As House Approves Tax Bill, Senate Dems Look To Reconcile
Senate Democrats are inching toward including an energy tax plan as part of budget legislation to overcome a Republican-led obstacle there, as the House yesterday reaffirmed its support of repealing billions of dollars in incentives for oil and gas companies in a stand-alone measure.
While House Democrats have pushed through similar proposals this Congress with majority support, Senate Democrats have been unable to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.
Senate Democrats have mulled including an energy tax plan that repeals oil and gas company incentives to pay for extending and expanding renewable energy and efficiency incentives as part of a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill.
White House Threatens Veto Of Mortgage Reform Measure
The White House yesterday threatened to veto a Senate Democratic housing stimulus package, saying it would cost too much and rewrite bankruptcy rules that would undermine current mortgages.
In a Statement of Administration Policy [PDF], the Bush administration listed many items that it objected to in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill of direct aid and consumer-friendly initiatives designed to help homeowners who cannot afford to pay their mortgages because they took predatory loans. It said many of the provisions are "unnecessary, costly, and counterproductive."
The White House opposed a provision sponsored by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would allow a judge to change the terms of a primary mortgage that has entered into foreclosure. Durbin reworked his provision to pick up support, such as credit union lobbying groups that received a carve-out for members that made interest-only loans for those with good credit histories.
Ever wonder how low-salaried Hill staffers survive in Washington, one of the more expensive cities on the East Coast?
The answer is supplements, supplements, supplements, in the form of "freelancing" campaign work for their bosses or acting as corporate consultants. A new Web site called LegiStorm has compiled the personal financial disclosure forms of staffers required to file them -- those with salaries higher than $111,675 in 2007. Per the site, about 15 percent of the 16,000 congressional aides fit the bill.
Obama-McCain Squabble Injected Into Army Readiness Hearing
A controversial anecdote relayed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in last week's Texas debate wended its way into a Senate Armed Forces hearing on Army readiness today.
Obama claimed that he'd "heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon" that was sent to Afghanistan grossly undermanned and underequipped. "They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," Obama said during Thursday night's debate.
Lindsey Graham, who lately has been stumping hard for Republican John McCain, relayed the story to Army Secretary Peter Geren and Army Chief of Staff William Casey during the hearing. "Has Sen. Obama talked to you or anyone in the department about this?" the South Carolina Republican asked.
"I have not discussed this with Sen. Obama," Geren replied, before handing the baton to Casey.
"As we looked into this, the best we could tell was this incident occurred back in 2003 and 2004," Casey said. "We talked to the brigade commander, looked at readiness reports. The brigade was manned over 100 percent and stayed 100 percent manned when they were there."
A fight over whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can reject federal funds for his presidential campaign has thrown new attention on a stalemate hamstringing the Federal Election Commission and given unexpected attention to the role of McCain's possible election opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in that impasse.
The situation presents problems for both McCain, whom Democrats are accusing of defying the same campaign finance regulations he has championed, and Obama, who is seeing a hold he placed on an FEC nominee used in a bid to undermine his claims of working in a bipartisan manner.
McCain's problem, meanwhile, is generating calls for the White House or Senate Democrats to blink in their battle over FEC nominees.
"When you talk about the FEC, people's eyes glaze over.... But there will be increasing public pressure to do something as more and more people understand" the situation, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Her group called Friday for Republicans to compromise to end the standoff.
After a week away from Washington, lawmakers return to the Capitol today looking to legislation they hope will address the economy, an issue increasingly on their own and their constituents' minds. But members also have to contend with intense negotiations over the farm bill, rewriting the nation's intelligence laws and looking for troop withdrawals in Iraq.
House Democrats this week will renew a floor fight over paying for billions of dollars in renewable energy and efficiency tax breaks by repealing incentives for oil and gas companies. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats will attempt to bring up a housing stimulus package of direct aid and consumer-friendly initiatives to help the struggling industry, though they first want to finish work on an Indian health care bill and revisit Iraq war legislation.
See CongressDaily's comprehensive preview of the Hill's post-recess agenda here.
Rep. Rick Renzi, R- Ariz., was indicted on federal charges of extortion, wire fraud and money laundering stemming from an investigation of land deals in his home state and an alleged payment in return for the lawmaker's influence, the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona said today.
The 26-page indictment [PDF] accused Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to sell land that buyers could swap for federal property. The sale netted $4.5 million for one of the associates, the government said. The FBI conducted a raid in April on a business owned by Renzi's wife, leading to his decision to step down from the Intelligence, Natural Resources and Financial Services committees. Renzi previously announced he would not run for another term and would work to clear his name.
But stepping down next January isn't soon enough for the House Republican leadership. In a statement issued this afternoon, Minority Leader John Boehner urged Renzi to resign.
Bipartisan Lawmakers To Participate In 'Congress Debates'
The House Democratic Caucus and the House Republican Conference, in cooperation with the Democratic Leadership Council and the Congressional Institute, announced today that they will host the first in a series of debates between bipartisan groups of lawmakers on Monday.
The kickoff of "Congress Debates" will take place at the Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University. The topic will be the U.S. economy; according to the press release, the debates are meant "to foster bipartisan debate and discussion of the most important issues facing the country."
In the lineup for Monday's crossfire include: Reps. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.; Adam Putnam, R-Fla.; Robert Andrews, D-N.J.; Eric Cantor, R-Va.; Artur Davis, D-Ala.; Steve Israel, D-N.Y.; Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.; and Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The debate will be moderated by Atlantic Media Political Director Ronald Brownstein.
Delegation Led By Biden Safe After Emergency Landing In Afghanistan
Sens. Joseph Biden, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel are safe and unharmed after the helicopter transporting them made an emergency landing in Afghanistan.
"The helicopters transporting the Senate delegation in Afghanistan made an unscheduled landing this morning due to a snowstorm. There were no injuries and all members of the traveling party were safely transported to their destination at Bagram Air Base," said Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander.
Biden is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which Kerry and Hagel also sit. The three are in the region visiting Afghanistan, India, Turkey and Pakistan.
Biden is due to report on his trip before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Monday.
CRS: Military Can Cover War Costs Longer Than Expected
The Pentagon has several budgetary options at its disposal to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan well into August -- weeks longer than Defense Department officials have estimated, according to the latest Congressional Research Service report on war costs. Congress already has approved $70 billion to pay for the overseas military operations and another $16.8 billion to buy new mine-resistant vehicles in FY08, but senior Pentagon officials have warned they need another $102.5 billion for the wars before accounts dry up early this summer.
"Although CRS estimates also suggest that the Army's current funding will be exhausted by... early July 2008, DOD could extend that time line by one to two months -- or until mid-to-late August 2008 if necessary by using available authority to transfer additional funds to the Army," according to the Feb. 8 CRS report.
The military could make use of $7.7 billion in general transfer authority in its base FY08 budget and the $70 billion supplemental to pay for operations for an additional four weeks, the report said. Pentagon planners could also tap into $2.1 billion in excess balances in working capital funds -- umbrella accounts to pay for commercial and industrial activities -- to cover another week of operations.
Military Poll: Armed Forces -- And U.S. -- Highly Vulnerable
Is the military broken?
That is a question the Pentagon and Washington have been asking since late 2003, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeldinadvertently signaled that the country was in for a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers themselves have been generally more positive about their mission than American civilians are. A new survey of military officers shows that while most maintain that the military is not broken, it cannot persevere under present conditions for long.
Just 42 percent of respondents described the military as broken, compared with 56 percent who disagreed. But 60 percent said the military was weaker. Just 25 percent said the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan had helped the military grow stronger.
The results are largely in line with other surveys of military officers, such as those conducted by the Military Times publishing group. But as warnings from the military about its own health have intensified over the years, the strain placed on active-duty troops has only grown. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the new 15/12 deployment schedule last April, and there are no indications that those rotations will be eased this year, even as troop levels are brought back down to pre-surge levels. If anything, the Pentagon appears to be hinting that they will not.
When asked whether the war in Iraq had stretched the military "dangerously thin," a whopping 88 percent of respondents said yes. More gravely, the officers said, the military is currently ill-prepared to respond to other major conflicts. More than 80 percent said it was unreasonable to expect the military to engage in another war today. And on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning completely ready, the officers gave America's readiness to go to war with Iran a 4.5.
That may be because many see the current mission in Iraq as untenable: Nearly three-quarters said the goals set for the military by civilian leadership after the fall of Saddam Hussein were unreasonable.
"By blocking this piece of legislation, our country is more in danger of an attack," Bush said following a meeting at the White House with GOP leaders. "By not giving the professionals the tools they need, it's going to be a lot harder to do the job we need to be able to defend America."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the president's claims of imminent danger were overblown because Bush would still have authority to allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists after the law expires at midnight. "A wide range of national security experts has made clear that the president and our intelligence community have all the tools they need to protect our nation," Hoyer said. He called Bush's remarks "wrong, divisive and nothing more than fear-mongering."
Comptroller General David Walker, who has made warning the nation about the gravity of the nation’s fiscal problems a central focus of his decade-long tenure at the Government Accountability Office, is leaving within the month. He will take a position at the helm of a brand new public policy think tank, underwritten by Wall Street billionaire and longtime budget hawk Pete Peterson.
Peterson, who walked off with nearly $2 billion when the Blackstone Group -- which he founded -- went public last year, is planning to spend at least half of it on the venture. In addition to focusing on trade and budget deficits, the think tank may also turn its attention to other national vulnerabilities, such as U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources and the problem of nuclear weapon stockpiles.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff received brief expressions of praise from the members of the Senate oversight committee for his department's achievements yesterday, and then had to endure prolonged bipartisan grilling and protests over his proposed FY09 budget and a wide array of other issues.
Nearly every member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee protested the budget's proposed "cuts" in state and local homeland security grants.
Chertoff repeatedly noted that the grant levels requested were the same as in the FY08 budget but that Congress had increased them. He said the latest request for $50.5 billion represented "very difficult tradeoffs" among many high-priority needs, but the grants were funded at an appropriate level.
Enraged House Republicans staged a walkout from the floor after Democrats sought a contempt of Congress vote for White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers.
"We will not stand for this and we will not stay for this," said Minority Leader John Boehner, speaking from the House floor. "I would ask my House Republican colleagues and those who believe that we should be here protecting the American people to not vote on this bill. Let's just get up and leave."
And with that, a few dozen House GOP lawmakers got up and left. They convened on the Capitol steps to address the cameras.
At a charged hearing today, Major League Baseball star Roger Clemens testified under oath that he has never used steroids or human growth hormone, even as House Oversight and Government Reform members charged that the pitcher had lied to the committee about his drug use.
"As we moved forward in our investigation, we found conflicts and inconsistencies in Mr. Clemens' account," Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman said. "During his deposition, he made statements that we know are untrue.... In other areas, his statements are contradicted by other credible witnesses or simply implausible."
The hearing, the second the committee has held on steroids and other drugs in Major League Baseball, featured contradictory statements by the seven-time Cy Young Award winner and his former trainer, Brian McNamee. McNamee told the panel today he had injected Clemens more than 20 times with steroids or human growth hormone. Clemens said he never took either drug, but was injected with vitamin B-12 and painkillers.
"Someone is lying in spectacular fashion," Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Tom Davis, R-Va., summarized. It is unclear if the committee will charge either man with perjury.
A historically unpopular president and an even more unpopular Congress came together today to remind Americans that they might not be so worthless after all.
Lawmakers squeezed around President Bush in the White House this afternoon as he signed into law a $168 billion economic stimulus package that will mean up to $1,200 in tax rebates for working couples plus $300 per child.
"A lot of folks in America probably are saying it's impossible for those of us in Washington to find common ground and reach compromise on important issues. I don't feel that way, and I know the leaders don't feel that way," Bush said, opening the signing ceremony. "As a result, we have come together on a single mission, and that is to put the people's interest first."
Lawmakers who have been highly critical of Bush's economic policies and of the stimulus bill itself, which was forged through intense negotiations and compromise, beamed in the background.
Before inaugurating what was expected to be a tense day of testimony from Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee, the former trainer who claims to have injected the seven-time Cy Young Award winner numerous times with performance-enhancing drugs, House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman took a moment to remember fellow California Democrat Tom Lantos.
"I think it's appropriate that as a longtime member of this committee and a very esteemed member of Congress, we recognize him and have a moment of silence," Waxman said, before allowing ranking member Tom Davis to say a few words.
