Employees Duped by Employer

In the article "Supreme Court says retiree health benefits can expire," Richard Wolf talks about a Supreme Court ruling on Monday that ruled that if a contract is not clear about the duration of benefits for retirees, the company can use their own discretion, and in this instance terminate life insurance benefits for former workers.  The judges found it odd that the contract that the company had with the employees was not clear.  However, the judges also warned that lower courts may interpret similar situations by what is intended by contracts, unlike the Supreme Court.

The main effect of this ruling is that if a contract gives a benefit to a retiree, that does not mean the benefit lasts for life unless explicitly stated. This will hopefully cause employers to be more specific in future contracts, and maybe employees will pay closer to contracts that they sign. However, this court ruling will probably not have as large of an effect as most Supreme Court cases.

I feel bad for the employees who are stripped of their life insurance, since for the rest of their life they are still technically retirees of that company. The employees were told by their employer that they had lifetime life insurance, but they probably did not read through the contract and just trusted their employers.

Obama Doesn't Mention Debt

In the article titled "What Obama didn't say," Ed Henry discusses how President Obama didn't make any mention of the national debt in his 2015 State of the Union Address.  He also made no mention of reforming entitlements like Social Security and Medicare even though Medicare is a large source of debt. Obama has increased the national debt by $7.6 trillion in the last 6 years, and it appears that this will continue to rise. Even though the government has more revenue than ever before ($3 trillion last year), it continues to spend more than it brings in.

With the omission of the national debt, it is clear that Obama will not make any pushes towards lowering the number in the next couple years. Since this cannot be avoided forever, it will hopefully be the next president who makes steps towards lessening the debt, so we can avoid paying large amounts of loan interest to foreign countries.

This is surprising that the national debt, which seems like one of the biggest issues facing this country, was omitted from the State of the Union. The Keystone Pipeline also wasn't mentioned by name, but that doesn't surprise me since Obama has already made his position clear and there have been extensive debates on it already.

Republicans Ready to Work

In the article titled "Republicans Say They'll Act Fast to Push Agenda," author Carl Hulse discusses how the new Republican-controlled Senate is planning to take action early on several key issues including the Keystone XL pipeline, health care, and immigration.  Senator John Thune said, “We have sort of laid down the marker, and we need to follow through.”  The vote on the pipeline is scheduled to take place on Thursday, following a Senate Energy Committee hearing on Wednesday.  Republicans are also hoping to change the definition of a full-time worker from 40 hours to 30 hours to reduce the number of people on the health care plan.

This is the first time in 8 years that Republicans have controlled both the House and Senate, so it will be interesting to see if they are able to pass more laws and help lower the nation's debt. However, they will still need a 2/3 majority to override a veto from President Obama.

I think it will be beneficial for the country to have a Republican-controlled Congress to hopefully reverse our growing debt.  I also enjoyed seeing a quote from John Thune in the second paragraph of the article, and I will be looking for more quotes by him in the future.