Why does Scottdemort hate poor voters?

I noted yesterday that Rick Scott returned $2.4 billion in high speed rail money to the federal government, which would halt a planned project for an intercity link between Tampa and Orlando. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has dealt with this before with respect to Ohio and Wisconsin (there are those two states again), and he simply redistributed the money to states who wanted it. However, in this case, Florida Congressional leaders, Democrats and Republicans, are scheming to get the deal done anyway.

The White House announced last night a series of changes to travel and remittance policies with Cuba, that will allow more visitation and transfer of funds to the island 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

Around 11am et, the Senate will begin a complicated series of votes on the small business bill. What’s their deal? They actually have to do with some reporting requirements passed in the Affordable Care Act. As a pay-for in the bill, the ACA mandated 1099 reporting for all businesses on certain transactions over $600. The idea here is that companies routinely don’t report such purchases, and summarily don’t pay taxes on them. So basically, the amendment from Johanns eliminates this requirement, and allows businesses to freely evade taxes again. The Nelson amendment would exempt small businesses with less than 25 workers from the requirement, and raise the threshold on transactions to $5,000.

The only bill on the horizon that might have a positive economic impact is the small business loan bill. Yesterday, the Senate adjourned for a month, but Reid filed for cloture on the bill, and Senators hope to build support over the recess.

On Tuesday, BP announced that they would be taking a $10 billion deduction on their US taxes because of losses stemming from the blown out oil well and expenses associated with the subsequent clean-up and compensation payments to Gulf businesses. Florida Senator Bill Nelson responded on Wednesday, writing a letter to the Senate Finance Committee, demanding an investigation into BP’s planned write-off.

When plans were first being disclosed last week for the installation of the new cap on the blown out BP oil well gushing beneath the Gulf of Mexico, the explanation was that the new cap and its associated piping system would be dedicated to catching all of the oil flowing from the well. Sometime on Tuesday, the story changed to a discussion of BP slowly closing all of the valves on the piping system in an attempt to stop the flow of oil rather than catch the flowing oil. Late Tuesday night, however, it was announced that BP’s test of closing the valves was abruptly halted before it began. The key determinant of whether the flow can be stopped from above with a series of valves appears to be whether the well bore itself can withstand the pressure that is needed to stop the oil flow.

The federal government and many local agencies have been working with BP to limit access to information and scientific analysis of the oil spill in the Gulf. The time has come to place the entire response in the hands of an independent commission with access to BP and government resources to implement its response.

What are the long-term solutions to the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico?

By the end of this week, we should know whether Congress will make a play to end the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy on gay service members, or whether they’ll allow continued discrimination in our nation’s armed forces.