"His keen intellect, indomitable spirit and wry insights left an indelible mark on all that he touched," the Virginia Republican said. "He will be missed and not forgotten."
Veteran Reps. Wayne Gilchrest (R) and Albert Wynn (D) of Maryland yesterday became the first members of Congress to lose their bids for renomination this year. The two relatively moderate lawmakers, both of whom were dogged by their positions on the Iraq war, each faced stiff opposition from the more extreme wings of their respective parties.
Gilchrest, who had bucked his party by voting against the Iraq war, lost to state Sen. Andy Harris, who had the backing of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth. Harris won, 44 percent to 32 percent, with 95 percent of precincts reporting as of early this morning. State Sen. E.J. Pipkin finished third in the GOP primary with 21 percent. In November, Harris will face Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Frank Kratovil in the Republican-leaning district on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
Meanwhile, in Maryland's majority-minority 4th District, attorney Donna Edwards was winning the Democratic nomination this morning, 60 percent to 35 percent, with 75 percent of precincts reporting. She had come close to ousting Wynn, who voted for the war in Iraq, in 2006.
Yesterday's results in Maryland, only the second state to hold its congressional primaries so far this year, suggest it's going to be another bumpy ride for incumbents as the war and economic issues continue to drive wedges within both major parties.
Senate To Battle Over Authorization Bill's Torture Provision
Having cleared a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act revision bill yesterday after weeks of skirmishing, the Senate is now expected to battle over legislation that would prohibit the CIA from using coercive interrogation techniques.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he will try today to advance the long-stalled conference agreement on a measure that would authorize intelligence programs and spending for the current fiscal year. Reid is seeking a vote to invoke cloture on the bill, which would cut off debate and set it up for final passage.
But Republicans and the White House oppose a provision in the authorization bill that would prohibit the CIA and all other U.S. intelligence agencies from using interrogation techniques not authorized by the U.S. Army Field Manual.
Longtime Calif. Rep., Holocaust Survivor Lantos Dies At 80
UPDATED.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, died this morning at Bethesda Naval Medical Center from complications of cancer of the esophagus. He was 80.
Lantos' office made the announcement and noted that his wife, Annette, as well as his two daughters and many of his grandchildren were at his side. No date for memorial services or a funeral had been set by this afternoon. Lantos announced in early January he would not seek re-election because of the cancer diagnosis, although he had said he planned to finish out his term.
"The passing of Tom Lantos is a profound loss for the Congress and for the nation and a terrible loss for me personally," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose San Francisco-based district borders the 12th District seat held by Lantos since 1980. "As the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, Tom Lantos devoted his life to shining a bright light on dark corners of oppression. He used his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world."
As Congress has attempted to target those responsible for abusive home loans, mortgage brokers have so far escaped the brunt of its wrath.
The brokers face their biggest challenge in coming months as the Senate begins work on legislation to curb predatory lending. Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., have fingered mortgage brokers as a primary culprit of the crisis, noting that while the industry was responsible for originating as much as 70 percent of subprime loans in recent years, it had little oversight from state regulators -- thus contributing to a marketplace that allowed as many as 2 million borrowers to be placed into loans they could not afford to repay.
The House and Senate overwhelmingly passed a $152 billion stimulus package this afternoon, by votes of 380-34 and 81-16, respectively. The bill will provide tax rebates to more than 110 million Americans; the Senate version added senior citizens and disabled veterans to the list of those receiving rebates in the original House bill.
The legislation will likely receive a similar warm reception at the White House. In a statement today after the Senate vote, President Bush indicated his approval. "This plan is robust, broad-based, timely, and it will be effective," Bush said, adding that it was "an example of bipartisan cooperation at a time when the American people most expect it."
Senate Democrats dropped their proposals to add unemployment benefits and home heating assistance to the package after an earlier version was defeated yesterday. As soon as the revised legislation passed in the Senate, the House began an expedited debate this afternoon.
Mukasey: CIA Waterboarding Will Not Be Investigated
Attorney General Michael Mukasey today said the Justice Department will not open a criminal investigation into waterboarding by CIA employees because his department previously permitted use of the technique in interrogations of suspected terrorists. Waterboarding "cannot possibly be the subject of a Justice Department investigation, because that would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting someone who followed that advice," Mukasey told the House Judiciary Committee at a department oversight hearing.
Mukasey's remarks followed an admission Tuesday by CIA Director Michael Hayden that the agency used waterboarding -- an interrogation technique that causes suspects to believe they are drowning -- on three al-Qaida detainees after Sept. 11, 2001. The department's Office of Legal Counsel has issued opinions that waterboarding is legal in some circumstances, though Mukasey and other Bush administration officials have said U.S. employees do not now use it.
The Senate blocked a Finance Committee economic stimulus package, 58-41, Wednesday, just shy of the 60-vote margin needed for approval.
The vote was actually closer, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched to a "no" in a procedural tactic that enables him to revisit the measure.
For now, the chamber is left with the House-passed stimulus bill, which would provide rebate checks and business tax breaks to the tune of $146 billion this year.
The House bill does not make seniors whose main source of income is Social Security eligible for rebates, nor veterans living off disability benefits. It also excludes unemployment insurance and would not allow companies to write off losses over a longer period to recoup taxes paid during profitable years -- of particular benefit to struggling homebuilders.
The excitement surrounding yesterday's unprecedented Super Tuesday nominating contests obscured the latest and perhaps most damning news to come out on the troubled economy: Activity in the crucial service sector slowed for the first time in nearly five years last month.
The report from the Institute of Supply Management shows a significant decline in non-manufacturing activity (previously the "firmest pillar of economic expansion") in January. Those numbers, coupled with last week's news that jobs were declining, are heightening concerns that the economy is not only headed for a recession, but is already in one.
"Recession is here," the headline on CNNMoney.com read yesterday. The report quotes several economists who said the ISM report was the tipping point for them.
Intel Chiefs Say Waterboarding Used In Interrogations
The intelligence community's annual public report on the threats facing the nation was overtaken during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing today by the politically charged issues of waterboarding and other "coercive" interrogation techniques, extension of the government's eavesdropping authority and the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden said waterboarding was a legal technique that should be available under certain circumstances if authorized by the nation's legal and political leaders. McConnell said, to his knowledge, only the CIA has used it. Hayden told the committee that the CIA has used the painful technique, which many consider a form of torture, only three times in its history. Those times, three years ago, were against "high value" al-Qaida terror suspects who were thought to have information on an imminent threat to the nation.
The intense discussion was triggered by a question from Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., about proposed legislation that would require all U.S. intelligence agencies to use only the interrogation procedures listed in the recently revised Army field manual.
When President Bush delivered his final, $3 trillion-plus budget to Congress yesterday, congressional Democrats from both chambers wasted no time laying out their opposition to the proposal.
Senate Democrats quickly attacked the FY09 request, with Majority Leader Harry Reid blasting it as "more of the same," taking specific issue with the budget's proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, its failure to address rising college costs and its neglect of energy issues. "Furthermore, this budget is fiscally irresponsible and highly deceptive, hiding the costs of the war in Iraq while increasing our skyrocketing debt," Reid said. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said many of those proposed cuts will never get through Congress, particularly a proposed $178 billion cut in Medicare.
On the House side, the budget was met with condemnation from Democratic leaders for continuing "failed" policies and praise from Republican leaders for starting the annual conversation in a fiscally sound manner. The annual rhetorical battle over federal priorities sets up a replay of last year's partisan budget showdown, but with an election-year edge heightened by the economic downturn.
President Bush proposed a 2.9 percent pay increase for civilian workers and a 3.4 percent pay boost for military personnel in fiscal 2009, according to budget documents released today.
The proposed pay raises rebuff calls for military-civilian pay parity from several lawmakers. Last week, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers sent a letter to the president, asking him to incorporate the principle of equal raises for service members and civilians in his budget request.
President Bush is expected to send the nation's first-ever $3 trillion budget request to Congress today for the 2009 fiscal year. Bush's proposal will project about $400 billion in budget deficits over the next two years, bolstered in part by the current economic slump and the stimulus package. But AP reports that, once again, the largest spending increases in the FY09 budget are in national security.
Despite the huge projected deficits, Bush's budget includes sizable cuts in domestic spending, particularly for government health care programs, state and local anti-terrorism grants and social service programs, according to the Washington Post. The plan is already drawing ire from Democratic lawmakers, who charge that Bush is directing cuts at programs that benefit the poor and middle-class families while protecting his tax cuts for the wealthy.
Meanwhile, the projected deficits do not even take into account funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. CongressDaily(subscription) reports this morning that Bush "is expected today to ask Congress for $70 billion to cover" the cost of the wars "for the first few months of FY09 -- a request that, if approved, could ultimately push the total amount of supplemental spending for military and civilian needs over the $1 trillion mark over the life of this administration."
The war-funding request coupled with the $3 trillion budget means the spending battles that ensnared Congress and the White House last year are likely to continue well into 2008.
AP has a breakdown of some elements in Bush's budget, and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal(subscription) have more on the administration's proposed spending increases for military operations.
Having lost one of his main talking points on the economy -- that the U.S. was enjoying an unprecedented, 52-month run in job growth -- President Bush sought to assure Americans today that the U.S. economy would get through the current "rough patch."
"During this downcycle, we want to help individual Americans," Bush said, speaking from Hallmark Cards, Inc. in Kansas City. "There is concern whether consumers will lose confidence in our economy. One way to address that issue is to have a temporary, robust tax rebate," he continued, referring to the checks that are going out to millions of households this summer.
Today's Labor Department report on January job growth was not the one everyone was expecting. Non-farm payrolls dropped 17,000 jobs, the first time the U.S. has lost jobs since 2003.
Capping a week of other negative indicators on the economy, "the disappointing report could tilt economists' reading of the U.S. labor market towards the belief that it is weakening significantly," the Financial Times reports.
But not everyone is shaking their head with worry today. Exxon Mobil reported $40.6 billion in net income, a historical best for the energy giant. The record profits are a result of the sharp spike in oil prices worldwide. (Rival Chevron also beat analysts' estimates.)
Army Still Lags On Mental Health Help For Soldiers
The Army's suicide rate jumped 20 percent in 2007, an apparent indicator that the military's efforts to provide adequate mental health assistance to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are still falling short.
According to internal reports, there were 89 confirmed suicides and 32 suspected suicides last year, which was also the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq so far. AP reports that about 34 of the suicides took place in Iraq.
The number of suicide attempts and self-inflicted injuries also spiked dramatically. About 2,100 soldiers tried to kill or injure themselves last year, compared with about 350 in 2002, the Washington Post reports.
Military health care specialists have openly admitted that they were unprepared for the length and scope of the war in Iraq. The nearly five-year-long war entered a crunch phase last year, when DOD ordered longer deployment schedules with shorter breaks in between. Some soldiers are on their fourth tours in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
President Bush is seeking a freeze on nearly all domestic spending along with a plan to squeeze savings out of entitlement programs in his 2009 budget, AP reports.
Federal deficits are approaching the $400 billion mark this year, in part because of ongoing spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and in part because of a pending economic stimulus package, which is expected to cost around $150 billion and double this year's deficit.
When Bush presents his budget on Monday, he will call for $178 billion in savings from Medicare and $17 billion for Medicaid. Much of the Medicare savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates to health care providers for three years, according to AP.
The overall slowdown of the economy and an onslaught of negative economic indicators mean lower revenues this year, and the White House is expected to deliver a worse revenue prediction than a recent forecast from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Bush's budget is not likely to be well received in Congress, this being an election year. As the ripple effects of the housing bust continue to be felt in households, the new deficit estimates put Republicans running for re-election at a real disadvantage.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats appear ready to slash the price tag on their economic stimulus proposals. A stimulus package is expected on Bush's desk by Feb. 15.
The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-7 Wednesday to send a roughly $157 billion economic stimulus package to the floor, adding tax breaks for alternative energies and homebuilders and disqualifying upper-income taxpayers -- including members of Congress -- from getting rebate checks. Initially the proposal had no upper-income caps at the behest of Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and other Republicans who considered such limits an unfair redistribution of wealth.
Under pressure from Democrats, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., agreed to phase out eligibility for rebates beginning at $150,000 of adjusted gross income per single filer and $300,000 for couples filing jointly. Those limits are twice those in the House version, which costs $117 billion over 10 years.
