Independent voices from the TWT Communities

After years of failed attempts to replace the widely maligned No Child Left Behind education law, lawmakers are giving it one more try.
A House committee is expanding its investigation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius after the Cabinet secretary acknowledged she reached out to three more health care companies to raise money to assist in implementing President Obama's health care law.

Not wanting to talk Friday about Benghazi, the IRS or the other scandals engulfing his administration, President Obama surrounded himself with college students and called on House Republicans to fix a problem GOP lawmakers say they have already addressed.

The makeup of the U.S. workforce and labor market has changed dramatically over the past 75 years; federal labor law, not so much. Since 1938, it has been illegal for private-sector companies to give their employees a day off instead of extra pay for working overtime a perk now available only to federal employees.

In a potential replay of last year's stand-off, more than 7 million college students could again be threatened with a doubling of the interest rate on their school loans July 1 if Congress fails to act.

The Obama administration is pushing back against critics who have accused the president of unleashing a "regulatory tsunami" against the business community.

Knowledgeable officials are expecting a regulatory tsunami after the election. By law, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to publish a report each April and October about new regulations that government agencies are considering. OMB failed to publish the April report. The question is why -- what is it hiding?

A group of House Republicans are sharply questioning a lengthy delay by the Obama administration this year in producing a mandatory report that details the government's regulatory agenda and what impact it will have on businesses and the economy.

The top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board violated federal ethics rules by helping investigate a case involving Wal-Mart Stores Inc., despite holding a financial interest in the company, the board's inspector general has found.
On strict party-line votes, a key House panel on Tuesday cleared the final two pieces of the Republican education-reform agenda.

President Obama keeps tossing ideas to curb rising college tuition costs against the wall in the hope that a few will stick and re-energize young voters ahead of the November election, the Republican chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee contends.
President Obama's recess appointments to fill the National Labor Relations Board are operating on "shaky ground" and any rulings they participate in will be "tainted," a key House Republican warned Tuesday.
The House on Wednesday approved a bill designed to rein in the National Labor Relations Board in what GOP critics of the board said was an effort to stop the "rogue" agency from rewriting federal labor law to increase the ability of unions to organize a work site.

The House Education and the Workforce Committee on Wednesday passed another bill designed to curb the power of the National Labor Relations Board.

A key House Republican chairman, frustrated with what he calls a pattern of "union favoritism" by the National Labor Relations Board, said Wednesday he is stepping up efforts to roll back new rules issued by the agency.