Tar Heel Tally

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Tar Heel Tally

HOUSE

Estate taxes : Voting 225 for and 200 against, the House on Dec. 3 passed a bill (HR 4154) to permanently extend the estate tax at a top rate of 45 percent and with provisions to limit it to individual estates above $3.5 million and joint estates above $7 million. Initially, the bill would exclude more than 99 percent of estates from taxation, including nearly all family-owned small businesses and farms. But that figure would gradually diminish because the exemption levels are not indexed for inflation. The bill's cost of nearly $237 billion over 10 years would be added to the national debt.

Without this bill, the estate tax would disappear next year then return in 2011 at pre-2001 levels that entail a top rate of 55 percent and a $1million exclusion. The bill sets current market prices, rather than the original purchase price, as the basis for computing capital gains on inherited assets.

Tar Heel Tally

HOUSE

New financial rules: Voting 223 for and 202 against, the House on Friday passed a bill (HR 4173) to increase federal regulation of the financial services industry, establish an independent agency to protect financial consumers and provide congressional review of Federal Reserve policies. The bill awaits Senate action.

The new Consumer Financial Protection Agency would protect consumers against abusive home-lending and credit card practices but is barred from regulating auto dealerships and community banks.

Tar Heel Tally

House

Democrats' health bill: Voting 220 for and 215 against, the House on Saturday passed a bill (HR 3962) that would provide affordable medical insurance to about 36 million uncovered U.S. residents while overhauling insurance-industry practices in ways that benefit the sick, the well, the uninsured and the insured. The bill, which awaits Senate action, would extend coverage to about 96 percent of the non-elderly population by 2019 while not adding to the national debt.

The bill expands Medicaid to cover an additional 15 million people, requires employers with payrolls above $500,000 to provide insurance for their workers and establishes an exchange for delivering coverage to individuals who do not receive insurance at work or through Medicaid or Medicare. The exchange, or marketplace, would offer private policies alongside a government-run "public option" and would provide subsidies to help low- and middle-income individuals meet premium costs. The public option, a Medicare-style plan in which the

Tar Heel Tally

HOUSE

2010-2014 FEDERAL BUDGET: Voting 233 for and 193 against, the House on April 29 adopted the conference report on a five-year Democratic budget (S Con Res 13) that for 2010 projects $3.4trillion in spending, a $1.2trillion deficit, $284billion in interest payments on federal debt, and $130billion for war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The budget sets "reconciliation" rules allowing President Obama's health-care and student-loan initiatives to pass the Senate with 51 votes if agreements with Republicans are not reached by Oct. 15. The fiscal plan puts caps on discretionary spending, and applies pay-as-you-go rules to entitlement-spending increases and new tax cuts.

Tar Heel Tally

Here's how area senators voted in the week ending Friday. The House was in recess.

U.S. Senate

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: Voting 68 for and 31 against, the Senate on Thursday confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals as the 111th justice of the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, 54, fills the seat left vacant when Justice David H. Souter retired in June.