful lmao. 

Cool. On that note I will accept then.

The Twitter account of Minnesota Senator Margaret Northrup

Ooof. I will accept if necessary. I do work quite a bit and am quite busy, just a head up. 

21 hours ago, Sweet Daddy said:

Approved, welcome back!

Thank you!! Can I get masked  

2 hours ago, Nick said:

And you didn't text me..?!

Omg, sorry!! 

Senator Margaret Northrup 

Name: Margaret Northrup (Nee McCallister)

Date of Birth: June 15, 1968 (42 years old)

Place of Birth: Saint Paul, Minnesota

Place of Residence: Saint Paul, Minnesota

Religious Affiliation: Lutheran ELCA 

Political Affiliation: Democratic Party

Family Information:

• Father: John McCallister (b. 1937, m. 1962)

• Mother: Louise McCallister (b. 1940 m. 1962)

• Brother: Lawrence McCallister (b. 1963)

• Sister: Michelle Bell (Nee McCallister) (b. 1967)

• Spouse: Jameson Northrup (b. 1965, m.1997)

• Son: John Northrup (b. 1998)

Educational Information:

• Undergraduate: The University of Minnesota Twin-Cities (B.A in Business Administration) 1986-1990

• Graduate: University of Chicago (M.B.A) 1990-1993

Occupational Information:

• Board Member, McCallister Real Estate Firm (1994-2004)

• CFO, McCallister Real Estate Firm (1998-2004)

• Mayor, St. Paul Minnesota (2005-2007)

• United States Senator, Minnesota Class 1 (2007-Present)

Passed Senate

Quote

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE

 

Mr. Krol of Georgia, for himself, Mr. Williams of Illinois, and others, hereby introduces

---

A RESOLUTION 

 

To avoid a government shutdown and ensure all government functions remain open, and for other purposes:

 

Be it enacted by the United States Congress assembled

 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE

 

This Act may be cited as the "Second FY 2014 Continuing Resolution"

 

SECTION 2. CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS

 

Spending shall be authorized by the United States Congress at FY 2013 spending levels through September 30th, 2014.

 

passed senate 60-39 

The Senate shall convene to debate the following legislation

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE

Q3 2013

Senator CLAYBORNE, for himself, introduces

A BILL

To enact a budget for Fiscal Year 2014, deliver approximately $1.5 trillion in savings over ten years by rationalising and reforming government, invest in America's future prosperity and security, and for other purposes.

Section 1: Short Title

This bill may be referred to as the "FY 2014 Budget."
 

Section 2: Revenue

  Quote

 

In billions

Income Taxes   $1,310

Corporate Taxes  $268

Social Security Payroll Tax  $677

Medicare Payroll Tax  $209

Other payroll taxes $66

Excise taxes $84

Estate taxes $17

Tariffs $33

Interest on holdings $77

Effects of this act: $100 (will increase revenue by approximately $100 billion a year for the next 3 fiscal years)

All others $25

TOTAL  $2866

 

Section 3: Mandatory Spending

  Quote

 

In billions

Social Security $800

Medicare $490

Medicaid $259

All other mandatory programs $508

Interest on Debt $221

TOTAL $2278

 

Section 4: Discretionary Spending

  Quote

 

(In billions)

DoD: $526
Intelligence budget: $55
HHS: $82.3
Education: $71.6
VA: $63.5
DHS: $41.5
Energy: $40
HUD: $39
Justice: $28.7
Commerce: $12.4
Labor: $12.6
Treasury: $14.1
Transportation: $28.5
Interior: $12.7
Agriculture: $27.1
State and Foreign Aid: $55.1
NASA: $20.7
Social Security Administration: $10.1
Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works: $10.5
EPA: $11.2
NSF: $10.5
Corporation for National and Community Service: $1.1
Other spending: $22.5

The main functions for this increased spending shall be in science and research and infrastructure, and reversing the cuts of sequestration. 

 

Section 5. Legislative Reforms. 

  Quote

 

Enacts the Congressional Printing Efficiency Act
http://virtualgovernment.us/topic/2241-congressional-printing-efficiency-act/

Enacts the Fiscal Efficiency Act of 2013
http://virtualgovernment.us/topic/2221-fiscal-efficiency-act-of-2013/

Enacts the Natural Disaster Fairness in Contracting Act of 2013
http://virtualgovernment.us/topic/2083-natural-disaster fairness-in-contracting-act-of-2013/

Enacts No Government No Pay Act
http://virtualgovernment.us/topic/2087-no-government-no-pay-act/

Enacts the Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings Act of 2013
http://virtualgovernment.us/topic/2306-currency-optimization-innovation-and-national-savings-act-of-2013/

Enacts the REDUCE Act, as passed by committee

http://virtualgovernment.us/topic/2550-debate-for-reduce-government-act-of-2013/

All money saved under the Legislative Reforms, General Government Reforms, and Healthcare and Mandatory Spending Reforms shall be earmarked towards deficit reduction.