Unlike the House bill, Baucus' proposal also provides rebate checks to about 20 million low-income retirees dependent on Social Security benefits. "They have worked hard all their lives. They have paid taxes for a lifetime," Baucus said. "The House-passed bill would not give a stimulus check to seniors who were scraping by on Social Security income alone and had no tax liability." Baucus also agreed to a proposal by Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, making about 250,000 veterans on disability benefits eligible for rebates.
The measure faces an uncertain future as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as early as today plans to queue the House version. Supporters of the Baucus measure would need to get 60 votes to substitute it for the House version.
A Wall Street rally following a 50-basis-points rate cut from the Fed today was not long for this world, as yet another negative economic report sent the Dow back down 37.47 points to close at 12,442.83. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also pulled back from afternoon bumps.
The brief rally may just have been a sigh of relief that the Fed had delivered as projected. New data released today show economic growth is grinding down, heightening fears of a recession this year.
"Financial markets remain under considerable stress, and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households. Moreover, recent information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets," the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement. "The committee expects inflation to moderate in coming quarters, but it will be necessary to continue to monitor inflation developments carefully."
Chairman Ben Bernanke joined in the near-unanimous decision. Voting against the cut was Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The Board left the door open to future reductions.
"It's great that they did it now. I wish they had done it earlier," said CNBC's Jim Cramer, who has been screaming -- sometimes literally -- about the Fed's slowness to act on the housing bust and credit crunch.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a strong proponent of D.C. voting rights, this afternoon became the third Republican in two days to announce he will not return to the House next year.
"After much soul-searching and discussion with those closest to me, I have decided the time is right to take a sabbatical from public life," he said in a statement. "I will serve out the remainder of my term, and plan to remain an active contributor to Republican causes, but will not run for office in 2008."
His announcement, coupled with yesterday's retirement announcement from Rep. Ron Lewis, R-Ky., and Missouri Rep. Kenny Hulshof's decision to run for governor, now mean there are 24 Republicans and 29 House members overall who are either retiring or running for higher office this year.
CongressDaily has a full list(subscription) of departing lawmakers and will have more details on Davis' announcement later this afternoon.
The House and Senate approved legislation yesterday to extend a law authorizing electronic surveillance activities for 15 days beyond Friday's scheduled expiration.
The extension, which passed the House by voice vote and the Senate by unanimous consent, is intended to buy time for lawmakers to craft permanent legislation that would overhaul and reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans were still arguing over how to deal with amendments to the Senate Intelligence Committee's FISA reauthorization bill.
The House approved a $146 billion economic stimulus package today on an overwhelming 385-35 vote. The package now heads to the Senate, where tinkering with the bill is being criticized by lawmakers who reached a deal with President Bush.
"I would hope that the timely aspect of this is recognized by my colleagues in the Senate," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "We have to have a stimulus. There's just no question. Once you understand that, then you have a responsibility to work back to that and find common ground. I would hope that what the Senate does is respectful of the focus that we have on middle-class and lower-income people."
The House measure would send rebate checks worth $600 to individuals and $1,200 for families, plus $300 per child, while providing tax breaks to businesses. Most of the revenue loss associated with the bill takes place in FY08.
Thanks to the Washington Post's work exposing the lapses in care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Americans are more familiar than ever with the mind-boggling bureaucratic maze returning war vets must navigate. Congress is expected to act again on the reforms outlined by the Dole-Shalala commission this year. (They were included in a defense authorization bill President Bush vetoed last month.)
Though many in the military and in Congress are on board with those reforms, it often seems that the real problem with veterans care is that it is split up by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Departments and agencies don't do coordination too well in this town, as we now know all too well.
NPR's Ari Shapiro has a report highlighting this divide. For reasons they would not give, Army officials have instructed VA counterparts at Fort Drum in upstate New York not to assist disabled vets with DOD disabled benefits paperwork. One expert Shapiro interviewed surmised that DOD did so in order to save money on benefits. According to another expert, VA officials will generally do what DOD asks because they require DOD cooperation to reach out to disabled solders.
Truly, a head-scratcher. NPR reported on the DOD-VA separation last March; you can hear that report here.
In another troubling sign of crisis in the U.S. housing market, the number of home foreclosures rose a staggering 75 percent to a total of more than 2.2 million filings in 2007, according to new data from RealtyTrac. The online seller of foreclosure properties reports that filings were up 97 percent in December compared to December 2006.
In an interview with MarketWatch, RealtyTrac's Rick Sharga concluded that the "primary driver" of the surge in foreclosures was "the high delinquency rates of these adjustable-rate subprime mortgages," and he warned that "we have one more massive wave of these loans that will adjust or reset... in late May or early June." Listen to the interview here and view RealtyTrac's findings here.
CNNMoney.com's Les Christiepredicts that the "rapid rise" in foreclosure risk "could last for years."
According to Forbes' breakdown of the data, many of the hardest-hit counties are in key electoral battleground states, including some that have already held presidential nominating contests (Nevada, Michigan) and some that will weigh in next week on Super Tuesday (California, Arizona, Colorado). With overall economic concerns already a top priority for voters, the housing crisis could shape up to be one of the key issues in this year's presidential election.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., unveiled a roughly $156 billion economic stimulus package yesterday, adding low-income seniors and laid-off workers to those who would benefit from a previously agreed-upon House proposal. Business incentives would also be expanded to let companies write off losses going back five years, offsetting earlier gains and earning them refunds on previous tax bills.
"Rebates for seniors and payroll taxpayers, extended unemployment insurance, and tax relief for struggling businesses will put more cash into the American economy right away," Baucus said in a statement.
In the most significant departure from the House proposal, the Finance bill would extend jobless benefits through the end of 2008, making 13 additional weeks of unemployment insurance available. For states where unemployment rates are 6 percent or higher, an additional 13 weeks would be available.
Liveblogging President Bush's Final State Of The Union Address
End note. SOTU affairs are always a laundry list, and few expect them to deliver poetry. This year's address (full text) did lack the rhetorical punch of previous years, particularly Bush's first SOTU address following 9/11, which received very high marks.
If there is one character trait that describes this president, it is determination-bordering-on-
stubbornness. He has largely ignored polls and the punditry, and he only changed tacks in Iraq when the calls for a change in course permeated his own administration. Plenty of Americans didn't tune in to this speech tonight, on the assumption Bush is a lame duck. That is probably not the case, at least as far as the legislature is concerned.
With his veto threat and the executive order coming Tuesday, Bush is asserting himself in a dramatic way. The rate of federal spending under Bush's watch is triple that of the Clinton administration. That Bush is positioning himself to put a foot down on pork-barrel spending was pretty unexpected in his final year in office. We'll be watching to see how it pans out.
As for Bush's various claims in tonight's speech, NPR's reporters have been posting fact checks all evening. See their corrections on the tax cuts, FISA, Iraq and entitlement reform. Good night.
10:27. A somewhat unexpected criticism of the president here: "In spite of the attempts to convince us that we are divided as a people, a new American majority has come together. We are tired of leaders who rather than asking what we can do for our country, ask nothing of us at all.
"We are Americans sharing a belief in something greater than ourselves, a nation coming together to meet challenges and find solutions; to share sacrifices and share prosperity; and focus, once again, not only on the individual good but on the common good."
It should come as little surprise that Sebelius has endorsed Barack Obama. This speech reflects Democrats' palpable eagerness to move the country well away from the Bush era.
When Gen. David Petraeus returns to Washington in March, he will brief Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the progress of the U.S. troop drawdown. He'll be asked how units are faring in Iraq as more of them leave, and whether the targeted reduction -- from about 160,000 to the pre-surge 130,000 by this summer -- should progress as planned.
What he won't be asked is whether troop levels can be brought down further.
On the one hand, that isn't surprising. The answer is clearly no, although the Pentagon hasn't publicly confirmed that. Violence against U.S. troops is back down to 2005 levels -- which isn't great, but it beats the carnage of 2006 and 2007.
The main U.S. objective moving forward is to help Iraq rebuild its military and security forces. In an interview with the New York Times published Jan. 15, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qadir forecast that Iraq's military forces would not be able to fend off internal and external threats independently until at least 2018.
That lines up with many U.S. commanders' assessments that significant assistance from their own country will be required in Iraq for at least a decade. Right now, the presidential candidates are bickering over whether the surge is working. A better debating point would be whether the U.S. has a responsibility to help Iraq become a fully sovereign nation or whether Washington can live with the very real possibility that all the gains made last year could be undone if American politicians oppose commanders' recommendations.
Bush's Plan To Halve Earmarks Getting Mixed Reviews
President Bush will veto FY09 appropriations bills that do not halve the number and cost of earmarks and will issue an executive order tomorrow directing federal agencies to ignore future earmarks that are added in report language rather than actual legislation. "If they're going to be in legislative language, that means that they have to be open for all to see, and it means that they would have to be actually voted on," said White House press secretary Dana Perino, who announced the plan today.
Bush will not challenge earmarks included in the reports of recently approved FY08 spending bills. "The president decided that he needed to give the Congress a very clear indication of what he was going to do," Perino said.
Though it will be left for another president to enforce the executive order, the White House appears to be calculating that future leaders will be reluctant to take a stand that may look supportive of earmarking by abolishing the order. "Remember, an executive order remains in place unless a future president decides to rescind it or change it," Perino said. "So we think this is a good, solid action."
Democrats were quick to criticize Bush's proposal, while some Republicans complained that it did not go far enough.
Congress: WH Race Threatens To Hamstring Dem Majority
With Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois likely fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination well into February, and one of them virtually assured of being the nominee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be doomed to spend 2008 much the same way he spent 2007 -- hamstrung by a slim majority.
With lawmakers eager to sidestep controversial votes and spend as much time as possible campaigning for their own re-elections, the track record for legislative accomplishments is already unremarkable.
This year, with Democrats holding a razor-thin majority and three senators still in the thick of the presidential race -- Clinton, Obama and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- some aides foresee an even lighter-than-usual workload.
To non-hyperpartisans who've been following developments in Iraq, it's been clear for some time that there will be a significant U.S. presence there going into the next decade, regardless of which party rules the White House next year. Though both sides called a de facto truce in Congress following the anticlimactic testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in September, lawmakers appear to be getting their sea legs back on the war debate.
A skirmish is just now brewing over the White House's negotiations with the Iraqi government concerning the longer-term American posture there. "Status of forces" agreements are standard issue with allies; we have one with more than 120 countries, according to the State Department. Iraq, of course, is not just any country, and Democrats are nervous that the new agreement will lock the U.S. into a deeper, more long-term engagement than they'd like.
It's already playing on the campaign trail. In a debate in Las Vegas last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama agreed to pursue legislation requiring President Bush to request congressional approval for the Iraq status of forces agreement. "I think we have to do everything we can to prevent President Bush from binding the hands of the next president," Clinton said.
Presidents usually don't have to bring those agreements before Congress, but administration officials acknowledged to the Washington Post that they might have to submit the Iraq agreement for lawmakers' approval.
Less than a month after President Bush signed legislation overhauling the Freedom of Information Act, the measure's main Senate backers are accusing the White House of planning to scuttle a special FOIA office in violation of the law.
An aide to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Office of Management and Budget officials have told committee staff that they plan in the president's FY09 budget to park within the Justice Department all the funding authorized by the new law for a Government Information Services Office within the National Archives and Records Administration.
The office would include an ombudsman to oversee FOIA disputes across government. It is intended to push agencies to comply with the law, address FOIA backlogs and speed up resolution of FOIA requests. The office has not received any appropriations and its budget has not been set.
But by shifting the funding to the Justice Department, OMB would effectively eliminate the office, because it appears no similar operation would be created there, Leahy's aide said. Instead, the funds apparently would go to the department's Information Policy Office, which now oversees government FOIA compliance.
House Leaders: Stimulus Not Perfect But Will Do The Trick
UPDATED.
In a rare display of bipartisan camaraderie, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner urged colleagues to get their $145 billion compromise stimulus package to the White House ASAP.
"We will bring it to the floor at the earliest date so those rebate checks can be in the mail," Pelosi said during a joint press conference with her Republican counterpart and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who represented the Bush administration during the late-night negotiations yesterday.
The legislation includes tax rebates from $300 to $1,200, with low-wage earners at one end and middle-income joint filers on the other. Recipients will also receive a $300-per-child bonus on top of what they get in rebates.
