Tagged: Congressman John Yarmuth

Newly elected state Senator Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, lashes out a Senate Republican Mitch McConnell in a Courier-Journal editorial, saying the GOP leader is only interested in attaining more power.

McGarvey was defending Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth from McConnell biographer John David Dyche, who penned a stinging article comparing to a "yapping toy poodle" among other things. The Dyche article was in response to Yarmuth's cheerleading for a challenge to McConnell in 2014.

What's interesting about McGarvey's piece is that it acknowledges the origins of the Yarmuth-McConnell divide. Both men were once moderate Republican staffers who worked for former U.S. Senator Marlow Cook at the same time.

McGarvey says since then Yarmuth has become more liberal but taken principled stands while McConnell is only interested in accumulating more power.

From The C-J:

Unlike Yarmuth, and their former boss, McConnell’s career has not been forged in ideological fidelity, civil discourse or bipartisan cooperation.

Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth says lawmakers can provide certainty during the fiscal cliff negotiations by extending the Bush era tax cuts to middle-class Americans.

Yarmuth mentioned Republican Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma as an example of finding bipartisan cooperationg. Cole has been in the news this week for breaking with his party leaders and advocating the GOP should make a deal with Democrats to raise taxes on the wealthiest two percent.

Check Yarmuth's floor speech:

Republican advocates of industrial hemp in Kentucky are getting some across the aisle help.

Rep. John Yarmuth, a Louisville Democrat, supports efforts to legalize the plant in Kentucky, his spokesman said. U.S. Senator Rand Paul and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer are the two leading advocates for the move.

They want legalization to take advantage of the many goods that hemp can produce to create jobs.

Kentucky Third District Congressman John Yarmuth told MSNBC Monday that Democrats are willing to extend the Bush-era tax cut to help avoid the "fiscal cliff" but that Republicans are "dreaming" if they push for entitlement reforms before the new year.

President Obama and congressional leaders are in the midst of negotiating a new budget deal to avoid the $607 billion combination of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes set to take effect in January.

Mr. Obama has proposed an immediate extension of the Bush-era tax rates for incomes at $250,000 or less, but GOP lawmakers want the cuts to remain across-the-board. If a deal cannot be reached then all Americans will see their taxes go up, but the president has stressed that Congress can help 98 percent of Americans avoid an increase while his economic team forecasts going over the cliff would hurt the recovery overall.

Yarmuth says Congress can avoid the burden on middle-class Americans if a small number of the House GOP caucus vote with Democrats and accept a tax increase on wealthier Americans.

"That’s a real easy one if Speaker Boehner can deliver maybe 30 or 35 votes. I’d think we’d be happy to pass that and we’d avert that huge tax increase at the beginning of next year," he says. "And then we can extend the spending limits and delay the across the board cuts until a more comprehensive, balanced approach is negotiated."