 

SECTION 6. GENERAL GOVERNMENT REFORMS. ($1.002 to $1.343 trillion saved over ten years.)

  Quote

 

Contracting Reforms - $622.5 to 912.5 billion saved

1. Non-DoD governmentwide contracting shall be capped at 85% of current levels, with a focus on eliminating inefficient or noncompetitive contracts, eliminating contracts that could be efficiently and successfully handled in-house, and merging contracts that serve the same purpose but for different agencies. The GSA shall be in charge of promulgating needed regulations and determining where the cuts fall. This shall save $72.5 billion over ten years.
2. DoD contracting shall be capped at 85% of current levels, with a focus on eliminating inefficient or noncompetitive contracts, eliminating contracts that could be efficiently and successfully handled in-house, and merging contracts that serve the same purpose but for different agencies. The Defense Contract Audit Agency shall be in charge of promulgating needed regulations and determining where the cuts fall. This shall save $300 billion over ten years.

3. To reduce federal contracting and procurement expenditures via the encouragement of competition and the reduction of waste, measures estimated to save between $250 billion and $540 billion over ten years, the following ten-point plan shall be implemented governmentwide wherever possible:
(a) The use of accurate-needs estimates, to predict required operational capacity and provide suppliers accurate demand information, to enable better negotiating positions;
(b) The tying of every purchase requirement to an identified need;
(с) Buying commercial and readily-available products, as opposed to customised ones, wherever possible;
(d) The implementation of strategic sourcing strategies, pooling strategies, and knowledge sharing communities (to share contracting knowledge and experience across federal agencies), to coordinate purchases across offices and determine the best way to purchase goods on an ongoing basis;
(e) Measures to promote contract competitiveness, such as the breaking down of contracts into multiple contracts where consolidation combines distinct markets, the prohibition of contracts with past performance requirements only past suppliers can fulfil, and the providing of adequate time to respond to contract requests;
(f) Increasing awareness of contract bidders and cost structures on the part of negotiators to improve negotiating positions, assisted by a centralisation of contract analysis and negotiation expertise;
(g) The elimination of unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles for bidders, and the automaton and standardisation of processes wherever possible;
(h) Improved and better coordinated procedures for supplier relationship management, including incentives for successful contract completion and the storage of contract details for long-term strategy improvement;
(i) The joint management of costs between purchaser and supplier, to reduce overall costs across government by reducing costs throughout the supply chain; and,
(j) Better enforcement of contract compliance and cost-saving strategies, including via easily accessible libraries of key contracts and the use of contract compliance metrics.

Administrative Reforms - $198.3 to 248.3 billion made

4. Guidelines for printing shall be made mandatory within civilian government departments, with the aim of reducing unnecessary printing, saving $5 billion over ten years.
5. The Obama administration’s 2010 plan for reforming information technology shall be implemented in full, including closing all 800 targeted data centres, saving $150 to $200 billion over ten years.

6. The total travel budget for federal government civilian agencies shall be reduced by 75%, the distribution of cuts to be determined in consultation with the GAO and GSA, saving $43.3 billion over ten years.

Revenue Collection Strategies - $113.95 billion over ten years

7. Smithsonian buildings may be rented by the public for events, a privilege currently only available to corporate donors. This reform will raise an estimated $450 million in revenue over ten years.

8. The federal government shall be more aggressive in collecting the estimated $65 billion in unpaid federal fines, with authorisation to use tools such as denial of federal contracts, grants, leases, loans, and tax deductions; refusal to waive or lower fines simply for refusing an appeal; deduction from tax returns; and reductions being limited only to those making good faith progress in compliance, with complete waivers of fines being prohibited. The target should be 50% of fines being collected over ten years, collecting $32.5 billion over ten years.

9. An additional $30 billion shall be provided to the IRS over the next ten years, for Enforcement and Operations Support, to bring in $80 billion over ten years.

10. The Internal Revenue Service shall collect unpaid taxes from federal employees, raising approximately $1 billion.

Infrastructure Spending Reforms - $60.9 billion saved over ten years

11. Airport improvement grant money shall no longer be used on general aviation-dominated airports, saving $10.9 billion over ten years.

12. The "437-Day Plan", eliminating duplicate federal regulatory approvals when state law or rules meet or exceed federal standard and allowing concurrent approval processes for various federal infrastructure projects rather than consecutive approvals, shall be implemented for the approval of transportation projects, saving $50 billion over ten years.

