{"id":1280,"date":"2012-07-29T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/advocacy\/inside208\/post\/Congress-to-begin-summer-break.aspx"},"modified":"2012-07-29T09:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T09:05:00","slug":"congress-to-begin-summer-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2012\/07\/29\/congress-to-begin-summer-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress to begin summer break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Congress begins their annual August break, the opportunity presents itself for local officials to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mml.org\/advocacy\/federal\/federal-midelegation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">speak with their federal representatives <\/a>about a number of different issues. This includes not only local matters, but others that have the potential to impact communities in Michigan and around our country for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Of course I&#8217;m talking about the federal deficit and the pressure on Congress and the President to put together a compromise by the end of the year or be faced with $600 billion in automatic cuts and tax increases.&nbsp;As I&#8217;ve noted before this is due to the debt ceiling deal struck in 2011.&nbsp; Programs cuts would occur across the board and the most visible of tax increases would come from ending the so-called &#8220;Bush tax cuts&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally,&nbsp;this has turned into one of the larger election year issues.&nbsp; While work continues on a overall 2013 budget, Congressional Republicans look to exempt defense spending from the automatic cuts and Democrats seek to end tax cuts for those Americans making $250,000 or more.&nbsp; And right now, they seek to blame each of other for a unwillingness to compromise.<\/p>\n<p>There will be more and more in the media about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mml.org\/advocacy\/inside208\/post\/Fiscal-Cliff-on-the-horizon.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;fiscal cliff&#8221; or &#8220;taxmageddon<\/a>&#8221; over the coming days, weeks, and months.&nbsp; And while there is no doubt from all quarters that the issue of the nation&#8217;s deficit must be addressed, it is important to note that previous solutions have included a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases. Without such a mix again, cuts will occur to&nbsp;every federal program that helps to improve quality of life in our communities.<\/p>\n<p>As such, the MML Board has adopted a resolution asking Congress and the President to take a balanced approach to the matter. And the League urges this topic to be a part of the conversation with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mml.org\/advocacy\/federal\/federal-midelegation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">your congressional representatives <\/a>as you meet with them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Arnold Weinfeld is Director of Strategic Initiatives and Federal Affairs for the Michigan Municipal League. He can be reached at 517-908-0304 or by<a href=\"mailto:aweinfeld@mml.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> e-mail.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Congress begins their annual August break, the opportunity presents itself for local officials to speak with their federal representatives about a number of different issues. This includes not only local matters, but others that have the potential to impact communities in Michigan and around our country for years to  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,22,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-federal","category-legislative-link-articles","category-public-policy","mml-onemagnify-plugin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Congress to begin summer break - Inside 208<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mml.org\/inside208\/2012\/07\/29\/congress-to-begin-summer-break\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Congress to begin summer break - Inside 208\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Congress begins their annual August break, the opportunity presents itself for local officials to speak with their federal representatives about a number of different issues. 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