Those figures are lower than the expected $800-$1,600 range, but in exchange for lowering the disbursements, congressional Republicans agreed to extend the rebates to workers who don't earn enough to pay income taxes. Individuals who earned at least $3,000 in 2007 will get a check for $300, while mid-level earners would receive at least $600. Individuals earning more than $87,000 and families earning more than $187,000 won't get a check. Individuals who fall in the $75,000-$87,000 range and households in the $150,000-$187,000 would receive reduced checks.
"This is an initiative to strengthen the middle class and those who aspire to be in the middle class," Pelosi said, adding that the rebates were going to those who will "spend it right away to inject demand into the economy to help create jobs and to help turn around the economy."
Calling the deal "a big win for the American people," Boehner seconded Pelosi's assessment of the package. "It will stimulate our economy in the most direct and effective way possible, by putting money in the hands of middle-income families and giving businesses incentives to create and keep new jobs in the economy," he said
Both sides were forced to make concessions in order to reach speedy agreement on the package. Pelosi and her caucus gave up on an expansion of food stamps and unemployment benefits, and also consented to as much as $50 billion in tax breaks for businesses. In return, Republicans agreed to extend the rebates to the 35 million-plus workers who don't earn enough to owe income taxes and would have been ineligible for the rebates under President Bush's original plan.
"The Speaker gave some, we gave some. This was not easy, as most of you know, for the two of us and our respective caucuses... to have to come together and work in a bipartisan way and reach a compromise that I think is in the interest of the American people," Boehner said.
"I can't say that I'm totally pleased with the package, but I can say it will help the economy. And if it does not, there will be more legislation to come," Pelosi vowed.
Watching President Bush's congenial interaction with Democratic congressional leaders as they hammer out the details of an economic stimulus package, one may be tempted to see a promising sign of bipartisan cooperation during Bush's final year in office. But don't let the photo opportunities fool you. On other issues, particularly those pertaining to law and national security, the White House and Capitol Hill remain worlds apart.
In the latest example of the continuing partisan rifts over CIA interrogation techniques, Bush renominated lawyer Steven Bradbury to a senior post at the Department of Justice yesterday, despite years of Democratic resistance to his nomination.
Bradbury, who has been the acting head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel for more than two years without being confirmed by the Senate, has run into opposition from Democrats because he signed several classified memos in 2005 authorizing harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects.
Yesterday, President Bush and the leaders of his political opposition, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, strongly signaled that they were on board with the outlines of the White House's economic stimulus proposals. That may be by necessity, since all parties are under intense pressure to jolt consumers and businesses into spending again.
Though Republicans and Democrats in Congress are still quibbling over who will get the tax rebates -- everyone, or just those who pay income tax -- the global market chaos of this week is spurring them to make a deal, fast. "There are no issues of disagreement right now," House Minority Leader John Boehner told reporters yesterday. Though Bush's plan doesn't include rebates for low- and moderate-income workers who pay more in payroll tax than income tax, there are signs that Republicans can be persuaded to include those groups.
"It must be broad-based. To be effective, the package must reach a large number of citizens," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a speech yesterday. The Washington Post interpreted Paulson's selection of the word "citizens," rather than "taxpayers," as a sign that the White House is also willing to expand coverage of its tax rebates.
The Democrats' case -- that low-income people who aren't eligible for those $800-$1,600 checks not only need them the most, but are more likely to spend them immediately -- is a compelling one. But before we go there, maybe lawmakers should explain why mailing out checks to millions of Americans is a good idea in the first place.
Senate Resumes Sparring Over FISA; Cheney Pushes For Renewal
UPDATED.
Vice President Dick Cheney today urged Congress to pass legislation that permanently addresses the nation's surveillance law and shields telecommunications companies from lawsuits for helping the Bush administration spy on U.S. citizens without court warrants. Cheney made his remarks in a short speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation, just as the Senate was moving toward resuming debate on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation. CongressDailyPM(subscription) has details on Cheney's remarks.
The opening salvo over FISA renewal was fired yesterday in the Senate, as Democratic leaders sought more time to craft legislation while the White House and Republicans ramped up pressure for immediate action.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked Republicans late yesterday for another month to craft permanent legislation to overhaul FISA; a temporary law making changes to the bill expires Feb. 1. Reid said more time was needed for lawmakers to work out their differences and to conference with the House. "It's not fair to the House to jam them so that they have one day to act on this," Reid said.
CBO Predicts Growing Deficit But No Recession Next Year
The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting that, after three years of declining budget deficits, the FY08 shortfall will rise to $219 billion, up from $163 billion last year. The estimates do not factor in the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, extensions of expiring tax cuts and the economic stimulus package.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., estimated that about 80 percent of the $140 billion to $150 billion impact of the stimulus will be felt in this fiscal year, along with $30 billion more in war costs, for an FY08 deficit actually exceeding $350 billion. The new forecasts "show an explosion in federal deficits and debt if we continue to follow the president's deficit-financed tax and spending policies," he said in a statement.
The report noted that if President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were extended, if Congress continued to prevent the alternative minimum tax from hitting more taxpayers and if discretionary spending continued to grow beyond inflation, it would add $5.7 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years when debt service is factored in. At the end of five years, instead of being in balance, the budget actually would have a deficit of $402 billion, CBO said.
President Bush sought to assure investors and consumers that a relief package was on the way, though he made no promises about when.
"I believe we can find common ground to get something done," he said, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. They were joined by Bush's economic team at the White House for a briefing on Bush's recent trip to the Middle East as well as a discussion of the $150 billion stimulus package the president proposed on Friday.
"The economy is inherently strong, but it needs to get a boost. We need to make sure this uncertainty doesn't translate into more economic woes for our workers and businesspeople," Bush said.
Bush was discussing the nation's economy with opposition leaders in Congress on a day of dizzying volatility in the U.S. and global markets. This morning, the Federal Reserve Board made its first emergency rate cut since shortly after the 9/11 attacks, voting to slash its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to 3.5 percent. The move was meant to provide immediate relief for debtors in an economy seized by a two-fer liquidity and credit drought.
The surprise announcement came one week before the Fed's regularly scheduled meeting, at which it was expected to further nick at rates by 50 basis points. The move did nothing, initially, to mitigate fears that the U.S. economic slowdown is having a tsunami effect on global markets. The Dow plummeted more than 460 points soon after the opening bell.
But the emergency cut was also a signal that the Fed stands at the ready to react aggressively to the economy's downturn. By noon the sell-off had slowed, and the Dow mostly recovered to close down 128 points, or 1.1 percent.
As expected, President Bush publicly called on Congress today to prioritize an economic stimulus package that will include immediate tax rebates for Americans. The new sense of urgency comes one day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernankerecommended the government take immediate measures to perk up economic growth.
"I've concluded that additional action is needed," Bush said in a brief statement at the White House. "Congress and the administration need to work to enact an economic growth package as soon as possible."
The president indicated that the White House and congressional leaders from both parties were largely in agreement on the outline of the package. The legislation is expected to include $145 billion in immediate tax relief, mostly in the form of rebates.
"The package must be big enough to make a difference in an economy as large and as diverse as ours," Bush said, recommending that the stimulus be equivalent to 1 percent of GDP. "This package must be temporary and take effect right away, so we can get help to our economy when it needs it most."
The president's previous assessments of the economy have been mostly upbeat, despite the carnage resulting from the housing and credit meltdowns. In December, Bush announced a program designed to aid struggling homeowners and put the brakes on foreclosures. Big banks and brokerages including Merrill Lynch and Citibank reported record losses stemming from the subprime crash in the last quarter. Those negative reports, plus sluggishness in productivity and job growth, plus continued softness in the dollar, plus record-high gas prices, have sent Wall Street into a tailspin.
Henry Waxman fired the next volley in Congress' fight with the Bush administration over missing White House e-mails, publicly challenging the administration's version of events and setting a hearing for Feb. 15. The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee strongly disputed White House spokesman Tony Fratto's comments yesterday that there was "no evidence" any e-mails sent between 2003 and 2005 were missing.
"We have no evidence and we have no way of showing that any e-mail at all are missing," Fratto said yesterday -- moving away from the White House's earlier position that it was uncertain about the matter.
That assertion seemed to go one step too far for Waxman, who called Fratto's assertion "an unsubstantiated statement that has no relation to the facts they have shared with us."
The California Democrat disclosed an internal White House summary showing that, contrary to Fratto's statement, there were 473 days between 2003 and 2005 during which no electronic communication was archived for some government offices. Among them are the Executive Office of the President, which had no backup copies for 12 days, and the Office of the Vice President, which had no backup copies for 16 days. The White House is required to preserve official communication.
AP and the Washington Post have more details on the hearings set for next month.
Blue chips sank more than 300 points today, the biggest single-day drop of the year so far. The slide suggests that a federal economic stimulus fix currently in the works may be arriving too late for investors' tastes.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers this morning that if they were serious about putting the brakes on the U.S. economic slowdown, any congressional stimulus package would have to be implemented sooner rather than later.
"To be useful, a fiscal stimulus package should be implemented quickly and structured so its effects on aggregate spending will be felt in the next months or so," Bernanke said in his opening remarks before the House Budget Committee. "There could be destabilization if the package comes at a time growth is improving. Measures that rely on long lead times will not provide stimulus when it is most needed."
President Bush had been expected to announce his own stimulus package ahead of his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, but the White House said today that he would be discussing the proposals on deck in a speech tomorrow. Investors are clearly impatient for some sort of cash injection into the economy, and a round of negative economic reports today only underscored the urgency with which Wall Street wants help halting the nation's growth slowdown.
Notably, Bush appears to be heeding the advice dispensed by Bernanke, and moving more quickly on a stimulus package than originally planned. At the noon press briefing, while Bernanke was still testifying, spokesman Tony Fratto said there was no time frame for when the president planned to address the economy and indicated the White House was still hanging on to hope it would be able to use the package to make tax cuts permanent.
Bush met with congressional leaders from both parties following Bernanke's testimony, and press secretary Dana Perino announced that the president's main concerns now were that the package be temporary, effective and pass as quickly as possible. According to House Minority Leader John Boehner, the package could top out at $150 billion.
House Approves Revised FY08 Defense Authorization Bill
The House yesterday quickly approved a revised version of the FY08 defense authorization bill that addresses objections raised by the White House last month when President Bushunexpectedly vetoed the measure.
The Pentagon policy bill, which passed 369-46 on the suspension calendar, now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to encounter little opposition. That chamber, which is in recess until next week, has been closely involved in negotiations over the changes to the bill, lawmakers and congressional aides said. They hope that the Senate will take up the bill shortly after returning to Capitol Hill and quickly send it to the president's desk for his signature.
Lawmakers writing an economic stimulus package plan to include a temporary increase in federal Medicaid matching rates for states worth several billion dollars, according to aides familiar with the negotiations.
The provision would boost state funds for Medicaid almost immediately and help governors ride out the economic downturn. The administration has signed off on similar language in the past, although it is unclear whether the White House would continue to support a new round of Medicaid increases despite state support for them. The Medicaid provision is being modeled on language in the last economic stimulus package, in which states got a 1.5 percent increase in the matching rate for six quarters. Lawmakers also want to require that states use the extra money only for Medicaid.
Rising food prices may be one of the most underreported economic stories. New data show that this trend is impacting the larger economy.
Consumer prices rose 4.1 percent last year, according to the Labor Department. In a new report, the Federal Reserve found no growth in factories, mines and utilities last month. Inflation is the highest it's been in 17 years, and the Fed is expected to announce a half-point rate cut to ease the pain when it meets later this month.
AP reports: "Energy costs rose by 17.4 percent this past year while food costs rose by 4.9 percent. Both were the biggest increases since 1990. Gasoline prices were up 29.6 percent, the biggest increase since they soared by 30.1 percent in 1999."
Obviously, this is hitting Americans who live paycheck to paycheck the hardest, which is why we've seen the economy skyrocket among voters' lists of concerns going into the 2008 elections. But the rise in food prices is perceived as a mixed blessing by analysts.
House Democratic mantras requiring adherence to budgetary offsets and a "timely, targeted and temporary" response to a possible recession are bumping up against each other, as PAYGO budget rules are again stirring up divisions within the ranks.
"PAYGO could be a problem," said House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., who met yesterday with the House Democratic leadership and other committee chairmen involved in the stimulus talks.