Government Assets - $38.1 billion over ten years

13. 300 tons of excess highly enriched uranium held by the US government shall be downblended into low enriched uranium, and then sold to nuclear power facilities, saving $23 billion over ten years.

14. Cargo preference for US government freight being shipped abroad is eliminated, saving $6.1 billion over ten years.

15. The Federal Communication Commission's authority to auction licences to use the radio spectrum is permanently extended, raising $9 billion over ten years.

 

 

 

SECTION 7. HEALTHCARE AND MANDATORY SPENDING REFORMS. ($284.26 billion saved)

  Quote

 

Program Integrity - $120.75 billion saved

1. For every dollar invested in program integrity activities relating to CHIP, Medicare, and Medicaid, $1.55 is saved or averted. An additional $25 billion is hereby invested in such activities under DHHS, with net savings of $38.75 billion over ten years.

2. Continuing Disability Reviews save approximately $10 for each dollar invested, and SSI redeterminations save approximately $8 for each dollar invested, by identifying fraudsters and no-longer eligible recipients and preserving the integrity of the program for real beneficiaries. An additional $5 billion shall be invested in the former, saving $50 billion over ten years, and an additional $4 billion in the latter, saving $32 billion over ten years.

Medicare Waste and Fraud Prevention - $29.35 billion saved

3. To recover erroneous payments made under Medicare Advantage, the current CMS auditing of a random sample of plans' records to validate the accuracy of adjusted payments, based on beneficiaries' documented health conditions (validation audits), shall be used to extrapolate a universal error rate for the plan, assisting anti-fraud measures and recuperating an estimated $6.65 billion over ten years.

4. Scrutiny shall be increased of higher-risk banking arrangements, such as sweep accounts (accounts that automatically transfer funds to separate accounts, which have been linked to fraudulent providers), for Medicare payments, to increase fraud detection abilities. Unknown savings.

5. Civil monetary penalties may be levied on Medicare providers who do not update enrollment information, and thus allow fraud and waste, to raise $100 million in penalties and save an unknown amount in fraud.

6. The feasibility of using universal product numbers (UPNs) to improve payment accuracy in Medicare shall be studied, a budget neutral pilot to be authorised if the study is promising.

7. Prepayment review shall be required for all power wheelchairs under Medicare, to reduce the excessive fraud rate for that product, saving $300 million over ten years.

8. High-volume purchases of durable medical equipment under Medicare shall be conducted under a regime of competitive bidding in areas with several suppliers, saving $2 billion over ten years.

9. Rental payments for home oxygen equipment under Medicare shall be limited to 13 months, where rental support shall be replaced with a purchase, to eliminate cases where renting the equipment is more expensive than buying it, with all home oxygen equipment rentals to take place under a rent-to-buy agreement. This shall save $6 billion over ten years.

10. Adjustments made under the PPACA to reform Medicare payments to home health providers shall be brought forward, productivity adjustments beginning in 2013 and directing the Department of Health and Human Services to phase in rebasing the home health prospective payment system by 2015 instead of 2017, saving $9 billion over ten years.

11. Medicare administrators shall implement and enforce policies, such as a cap on allowed chiropractic claims, to prevent payments for maintenance and/or medically-unnecessary chiropractic therapies, saving $2 billion over ten years.

12. Medicare administrators shall improve data processes to ensure medical equipment is not delivered to the incorrect facility for the patient’s current stage in care, saving $300 million over ten years.

13. The following reforms shall be implemented to Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations, to save $3 billion over ten years:

(i). The Secretary shall be required to determine the geographic scope of contracts, including
overlapping contracts in local, regional, or national areas when appropriate, increasing competition and eliminating overhead;

(ii). Eliminating conflicts of interest between beneficiary protection and quality improvement activities which may arise when a single contractor is responsible for building relationships with providers to improve quality while also functioning as the entity charged by Medicare to hold providers accountable for failures in the delivery of care to beneficiaries;

(iii) Expanding the pool of contractors eligible for QIO work, which will increase competition, and ensure that beneficiaries and providers are served effectively by contractors with specific skills; and,

(iv) Extending the QIO contract length from three years to up to five years, and aligning QIO contract terminations with Federal Acquisition Regulations to improve efficiency and increase the Secretary's flexibility in administering these contracts.

Cutting Medicaid Waste and Administrative Costs - $108.22 billion saved

14. Medicaid's position as a payer of last resort shall be strengthened by removing exceptions to the requirement that State Medicaid agencies reject medical claims when another entity is legally liable to pay the claim, and by allowing Medicaid to recover costs from beneficiary liability settlements, saving $1.75 billion over ten years.

15. States shall be required to track high prescribers and utilizers of prescription drugs in Medicaid, to identify waste and abuse, saving $3.75 billion over ten years.

