Expert Compliance Insights & Tips for Businesses

January 23, 2009

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Lilly Ledbetter Gets Her Revenge on Supreme Court

I'm not sure how the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which zoomed through the Senate last night and is now on its way to the House for reconciliation, will benefit the law's namesake, but it sure must be sweet to pull one over the head of Supreme Court justices. Five of the latter ruled in 2007 that Ms. Ledbetter's claim for pay discrimination against Goodyear, though just, was filed beyond the s...

January 23, 2009

37 view(s)

Proposed Law Extends FMLA Leave to Part-Time Workers

FMLA

Under the existing provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act, employees at a firm with 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius need to have worked 1,250 hours in the previous 12-month period to qualify for 12 weeks of unpaid leave (26 weeks if related to military service). Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), however, has now introduced the Family Fairness Act of 2009 (H.R. 389) t...

January 22, 2009

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Health IT Funds Included in Stimulus Package

ARRA Health IT HIT stimulus plan

The latest version of the economic stimulus legislation includes 187 pages called the Health IT for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, with $20 billion in funding to implement a nationwide system of electronic health records (EHRs). This is something that President Obama spoke of frequently during his campaign, and now it appears to be coming into fruition. The Congressional Budget ...

January 22, 2009

45 view(s)

New I-9 Form: Paperwork Reduction in Action?

I-9 USCIS

The United States Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS), formerly INS until becoming part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has issued a new form I-9, which is used by employers to verify that potential employees have the legal right to work in the United States. The form has been revised to comply with new USCIS regulations concerning which documents can be used for verification...

January 21, 2009

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Bailout Blues: Tax Shelters and Huge Bonu$e$

AIG Bank of America Citigroup Henry Paulsen

The Associated Press recently reported that 600 executives at the banks just bailed out by the U.S. government took in $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses and perks last year. That comes to about $2.6 million per exec, but we all know that not all execs are created equal. Then came this news from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which searched publicly available data filed with the Se...

January 20, 2009

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Many Miss Out on Unemployment Insurance Benefits

unemployed unemployment insurance

Unemployment insurance was commenced in 1935 as a bridge between jobs, but this recession seems to be testing the limits of the system and revealing some inherent cracks. First, not all states run their unemployment programs the same or use the same eligibility standards. The result of this disparity nationwide is that some 37 percent of those laid off fail to qualify for unemployment insuranc...

January 20, 2009

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Chances of Health Care Reform: Check Out This List

health care Health Care Reform insurance companies lobbyists

I found this interesting. It was on some far-left (the author called himself progressive, but he was way off the spectrum) blog, and it's a list of who's received the most in campaign donations from the insurance industry, to wit: John McCain (R-AZ) $2,799,156 Barack Obama (D-IL) $2,184,670 Chris Dodd (D-CT) $2,138,446 Earl Pomeroy (Blue Dog-ND) $1,735,356 Charlie Rangel (D-NY) $1,346,785 Ben ...

January 19, 2009

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Analysis Correct, But Proposed Solution Doesn't Add Up

health care single-payer health care

A group calling itself Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) has issued a press release revealing the failure of Hillarycare as it was resurrected in Massachusetts by former Governor Mitt Romney (who somehow has now seen the light of his transgressions from Republican orthodoxy). Costs are up, services are hard to get, the state is going broke, and what was once free for the indigent n...

January 19, 2009

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USCIS (nee: INS) Finally Receives Funds to Modernize

ICE immigration INS ISCIS

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a $2.6-billion-a-year agency. It is also the paper-jammed and -backlogged agency formerly known as the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). Ask anybody who's dealt with the agency in either incarnation and you'll hear horror stories of standing in blocks-long lines before dawn ...

January 18, 2009

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Did FDR Actually Prolong the Great Depression?

FDR Great Depression

The liberal media are all over themselves anointing Barack Obama as not only the second FDR but also the second Abraham Lincoln (which Obama seems to be vainly promoting himself). Since for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the blogosphere is already debunking FDR (I don't think anyone would take on Lincoln). Some sites, including Motley Fool and Michelle Malkin, have dredg...

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