As much as $120 billion in spending and tax proposals are under consideration. Spending components could be designated as an "emergency" and not require offsets. And under House rules, new tax or mandatory spending initiatives only have to be paid for over a five-year period.
Frank said that fact might assuage some of his party's budget hawks.
Bud Selig, Major League Baseball commissioner, and Donald Fehr, executive director of the MLB Players Association, defended their ability to reduce performance-enhancing drug use in baseball against a threat by Congress to legislate tougher testing.
"Baseball needs to fix these problems, change this culture, alter how it does business with regard to steroids, human growth hormone and all manner of dangerous performance-enhancing drugs, or... Congress will do it for you," House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Tom Davis, R-Va., said today. The committee was holding its first hearing on a report by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, on the use of drugs in Major League Baseball.
Vetoed Authorization Bill Puts Military Bonuses On Hold
After relying heavily on financial incentives to attract recruits and retain war-weary troops, the military has had to put the brakes on awarding signing bonuses until Congress and the Bush administration resolve a dispute over President Bush's veto of the FY08 defense authorization bill.
House Democrats announced yesterday they would hold a vote tonight "disposing of" the president's veto of the annual policy measure over a provision the administration fears would tie up the assets of the current Iraqi government in court claims filed by victims of Saddam Hussein's regime.
A Democratic aide said a vote to override the veto is possible today, even though the White House contends the bill was killed by a pocket veto, a rejection that cannot be challenged by Congress. But the likely course of action, the aide said, would be to refer the bill back to the House Armed Services Committee, which would then "fix" the provision to smooth the way toward enactment.
Democrats Seeking Broad Backing For Stimulus Package
As part of an effort to seek bipartisan agreement on an economic stimulus package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met today with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and other Democrats laid out their ideas for an aid proposal.
"We hope to work in a bipartisan way for an initiative that is timely, targeted and temporary," Pelosi said before this afternoon's closed-door meeting. Quick action on a stimulus package has become the top issue for the White House and Democratic congressional leaders, although neither side has offered details. House Democratic leaders are expected to meet Tuesday, when that chamber returns to Washington after the long holiday recess, to discuss the legislative possibilities.
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have requested meetings with President Bush after he returns Wednesday from a visit to the Middle East. The Senate returns to work next week.
New Report Gives Congressional Web Sites Flunking Grades
A number of congressional Web sites received flunking marks from the Congressional Management Foundation in a report released Monday.
The report, which evaluated 618 congressional Web sites, gave 18.8 percent of these sites an F, while 22.8 percent received a D. Only 16.8 percent of the sites received an A from the group. The foundation said Web sites were evaluated on how well they incorporate the following factors: "audience, content, usability, interactivity, and innovation."
The analysis -- funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation --seeks to recognize congressional Web sites that successfully use the Internet and to provide practical guidance to all offices on how to improve their Web sites.
The foundation found that "the Senate continues to outperform the House of Representatives on the Web." The number of "substandard or failing committee sites increased to 44 percent, and the percentage of House and Senate committee (both majority and minority) Web sites scoring an 'F' doubled between 2006 and 2007," the group also found.
The report further held that a third of congressional sites do not have a functional search engine, and 57 percent do not contain information about legislative issues of interest to the state.
Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., announced today that he will not seek re-election for a 10th term in office, ending months of speculation that he would leave Capitol Hill under the cloud of a federal investigation. "I plan to complete my term and finish my congressional service at the conclusion of this Congress," Doolittle said at a news conference today in his district.
"My wife, Julie, and I have made this decision after much prayer and deliberation. It was not my initial intent to retire, and I fully expected and planned to run again right up until very recently. But it distilled upon us that we were ready for a change after spending almost our entire married lives with me in public service." Doolittle and his wife are under scrutiny as part of the influence-peddling probe of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
In April, the FBI raided Doolittle's Virginia home in pursuit of information regarding work his wife performed for Abramoff. Since then, the lawmaker and several of his aides have been served grand jury subpoenas, and it was unlikely his legal situation would be resolved before the November elections. Doolittle is challenging subpoenas issued to him for office records and said he believed the federal probe of him would be on hiatus for one to two years while courts decide on the constitutionality of the subpoenas.
Rule Change To Allow FEC Meeting Despite Hill Standoff
The Federal Election Commission is moving to conduct some business despite a political standoff that leaves it unable to issue formal opinions.
After tweaking its rules in December, the agency announced Tuesday it will convene a Jan. 24 public meeting where the commission's two members, Republican David Mason and Democrat Ellen Weintraub, will discuss reports drafted by staff in response to requests for opinions. Without a quorum, the commissioners cannot approve binding opinions, but the discussions and staff recommendations should guide the requesters' actions, according to an FEC spokesman.
"The idea is that maybe the discussion will help the requesters get a sense of where the commission stands," the spokesman said. The guidance will be particularly clear if Weintraub and Mason take similar positions.
The FEC usually has three Republican and three Democratic members but has been left short by a clash between President Bush and Senate Democrats.
Dems Weigh Response In Defense Authorization Showdown
Congressional Democrats are grappling with how to respond to President Bush's unexpected veto of the FY08 defense authorization bill late last month because of a provision that would allow victims of state-sponsored terrorism to sue foreign governments in U.S. courts.
One response would be to hold a veto override vote in the House as early as next week, despite White House claims that the president's action constituted a pocket veto and is not subject to a challenge. House Republican leaders have urged their Democratic counterparts to fix the provision and are expected to vote to uphold the veto. While no formal vote count has yet been taken, a House GOP aide predicted Monday that a "large majority of House Republicans" would vote with the president. Should Democrats succeed, the White House could challenge the override vote -- a move that could tie up the defense bill in a murky constitutional dispute over the definition of a pocket veto, another House aide said.
Telling the Union League Club of Chicago that his New Year's resolution is "to make sure Congress keeps the taxes low," President Bush warned lawmakers he would squash any new legislation that raises taxes.
"I will be talking to Congress about how this administration will use its authority to keep taxes low," Bush said.
Without warning, President Bush killed the FY08 Defense Authorization Act that was sent to the Oval Office on Dec. 19. On Dec. 28, with Congress long gone for the holiday recess, Bush announced that he would use a pocket veto on the bill because it contained a provision (Sec. 1083) that he said would impede reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
Seeking to explain why he was blindsiding Congress on the bill, Bush said, "While my administration objected to an earlier version of this provision in previous communications about the bill, its full impact on Iraq and on our relationship with Iraq has become apparent only in recent days. Members of my administration are working with members of Congress to fix this flawed provision as soon as possible after the Congress returns."
Most members were out of town when the White House announced Bush was not going to sign the bill. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said that lawmakers won't be able to address the problem section until the Senate is back in session, which is tentatively scheduled to happen on Jan. 22.
Through an executive order, Bush implemented a 3-percent pay raise for service members effective yesterday. That's slightly less than the raise Congress had approved. And bonus payments for Army personnel and enlistees will cease until a new bill is passed and then signed.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced today that the Justice Department would open a criminal probe into why the CIA destroyed videotapes of terrorism interrogations, but a top administration critic renewed calls for an outside investigation.
"It is disappointing that the attorney general has stepped outside the Justice Department's own regulations and declined to appoint a more independent special counsel in this matter," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers.
The DOJ probe follows a preliminary investigation conducted internally at the CIA after Director Michael Hayden disclosed that videos of two al-Qaida suspects being harshly interrogated were destroyed. The White House has bristled at reports that it had a role in the tapes' destruction, but officials have generally refused to clarify what they knew and when they knew it.
In a statement announcing the investigation, Mukasey said, "Following a preliminary inquiry into the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations, the Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation."
The investigation would normally fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Virginia, but following a recusal request, a U.S. attorney based in Connecticut will handle the matter, Mukasey said. U.S. attorneys are political appointees, but questions about just how political those appointments were culminated in the resignation of Mukasey's predecessor, former AG Alberto Gonzales, last year.
Mukasey described John Durham, the first assistant U.S. attorney in the Connecticut office, as "a widely respected and experienced career prosecutor who has supervised a wide range of complex investigations in the past."
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos(subscription) today announced he will not seek re-election to a 15th term, citing a diagnosis of cancer of the esophagus.
"In view of this development and the treatment it will require, I will not seek re-election," the California Democrat said in a statement released by his office.
Barbour Names Rep. Wicker To Fill Lott's Senate Seat
GOP Rep. Roger Wicker was named Monday by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) to occupy the Senate seat vacated earlier this month by the resignation of former Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott. Wicker, 56, will serve until a special election is held to fill the remainder of Lott's term. Barbour has scheduled that contest for next Nov. 4, but that date is likely to be challenged in court by Democrats who contend that state law requires an earlier vote.
Wicker, first elected to the House in 1994 from what is now a reliably Republican House district in the northern section of the state, has accumulated a strongly conservative voting record during his years on Capitol Hill. His appointment to the Senate also opens up a prized seat on the House Appropriations Committee.
See the full story(subscription) for more details on Wicker's appointment and the partisan wrangling over the special election date. The Almanac of American Politics has a profile of Wicker(subscription).
...But That Won't Mitigate A Really Bad Decade In Iraq
In his year-end press conference, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the Pentagon would not be issuing furlough notices "at this time." The branches of the military have had to lay off employees and cut corners while Congress and the White House tussle over continued war funding. The result has been piecemeal funding for the military, as anti-war lawmakers continue to pressure President Bush to accept a withdrawal deadline.
A June Center for Strategic and International Studies report [PDF] advised the Pentagon to stop requesting funding through war supplementals, which aren't included in the defense budget in order to make actual spending appear smaller than it really is. Total U.S. defense spending is only about 4 percent of GDP -- a very low war-time figure. The constantly cash-strapped military need not be so, the authors conclude, and the Pentagon should be asking for much more money with which to fight the Iraq war, the most pressing security problem facing the country.
Gates seemed to dispute the criticism that his department was lowballing Congress in order to provide political cover for the president. "I actually think we had a very thoughtful conversation with the House Armed Services Committee earlier in the year over what percent of GDP devoted to defense and securing the nation should be. I got the impression from both sides of the aisle that it ought to be about 4 percent," Gates said.
"I will be putting out a letter later this afternoon that basically acknowledges that we have to do some planning because we didn't get all the money" requested from Congress, he added.
The World Trade Organization issued a decision [PDF] today regarding Antigua and Barbuda's request to impose $3.4 billion in retaliatory measures against the United States for allegedly violating its WTO commitments. The WTO said Antigua can use annual trade sanctions against the U.S. retroactive to April 2006 for the amount of $21 million until the U.S. reaches compliance with the WTO. The WTO also ruled that Antigua's sanctions may target U.S. intellectual property.
"Considering that Antigua and Barbuda were asking for over $3 billion in compensation, and they were only awarded a token $21 million, this decision is a partial victory for the U.S.," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. "However, I remain concerned about how these countries could extract these sanctions from unrelated U.S. companies, like those in the intellectual property and banking industries."
"I will continue to closely monitor this situation and work with other U.S. policymakers and businesses to mitigate the decision's impact on U.S. industries," continued Goodlatte, who sponsored legislation banning online gambling last year.
Greg Frazier, executive vice president of worldwide government policy for the Motion Picture Association of America, warned of possible repercussions from the ruling. "We have made clear from the outset of the case that if Antigua were to suspend its intellectual property rights obligations in retaliation, we believe such a move -- which would be virtually unprecedented in WTO disputes -- would put Antigua at odds with some of its other international obligations as well as raise questions about its eligibility for certain U.S. trade preference programs," he said.
"Also, as a practical matter we have serious questions about how such a decision could be effectively managed to avoid damage beyond the amount of compensation in the WTO decision," Frazier added.
Neither FOX nor MSNBC bothered to cover Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's announcement earlier today that he was dropping out of the race for the White House. CNN went to it at first, then cut away so the anchor could discuss the pronunciation of the congressman's surname. This, despite the pivotal role he has played in this cycle's Republican nomination battle.
Reached by phone at his Des Moines hotel room, Tancredo sounded relaxed and content with his decision to close shop. His candidacy, after all, was from the beginning about holding the big-name guys to account on illegal immigration.
"I have dedicated 10 years of my public life to warning the nation of the perilous consequences of massive, uncontrolled illegal immigration," Tancredo told supporters at a press conference this afternoon. "This message unfortunately has fallen on deaf ears in the highest office in the land. Without a president who is committed to securing the nation, we will always remain in jeopardy."