16. Medicaid administrative payments shall be based on the level of matching payments for Medicaid administration payments provided to states pre-TANF establishment, payments per enrollee to be no greater than they were in that last year before TANF's establishment. Payments shall grow by 5% per year per enrollee. This shall save $58.9 billion over ten years.

17. In approving Medicaid demonstration waivers, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall implement policies and regulations to ensure that the budget neutrality requirement represents actual benchmark rates. This shall save an estimated $43.82 billion over ten years.

Reducing Drug Costs - $34.94 billion saved

18. Innovator brand biologic manufacturers shall have six years exclusivity, as opposed to the current twelve, and shall not be able to renew the exclusivity period by "evergreening" the products with minor improvements that do not introduce new intellectual property considerations. This shall reduce federal drug purchasing costs by $2.9 billion over ten years.

19. "Pay-for-delay" agreements, whereby a generic manufacturer is paid to not produce generics once legal, are outlawed, saving $9.5 billion in drug purchasing costs over ten years.

20. The Office of Personnel Management shall be given authority to streamline pharmacy benefit contracting within the Federal Employees' Health Benefits program and leverage enrollees' purchasing power to reduce costs and obtain greater value for enrollees, saving $1.9 billion over ten years.
21. The Department of Veterans Affairs shall implement a plan to to re-label and dispense certain inpatient medications for outpatient use, allowing discharged veterans to keep medications, reducing waste and saving $40 million over ten years.

22. For each drug patent submitted to the FDA volume titled Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (which protects such drugs from generic versions), the FDA shall require manufacturers to submit patent information on a claim-by-claim basis, to ensure listed drugs are actually approved for patent protections. Currently, drug manufacturers may submit drugs to the Volume not actually covered under a specific patent, giving them monopolies over drugs they do not have patents over. This reform shall apply to existing drugs within the Volume. This reform will save $6 billion over ten years by reducing drug expenditures.

23. Drug patents submitted after an application for generic manufacturing has been made shall no longer be entitled to an automatic 30-month stay on the manufacture of generic variants. Instead, they shall have 45 days to apply for a court injunction on generic manufacture; if said injunction is accepted, FDA generic manufacture approval shall be limited and subject to standard review process. If not, they shall lose all right to challenge the generic manufacture in patent courts. This shall save $1 billion over ten years by reducing drug expenditures.
24. The Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs shall cooperate in consolidating their procurement offices, developing a joint clinically based formulary, establishing joint mail-order services, and providing procedures for purchasing non-formulary drugs. This will save $2.4 billion over ten years.

25. The flat rebate paid by drug manufacturers for Medicaid prescription drugs shall be increased from 15.1% to 20%, reducing mandatory Medicaid spending by $11.2 billion over ten years.

 

 

SECTION 8. SPENDING CUTS
 

  Quote

 

1) Effective 1 October 2014, the average guarantee fee that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac assess on loans they include in their MBSs shall be increased from 50 basis points to 60 basis points. The reduction scheduled for 1 October 2021 is hereby rescinded.

This proposal would reduce net Federal spending over the period of 2015-2023 by $19 billion.

Passed Senate

Quote

The Senate shall convene to debate the following legislation

 

Mr. McKnight proposes for himself and others,

 

A BILL

 

To extend the Pay-As-You-Go Act till 2020

 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

 

SECTION 1: SHORT TITLE

This Act may be cited as the “Pay-As-You-Go Act Extension"

 

SECTION 2: Amendment

  Section 252 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 <<NOTE: 2 USC 902.>> is amended-- (1) by striking subsections (a) and (b) and inserting the following: ``

(a) Purpose.--The purpose of this section is to assure that any legislation enacted before October 1, 2014, affecting direct spending or receipts that increases the deficit will trigger an offsetting sequestration. ``

(b) Sequestration.-- ``(1) Timing.--Not later than 15 calendar days after the date Congress adjourns to end a session and on the same day as a sequestration (if any) under section 251 or 253, there shall be a sequestration to offset the amount of any net deficit increase caused by all direct spending and receipts legislation enacted before October 1, 2005, as calculated under paragraph (2). ``(2) Calculation of deficit increase.--OMB shall calculate the amount of deficit increase or decrease by adding--

 

SECTION 3. SEQUESTRATION

 

1) The budget sequestration imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 shall be lifted and delayed its continuation shall not occur until October 1, 2014

 

SECTION 4: ENACTMENT

The provisions of this act will take effect after it's immediate constitutional passing

 

Yes!!! 

I'm working on the Northam campaign until election day... so activity may be slightly spotty until then. 

Me when I see the genpop telegram chat

Life Itself - Glass Animals

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