GOP USA MIDDAY REPORT 09/17/2013

Mentally ill shooter not stripped of security clearance The former Navy reservist who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard had been hearing voices and was being treated for mental illness in the weeks before the shooting rampage, but was not stripped of his security clearance, officials said Tuesday.

Navy Yard shooter had shotgun, handguns, not AR-15 Law enforcement officials say the Navy contractor identified as the gunman in the deadly shootings at the Washington Navy Yard used a shotgun and two handguns, but not an AR-15 assault rifle, as officials previously said.

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Social Security fix would require big tax increase Preserving Social Security for the next 75 years without reducing any projected benefits would require an immediate and permanent 3.4 percent payroll tax increase, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday in a new report looking at long-term budget challenges that shows there are no easy options left.

The poor: Reagan vs. Obama I think the poor need another Reagan in the White House. The income of black heads-of-households dropped by 10.9 percent from June 2009 to June 2013. This decline in black income is more than double the overall 4.4 percent drop nationally in real, adjusted for inflation, median household income during the same four years of alleged "recovery."

No longer a nation of homeowners? Sam Lustgarten could be one of the growing number of "career renters" real estate companies think Millennials will become -- at least in the near term.

Congress looks to relax mandatory prison terms WASHINGTON - Every weekend, Cindy Martinson treks from her home in Mason City, Iowa, about 160 miles roundtrip to Waseca, Minn. She visits the federal prison there, where her daughter Mandy Martinson, a first-time offender, is in the middle of 15-year prison sentence.