Tancredo's announcement had been expected since yesterday. He said the urgency he felt on illegal immigration compelled him to launch his bid despite what "we knew at the time were incredibly long odds." A nationally obscure figure best known among anti-immigration hardliners, Tancredo said in April that he was entering the race because of "the field, the field."
More on what he told us about Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson after the jump.
A spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee told National Journal today that the committee expects a formal response from Google to a recent letter [PDF] from top Republican Joe Barton of Texas concerning Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet advertising server DoubleClick on Friday.
Barton had addressed 24 questions concerning privacy and consumer protection aspects of the deal to Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google.
"The two staff attorneys who deal with these matters visited Google headquarters earlier this week and have returned to Washington," said Lisa Miller, Republican communications director for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "They collected substantial information which now requires analysis. Additionally, we expect Google's formal response to written questions tomorrow. That, too, likely will require a careful reading before we can reach any conclusions."
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch told National Journal that he still has a number of concerns about this transaction, "especially as it relates to competition and privacy."
President Bush's Passive-Aggressive Holiday Greeting
Speaking at his final White House press conference of the year, President Bush congratulated Congress on its 11th-hour legislative achievements while making sure to backhand lawmakers for taking so long to get there.
Returning later to the AMT bill, the president added, "Unfortunately, Congress passed this legislation after a lengthy delay. It is going to add to the time it takes to process tens of billions in refunds. We will work hard to minimize the impact of congressional delay."
And after thanking Congress for sending him new spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan before the New Year, Bush noted that it was "approved at the last minute, nearly three months after the end of the fiscal year." He continued, "When Congress wastes so much time and leaves its work until the final days before Christmas, it is not a responsible way to run the government."
The president later denied that his relationship with the Democratic-led Congress was truly "antagonistic," but his annual pre-holiday address to the press corps encapsulated the testy and wearying push-pull the two branches have been engaged in all year.
Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo will make a "major announcement" from Iowa today, his campaign said yesterday, inviting speculation that the Colorado congressman will drop out of the race. AP reports this morning that "a person close to Tancredo" has confirmed that he will abandon his bid for the GOP nomination.
A campaign spokesman said he could not provide details.
Tancredo is perhaps too much of a niche (and not well-enough known) candidate for this race, but he may take credit for ensuring that his battle cry, illegal immigration, is a decisive issue in the GOP nomination fight. His is perhaps the most hard-line position of the GOP contenders -- he has called for an end to legal immigration as well -- and that has forced many of the front-runners to sharpen their own more moderate positions to avoid appearing weak by comparison. In the CNN/YouTube debate last month, he accused his aping rivals of trying to "out-Tancredo Tancredo."
With congressional leaders in attendance, President Bush this morning signed the recently passed energy bill that he said would address the need to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.
"The legislation I am signing today will address our vulnerabilities and our dependence in two important ways," Bush said, first by increasing the supply of alternative fuels and then by raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for automobiles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.
"The bill also includes provisions to improve energy efficiency in lighting and appliances," he added. "It adopts elements of the executive order I signed requiring federal agencies to lead by example on efficiency and renewable energy use."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman and ranking member Pete Domenici and House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell were among those at the ceremony. Democrats have vowed to try next year to pass tax provisions and renewable electricity mandates that were dropped from the final version of the bill.
The Senate approved $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday, paving the way for President Bush's signature on a roughly $560 billion omnibus spending package.
The omnibus measure was headed for final passage in the Senate and will make a final stop in the House today before going to Bush's desk. The president's aides say Bush will sign the bill, as the addition of Iraq war funds without conditions was the final hurdle.
The war-funding amendment by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., passed 70-25. It adds roughly $39 billion to the House-approved package, which contained $31 billion only for Afghanistan operations, with some funding for protective equipment.
Based on a spending rate of about $6.6 billion per month, the cash infusion would appear to give the Army breathing room until around June before another supplemental is needed.
Buckle up, middle-class America: You really might get hit with the alternative minimum tax after all.
That's contrary to lawmakers' pledge to prevent the tax from sweeping up lower income brackets than originally intended. Leaders on both sides of the aisle agree that an AMT patch must be passed before the holiday break, but The Hill is reporting that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has signaled they may not be able to overcome their differences in time, after all.
Senate Takes Up FISA Revisions Without Immunity Deal
The Senate today voted 76-10 today to begin debate on legislation that would limit the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance activities, as lawmakers and aides scrambled behind the scenes to prepare amendments and find common ground on several controversial issues.
The Senate agreed to take up a bill approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee that would overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with plans to consider a competing bill backed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as a floor amendment. Significantly, the Intelligence panel's measure would give telecommunications companies retroactive legal immunity for helping the Bush administration engage in electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens without warrants dating back to September 2001. The Judiciary bill does not include any protections for the phone carriers, who face about 40 civil lawsuits.
The unsuccessful effort to prevent the Senate from beginning debate on the Intelligence Committee's version came primarily from Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Russell Feingold, D-Wis.
To no one's surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that he accepts his top aide's offer of the prime minister's slot should Dmitry Medvedev win the presidency in March. Medvedev is Putin's longtime aide and handpicked successor for the presidency -- an office Putin is barred by law from seeking again.
"If the citizens of Russia show trust in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him the new president, I would be ready to continue our joint work as prime minister without changing the distribution of authority between the positions," Putin said in an address to his United Russia party.
Putin sought to allay concerns that the coming election would amount to just moving the deck chairs, but few Russians are under the illusion that Putin's power would really be capped by the traditional bounds of the much-weaker prime minister's post. Nonetheless, Medvedev, who was formally nominated by United Russia today, is assured a decisive victory in the March 2 vote. Why hasn't Putin's authoritarian power-grabbing dented his popularity? The economy.
Russians can forgive Putin his flaws because their economy is rocketing -- even if Putin isn't exactly responsible for that trend. Here in the United States, the perception that the economy is flagging is threatening to upend next year's elections -- and President Bush's legacy. For the second time this month, Bush devoted a public address to the economy in an attempt to persuade the public that things weren't as dire as they seemed.
"My attitude was if you're paying taxes you ought to get tax relief," Bush told the Rotary Club in Fredericksburg, Va., recalling concerns about the economy after the 9/11 attacks. "If you think about where we were, coming out of 2001, and where we are today, you can't help but say the plan worked.
Memo To Congress: Maybe Try Doing Things Another Way
Just a year after voting for a partisan makeover, Americans think Congress is the pits. The main reason: that body's seeming inability to get anything done.
Considering all those lengthy floor debates and filibusters don't seem to get bickering lawmakers much closer to compromise, perhaps the ladies and gentlemen of the House and Senate ought to try settling their differences the old-fashioned way.
Flanked by the vice president and the rest of his Cabinet-level officials, President Bush cheerfully reminded Congress of the mountain of legislative work they must tackle before departing for the holidays.
"I thank the Senate and congratulate the Senate for passing a good energy bill," Bush said at a press conference on the White House lawn. "Now the House must act."
Bush emerged to speak with reporters this morning following his weekly Cabinet meeting. He scored a victory yesterday when the Senate overwhelmingly passed an energy package minus a Democratic-sponsored $21.8 billion provision that would have reduced tax breaks for oil companies. The overall bill remains tough on automakers, however, and is expected to make it through the House next Tuesday with relative ease.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-7 today to hold former White House political adviser Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten in contempt of Congress for non-compliance with subpoenas in the investigation of the U.S. attorney firings scandal.
"This is not a step I have wanted to take," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. But, he went on: "White House stonewalling is unilateralism at its worst, and it thwarts accountability. Executive privilege should not be invoked to prevent investigations into wrongdoing, and abusing it should have remedies and consequences."
Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., crossed party lines to vote with the committee's 10 Democrats in favor of the citations, though Specter acknowledged that the vote was "highly likely to be a meaningless act."
With tens of thousands of U.S. troops still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, many Americans will be sending their thoughts, prayers and charity dollars this holiday season to non-profit organizations catering to wounded veterans and their families. But a report from the watchdog American Institute of Philanthropy and tax filings examined by the Washington Post show that some of the nation's largest veterans charity groups have either mismanaged the donations they've received or spent very little of them on actual care for wounded vets.
The findings have outraged some lawmakers in Washington, who are holding their first hearing on the matter in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. "We need to make sure that the generous contributions of Americans to veterans will help veterans and not line the pockets of fundraisers and these organizations," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told the Post.
ABC News recently interviewedDaniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, about the watchdog group's charity report card.
Senate Democratic leaders failed again this morning to get cloture on a House-passed energy bill, falling one vote short on a 59-40 roll call.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the bill would be brought back later today after tax provisions are stripped from the bill. Democrats had already modified the House-passed bill by dropping a renewable electricity mandate on investor-owned utilities.
More details will be available in this afternoon's CongressDailyPM.
House and Senate Democrats have reached a tentative agreement on an overall budget number they think will be acceptable to the White House, limiting FY08 spending to President Bush's $932.8 billion request, plus $3.7 billion for the Veterans Affairs Department.
The mixture of funding within that top line was still in question, with the White House and Republican leaders wary of signing off on any package until they are able to review the details. There is also the delicate issue of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has still not been resolved.
Inclusion of at least $70 billion for the wars was likely to be a prerequisite for Bush's signature on the bill, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., yesterday did not rule out Iraq funds without strings being part of a final package.
White House Open To Emergency Spending, Omnibus Bill
House and Senate Democrats remained deadlocked today over how to complete the FY08 appropriations process, as the White House appeared to open the door to emergency spending increases and to soften its opposition to an omnibus bill.
Senate Democrats as recently as this morning thought they had an agreement to bring up the original bill they negotiated with the House, which splits the difference with President Bush's budget by adding $11 billion to his request. That would have come up Thursday, but sources later said the Senate plans to see what the House is able to pass.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey today instructed the 11 subcommittee cardinals who oversee the remaining spending bills to trim them back to Bush's $933 billion request. Emergency spending could be added, along with additional funds designated as "contingent emergencies" that would require Bush to agree to release the money. It would be up to individual subcommittee chairmen to decide how to implement the cuts. Earmarks will remain, despite an earlier Obey pledge, although at significantly reduced levels.
House Minority Leader John Boehner has raised the prospect of emergency spending, and at the White House today, press secretary Dana Perino said Bush might be open to the idea. "I think that we would consider emergency spending if we needed to at the end of the day," she said. She also indicated, for the first time, that an omnibus bill might be acceptable.
A new Government Accountability Office report [PDF] has found that just 36 percent of all workers participate in a 401(k) or similar retirement plan. For lower-income workers, participation in such plans was practically nil, meaning those workers risk falling off a cliff once they retire.
The returns on 401(k) plans may not be enough to sustain retirements, the report also found. The typical balance of such accounts was $22,800, the Los Angeles Times reports. Stretched to cover the retirement years, that is barely enough for many Americans to live on.
The report doesn't factor in Social Security benefits, however, so the overall outlook is not so dire. Still, the low participation and return levels could add momentum to an already existing push for automatic or mandatory enrollment in defined contribution retirement plans.
MarketWatch and Reuters have more on the GAO report. Though the prevailing wisdom is that Americans spend too much and don't save enough, some economists argue that Americans are actually saving more than they need to live comfortably after retirement. The New York Times reported on that school of thought in January.
Probes Into Destruction Of CIA Tapes Expand & Multiply
Congressional investigators are expanding their inquiries into the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the CIA's videotaped interrogations, as members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence complained about not getting enough answers during a closed briefing yesterday with CIA Director Michael Hayden.
Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said after the briefing that he plans to call CIA Inspector General John Helgerson and John Rizzo, the agency's top lawyer, to testify by next week "at the latest" on the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the tapes in 2005.
Rockefeller said it is possible he will also call Jose Rodriguez Jr. to testify. Rodriguez has been identified as the official who, as head of the spy agency's national clandestine service, ordered the videotapes destroyed. "This is a beginning," Rockefeller said.
The House intelligence committee is scheduled to hear from Hayden during a closed session today.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was the man of the hour in the press scrum before the Senate's Tuesday party luncheons. With a key part of the energy bill related to taxes headed to a vote and the fate of an alternative minimum tax fix and a measure blocking cuts for doctors in his hands, the Finance Committee chairman found himself surrounded by reporters three deep. Baucus expressed confidence that he could get the necessary 60 votes for the energy tax measure that would cut subsidies to energy companies. Democrats campaigned on the issue in 2006.
After the lunches, reporters crowded around Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., who is retiring by the end of the month. In one of his last tête-à-têtes with the press as a senator, Lott trumpeted the value of dealmaking, which has been in short supply on Capitol Hill this year.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would push the Senate to accept President Bush's domestic spending total and $70 billion for the wars, reflecting Republican confidence that Bush and the GOP hold the upper hand in the appropriations fight. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would wait to see what the House approved for the appropriations endgame before weighing in on the GOP plan. Most senators said there was no appetite for a continuing resolution into next year, meaning a final deal likely will be cut.
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes were nonbinding, giving judges some breathing room on sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine. Writing for the majority [PDF], Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg drew on the U.S. Sentencing Commission's recommendations that the 100-to-1 cocaine-crack possession ratio established by Congress be revised.
In 1986, Congress set much harsher penalties for crack cocaine offenders out of fear that use of the drug was fast becoming an epidemic in urban areas. The disparity in penalties can be seen in U.S. prisons, where blacks are disproportionately represented while powder cocaine offenders, who are mostly white, get off relatively easily.
Some activists have called the lopsided U.S. drug policy blatantly racist, but that was not really a calculation in today's decision. "A district judge must include the Guidelines range in the array of factors warranting consideration, but the judge may determine that, in the particular case, a within-Guidelines sentence is 'greater than necessary' to serve the objectives of sentencing," Ginsburg wrote. "In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the Guidelines' treatment of crack and powder offenses."
TPM wants to know what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell meant when he said the following during a re-election campaign stop in Grayson County, Ky., last week.
Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other aisle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don't want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.
Emphasis ours. Was McConnell really shrugging off the deaths of nearly 3,890 American soldiers since the Iraq war began four-and-a-half years ago, as TPM implies? It depends on where you are on the war.
The Senate has voted 53-42 to end debate on an energy package that President Bush has threatened to veto because of its tax provisions. That's short of the 60 votes required, and forces lawmakers back to the drawing board with just a week or so to go before the holiday break.
The House bill is geared toward reducing consumption and raising efficiency standards, but also nixes a $13.5 billion tax break for the oil and gas industry. It passed yesterday 235-181. But the White House said it would veto the bill because of the industry tax hike, which "single[s] out specific industries for punitive treatment."
The Senate in particular has a mound of appropriations legislation that has stalled, prompting Majority Leader Harry Reid to threaten to keep lawmakers in Washington during Christmas week. Bush has taken to scolding lawmakers loudly and often in recent weeks, and the appearance of stagnation has led to approval ratings for Congress lower than the highly unpopular president's.
CongressDaily(subscription) has a report on yesterday's House vote. Check back this afternoon for its report on today's Senate vote.
Senate Passes AMT Patch Without $50 Billion In Offsets
The Senate yesterday passed a one-year fix to the alternative minimum tax by an 88-5 vote after Democrats dropped demands that the $50 billion cost of the provision be offset to meet the pay-as-you-go budget requirements.
The action sets up a confrontation with the House, where Democratic leaders have continued on a fully offset AMT provision, so as not to run afoul of PAYGO rules. The House is expected to add offsets to the Senate package and send it back early next week, according to a House Democratic aide.
Such a move would further delay a final resolution of the AMT, which the IRS has estimated will affect 25 million taxpayers in 2007 unless Congress enacts a patch.
President Bush told worried homeowners today that help would be on the way -- once the Senate stopped sleeping on the housing foreclosure threat.
"The federal government is taking several regulatory actions to make the mortgage industry more transparent, reliable and fair," Bush said, as he announced a plan to stop the housing market implosion struck by his administration and the mortgage lending and services industries. "The U.S. Congress has the potential to help even more. It's been three months since I made proposals... and Congress hasn't sent me a single bill to help homeowners."
"If members are serious about helping" struggling homeowners, Bush continued, they will pass legislation as soon as possible.
The House has passed two housing fixes, both of which have stalled in the Senate. Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, seemed to rail against the leadership in his own party when he recently complained that "the increasing inability of the United States Senate to function is becoming a threat to governance."
In a second press conference shortly after the president spoke, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson echoed calls for Senate action.
"We've done our part. We need a bill now, as do hundreds of thousands of Americans," Jackson said. "Combining our administration's action and passage of this bill could help 800,000 families in fiscal year 2008."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today sought unanimous consent to pass a one-year patch for the alternative minimum tax without offsets, after failing to get cloture to proceed to a House-passed bill that would have offset the $50 billion cost of the AMT fix.
The Reid offer, which Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., called a "huge concession" to Republicans, drew an immediate GOP objection on the Senate floor. A GOP aide said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is "running the traps" and Republicans will likely sign off on the offer by the end of the day. The only question is whether senators who had sought to offer amendments to the AMT package -- including Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. -- will go along with the consent request.
The cloture motion failed 46-48 on a straight party-line vote, with the exception of Reid, who changed his vote to preserve his right to ask that the bill be reconsidered.
-Martin Vaughan, CongressDaily, with Christian Bourge contributing
See today's CongressDailyPM(subscription) for the full story. National Journal profiled the Democrats' tax reform efforts in a cover story last month.
Alexander, Kyl Elected In Senate GOP Leadership Shuffle
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee was elected Republican Conference chairman today, replacing Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who moved up to minority whip, aides and lawmakers said.
Alexander defeated Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina 31-16; Kyl was elected unanimously. The shuffle was prompted by Minority Whip Trent Lott's announcement that he would resign from his Mississippi Senate seat by the end of the year.
See CongressDailyPM(subscription) later this afternoon for more details.
It looks like President Bush will also participate in tomorrow's joint press conference at the Treasury Department. Secretary Henry Paulson and HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson are scheduled to speak at 1:45. A source told the Wall Street Journal(subscription) that the plan will apply to "certain loans originated between Jan. 1, 2005, and July 31, 2007, that will reset between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010." Those borrowers, presumably, will be allowed to pay back their loans at their current interest rates. We'll report on the confirmed details of the plan after tomorrow's presser.
In related news, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a 90-day freeze on foreclosures and a voluntary five-year freeze on interest rates to help borrowers hang on to their homes. In an interview on CNBC, she said she would also consider legislation that would force the mortgage industry to work with borrowers at risk of foreclosure.
House and Senate Democrats are drafting what could be a $520 billion-plus spending package they hope will drive an end to the budget stalemate and this session of Congress, including funding for 15 Cabinet agencies through the end of FY08.
President Bush is threatening to veto the measure over domestic spending increases he does not want. In a bid to woo GOP backing, as much as $30 billion might be added to tide the Pentagon over until March.
No funds would be allotted specifically to Iraq. But the extra money would allow the Pentagon to continue operations in Afghanistan, improve critical "force protection" needs such as body armor and armored vehicles, and cover a shortfall that threatens to curtail child care at domestic bases and other services.
President Bush lashed out at Congress in a brief address to reporters this morning, once again chastising lawmakers for failing to pass emergency funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and 11 spending bills to keep the federal government operating.
As legislators return to the Hill after two weeks off for Thanksgiving, Bush noted that "there's two weeks to go before they leave town" again -- "not enough time to squeeze in nearly a year's worth of unfinished business." Bush has been playing the scolder in chief for more than a month now as partisan squabbles over everything from Iraq to earmarks have kept Congress from passing many major bills on the table.
This morning he specifically took aim at a maneuver by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep Congress technically in session -- a senator conducted 30-second pro forma sessions every other day -- and thereby block any potential recess appointments by the White House. "If 30 seconds is a full day, no wonder Congress has got a lot of work to do," Bush quipped.
The Senate plans to take up legislation as early as this week to rein in the Bush administration's spying powers, even though major differences remain between members, and at least two Democrats are vowing to put up procedural roadblocks.
But any floor action on the legislation is expected to be crammed into an already-tight schedule before the end of the year.
"I think it is extremely unlikely that it will be pushed off until January," one aide said. "We fully expect to deal with this in the coming work period."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the floor a bill approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee to revamp the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, his spokesman said, and a second bill approved by the Judiciary Committee will be offered on the floor as a substitute amendment.
Former Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde (R), best known for leading the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton and authoring an amendment banning federal funding for abortions, died at the age of 83. The House Republican leadership confirmed his death today, AP reports.
Hyde was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this month but was unable to accept it in person because he was recovering from surgery. According to The Swamp, Hyde "had triple bypass surgery on his heart in July and has been in failing health." Family members told the Chicago Sun-Times that Hyde died around 3 a.m. this morning at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "I believe his heart just gave out," his stepdaughter, Sue Schiesser, told the Sun-Times.
The long-serving conservative representative of Chicago's western suburbs left the House last year, after 32 years in office. The Chicago Tribune reports that Hyde was "known for his courtly manners, oratorical skills and historical knowledge" and was "often seen as a throwback to a more genteel era in Washington."
In the weeks and months following the much-anticipated congressional testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the progress of the Iraq war, the anti-war movement has been eerily silent.
Compared with the outcry that accompanied previous failed attempts by Congress to pass a timetable for withdrawal, the most recent vote came and went without much noise from MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change and the umbrella group Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. Aside from the occasional Code Pink outburst and angry op-ed, liberal activists seem to have refocused their energies on health care and other domestic issues.
Rep. Carson Will Not Run Again After Cancer Diagnosis
Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., might return to Washington in January despite being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer last week, but the six-term member has ruled out a re-election bid next year, a spokesman said yesterday.
Len Sistek, Carson's chief of staff, said the 69-year-old lawmaker intends to return to work after the first of the year, but said he could not say whether she was considering resigning. "We are trying to stick with the facts and a lot is not known right now," said Sistek, explaining that Carson's staff in Washington learned of her diagnosis from media reports. He confirmed that Carson did "not intend at this point to seek re-election in 2008."
Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, longtime Senate majority leader and current minority whip, said he had no health problems when announcing his early retirement today.
"It is time for us to do something else," he said at a press conference in his hometown of Pascagoula.
The 66-year-old senator denied that he was stepping down early to get a jump on a lobbying career, a lucrative next step for many who leave Congress. Lott handily won re-election last November after previously stating he would not run; he attributed his change of heart to Hurricane Katrina. Today, Lott said that he had accomplished much in that regard but acknowledged that there was more work to do. He expressed confidence that his eventual successor would "pick up the flag and carry on."
"The legislation that we needed for the most part to be put on the books has been completed," Lott said, speaking of post-Katrina reforms. "We feel like it is time now, an opportunity to make this move," he said, speaking for himself and his wife, Tricia.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is making sure the White House won't have anything to be thankful for these next couple of weeks.
The House has adjourned until Dec. 3, but Reid announced that he will keep the Senate in a "pro forma" session throughout the scheduled two-week Thanksgiving break after being informed that several recess appointments by the Bush administration were likely.
So, who are the lucky senators charged with trudging back up to the Hill while their colleagues are back home enjoying turkey and the fixins?
Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore confirmed today that he will run for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. John Warner.
"America has a lot of work to do, and doesn't have the right leaders to do it," the conservative Republican said in his announcement video. "I'm running for the United States Senate from Virginia, because I want to be one of those leaders who call on the spirit that's common in all of us, and use it to restore our country for the benefit of our people and in the eyes of the world."
Gilmore's entry in what is expected to be one of the hotter Senate races next year comes four months after he ended his bid for the White House. Gilmore had little name recognition in the crowded field for the Republican nomination, and made barely a fingernail scrape on that contest.
Congress Adjourns With Farm Bill & Bridge Fund Still Outstanding
Some legislators left frustrated for the Thanksgiving recess after a cloture vote on the farm bill failed on Friday afternoon. Democrats fell five votes short of the 60 needed to end discussion, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to cut off after he and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could not come to an agreement on amendments.
A failed cloture vote also left up in the air the fate of the $50 billion bridge fund that would continue military operations in Iraq. Again, Senate Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed. But Reid sounded the death knell for the bridge fund -- unlike the farm bill, which could still come up when legislators return from recess -- and said that no money would be forthcoming this year.
This iteration of the Democrats' supplemental funding bill tied money for the war to a withdrawal timeline. Now, the Pentagon will continue to cover war costs out of its base budget, a move that officials have threatened to translate into layoffs and furloughs for Defense Department employees. Lawmakers did OK the Pentagon's $470 billion base budget before they left town.
Reid said Friday that senators will focus on FY08 appropriations bills and legislation addressing the alternative minimum tax when they return on Dec. 3.
CongressDaily(subscription) has details, as well as a full roundup of developments in the appropriations process.
The Senate this morning defeated both Republican and Democratic attempts to consider supplemental funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, CongressDaily reports (subscription). The Republican motion to invoke cloture on a $70 billion bill without restrictions failed 45-53, while the Democratic cloture motion on the House-passed $50 billion bridge fund with restrictions, including a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, failed 53-45.
The Democrats' continued inability to pass legislation forcing a change in President Bush's war policies one year after their victory in the 2006 midterm elections may be frustrating to lawmakers and voters who had high hopes for the Democratic majority. But two new surveys show that the troop surge instituted last winter and Gen. David Petraeus' testimony earlier this fall have done little to change the country's deep partisan divides over the war.
National Journal's latest survey [PDF] of congressional insiders shows Republican lawmakers nearly united in their belief that the "outlook for a stable, democratic Iraq" has improved over the past year, while a majority of Democrats said it has either deteriorated or remained static. Meanwhile, a new FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows an American public similarly divided along party lines on whether the surge has had an impact. See today's Poll Track(subscription) for more on these polls, plus the latest numbers from the White House race.
DOD photo by Cpl. Shane S. Keller, U.S. Marine Corps
Former Speaker Dennis Hastert addressed his colleagues as a fellow member for the last time this afternoon, ending two decades of service in the House.
"As members of Congress, we are not here just to vote but... to give voice on this floor to the aspirations of our constituents. So this place where we speak, the well of the House, is very special to me," Hastert said from behind the floor podium facing the chamber.
The 65-year-old former teacher recalled that he delivered his first-ever remarks as a freshman and as Speaker from behind that podium.
"I explained at the time I was breaking the tradition of Speaker by [not] making my acceptance remarks from the Speaker's chair because my legislative home is on the floor with you, and so is my heart. Well," he continued, "my heart is still here and always will be."
The Washington Post has an A-1 story this morning summarizing interviews with senior military officials who concur that the biggest U.S. obstacle in Iraq is not al-Qaida or sectarian violence, but the nascent Iraqi government itself.
"The lack of political progress calls into question the core rationale behind the troop buildup President Bush announced in January, which was premised on the notion that improved security would create space for Iraqis to arrive at new power-sharing arrangements," the Post reports. Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, told interviewers that the drop in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqis has opened a window of opportunity for the Iraqi government to reach out to former enemies, but "it's unclear how long that window is going to be open."
Meanwhile, at home, Bush is facing his own closing window in the form of war funding. The House yesterday passed a bill to fund further military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Democrats tied it to a host of measures -- including a troop withdrawal to begin within a month and to be nearly completed within a year -- that the administration wouldn't find acceptable.
It's do or die for the children's health bill -- again.
House Republicans seeking changes to the bill will present Senate sponsors with their final proposal today.
"There's a consensus that we get this done tomorrow or we just kind of confide to each other that we can't," Senate Finance ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said after a meeting yesterday. "We're getting finality, one way or the other."
Bush Takes Swipe Over Gonzales Again As Mukasey Sworn In
President Bush could not resist expressing his anger at the unceremonious way in which longtime confidante Alberto Gonzales was disposed from his job -- even as the man who replaced him as U.S. attorney general, Michael Mukasey, was just feet away for his own formal swearing-in.
"Our new attorney general, Michael Mukasey, follows in the footsteps of a fine man and fine American, Al Gonzales," Bush said, as Mukasey and Chief Justice John Roberts stood by for the ceremony. "As White House counsel and attorney general in my administration, Al Gonzales worked tirelessly to make this country safer and to ensure all Americans receive equal justice in the eyes of the law," the president continued, thanking Gonzales and his family for their "service to our nation."
Few in Washington share Bush's high opinion of Gonzales, however, which is the reason why the former AG resigned in late August after months of bipartisan calls for his ouster. Bush has apparently not gotten over the slight to his longtime friend and to his own judgment. When he announced Mukasey's nomination in September, he also took time from praising his pick to indirectly chide critics over Gonzales.
President Bush vetoed the $606 billion Labor-HHS appropriations bill this morning, setting up another showdown with congressional Democrats. The House fell three votes short of a veto-proof margin when it approved the spending bill. Bush sought to cut spending in the package below the prior year's level, but Democrats added more spending.
Also this morning, Bush signed a $471 billion Defense appropriations bill that includes a continuing resolution extending funding for the government through Dec. 14.
See CongressDailyPM later this afternoon for more details. Bush is slated to deliver remarks on the federal budget at an event in New Albany, Ind., later today.
The House today passed 216-193 an $81 billion tax extenders package, including a one-year patch to protect 21 million taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax.
Eight Democrats voted against the bill, including several who had voiced opposition to offsets used to pay for the package. Democrats voting no were Reps. Tim Mahoney (Fla.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), John Barrow (Ga.), Melissa Bean (Ill.), Nick Lampson (Texas), Jim Matheson (Utah), Harry Mitchell (Ariz.), and Gene Taylor (Miss.). No Republicans voted for the bill.
The largely united Democratic vote belied more widespread concern in the Caucus about the offsets, though leaders managed to persuade them to support the bill despite misgivings. To offset the AMT patch, House tax writers included a $26 billion provision to tax the profits of private equity, hedge fund and other investment partnerships at 35 percent instead of the 15 percent capital gains rate as under current law. The bill would also delay implementation of tax cuts for multinationals and yank tax benefits that hedge fund managers enjoy by deferring compensation on offshore income.
Rep. Jim Saxton is expected to announce today that he won't run for re-election, putting yet another dent in the Republican Party's hopes of being competitive in 2008.
Saxton was already being targeted on-air by groups critical of his vote against a proposed $35 billion expansion of SCHIP, a health care program for poor children. That bill has yet to survive a presidential veto, to the consternation of advocacy groups who've gone up with TV and radio ads targeting Republican lawmakers in an effort to sway their vote.
Politicker NJ is reporting that state Sen. Diane Allen is in line to be the Republican candidate for this seat. Democratic state Sen. John Adler of Camden County announced in September that he would challenge Saxton.
Saxton, 64, is serving his 12th full term in New Jersey's 3rd District. The House Democrats' campaign arm has been eyeing that district for flip potential; in 2004, President Bush and John Kerry made out about even. According to AP, Saxton is now the 14th GOP member of the House to retire since last year's midterms.
WH '08: Don't Quit Your Day Jobs! No, Seriously. Don't.
Many of the candidates for president say that the campaign finance system is in urgent need of repair, yet they are shelving the issue precisely because of said system. As a result, we've got the longest, most expensive and most annoying presidential election maybe ever.
Meanwhile, here inside the Beltway, Congress is still mostly deadlocked on such pressing concerns as the war and health care for disadvantaged children. Hence, disapproval ratings that have managed to exceed those of the pariah in chief, President Bush.
Might all this playing hooky in order to chase a dream that for some is very (very, very) distant explain why Congress doesn't seem to be accomplishing very much?
The Senate approved former federal Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the 81st attorney general last night by a tight, mainly party-line vote of 53 to 40. Seven Democrats, including independent Democrat Joe Lieberman, crossed over to vote for President Bush's nominee, who over the course of several weeks of debate went from being assumed likely to sail through the confirmation process to catching fire from many top Democrats for his refusal to solidly denounce waterboarding as torture.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid came out firmly against Mukasey, saying his answer to the waterboarding questions raised "serious doubts about whether he is prepared to be the truly independent voice that the Justice Department so desperately needs." His sentiments were echoed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. But another powerful member of the Democratic leadership, New York Sen. Charles Schumer, backed Mukasey throughout the process.
Bloomberg News reports that the Mukasey outcome has "aggravated a rift" between Schumer and Leahy, "raising the question of who's running the Judiciary Committee."
The House could vote as early as tomorrow on a measure providing a $50 billion bridge fund to continue military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for about four months, on the condition that troops be withdrawn from combat zones in Iraq by Christmas 2008.
"This is not a blank check for the president," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The funding is a little more than one-quarter of President Bush's $189.3 billion FY08 request, and Democratic leaders hesitated to approve that much given heavy opposition to the Iraq war. But Democrats changed course under pressure from the Pentagon, which fears a significant funding shortfall in January, and from Republicans ready to pounce at any sign of "shortchanging" the troops.
The measure's target date of Dec. 15, 2008, is nonbinding, meaning it could lose support from die-hard Iraq war opponents in the House. It also faces a steep hurdle in clearing the Senate, where the measure would be open to amendment and would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
"I think we should take it a step at a time," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said the Senate probably would take up the bill next week. He declined to comment on whether he expected more support from Republicans.
"I have in the past thought that we would have more Republicans than... we did. I hope so," Reid said.
By a 79-14 vote, the Senate today completed the first override of a veto by President Bush, enacting the $23 billion Water Resources Development Act into law over his objections. The override had long been expected, since the Senate approved the conference report on the bill by an 81-12 vote in late September. The House Tuesday voted 361-54 to override the veto, setting the stage for today's Senate vote.
As tensions mount between the Pakistani government and the lawyers, students and activists demonstrating against President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule late last week, U.S. officials are assessing their options for handling the crisis.
The Hill reported yesterday that Musharraf's actions could boost Sen. Carl Levin's (D) proposal to cut military funding for Pakistan in the 2008 defense bill "unless the president certifies quarterly to the defense committees that Pakistan is making substantial efforts to eliminate safe havens for the Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists in areas under its sovereign control."
Lawmakers aren't the only ones considering using the power of the purse to coax Musharraf to end the state of emergency. State Department spokesman Sean McCormackindicated yesterday that administration off
A controversial anecdote relayed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in last week's Texas debate wended its way into a Senate Armed Forces hearing on Army readiness today.
A fight over whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., can reject federal funds for his presidential campaign has thrown new attention on a stalemate hamstringing the Federal Election Commission and given unexpected attention to the role of McCain's possible election opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in that impasse.
"When you talk about the FEC, people's eyes glaze over.... But there will be increasing public pressure to do something as more and more people understand" the situation, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Her group called Friday for Republicans to compromise to end the standoff.
The 
That is a question the Pentagon and Washington have been asking since late 2003, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
Comptroller General David Walker, who has made warning the nation about the gravity of the nation’s fiscal problems a central focus of his decade-long tenure at the Government Accountability Office, is leaving within the month. He will take a position at the helm of a brand new public policy think tank, underwritten by Wall Street billionaire and longtime budget hawk Pete Peterson. 
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff received brief expressions of praise from the members of the Senate oversight committee for his department's achievements yesterday, and then had to endure prolonged bipartisan grilling and protests over his proposed FY09 budget and a wide array of other issues.
UPDATED.
At a charged hearing today, Major League Baseball star Roger Clemens testified under oath that he has never used steroids or human growth hormone, even as House Oversight and Government Reform members charged that the pitcher had lied to the committee about his drug use. 
Lawmakers squeezed around President Bush in the White House this afternoon as he signed into law a 
Gilchrest, who had bucked his party by voting against the Iraq war, lost to state Sen. Andy Harris, who had the backing of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth. Harris won, 44 percent to 32 percent, with 95 percent of precincts reporting as of early this morning. State Sen. E.J. Pipkin finished third in the GOP primary with 21 percent. In November, Harris will face Queen Anne's County State's Attorney Frank Kratovil in the Republican-leaning district on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
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The excitement surrounding yesterday's unprecedented Super Tuesday nominating contests obscured the latest and perhaps most damning news to come out on the troubled economy: Activity in the crucial service sector slowed for the first time in nearly five years last month.
The intelligence community's annual public report on the threats facing the nation was overtaken during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing today by the politically charged issues of waterboarding and other "coercive" interrogation techniques, extension of the government's eavesdropping authority and the 
When President Bush delivered his final, 
President Bush proposed a 2.9 percent pay increase for civilian workers and a 3.4 percent pay boost for military personnel in fiscal 2009, according to 
Having lost one of his main talking points on the economy -- that the U.S. was enjoying an unprecedented, 52-month run in job growth -- President Bush sought to assure Americans today that the U.S. economy would get through the current "rough patch."
The Army's suicide rate jumped 20 percent in 2007, an apparent indicator that the military's efforts to provide adequate mental health assistance to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are still falling short.
"After much soul-searching and discussion with those closest to me, I have decided the time is right to take a sabbatical from public life," he said in a statement. "I will serve out the remainder of my term, and plan to remain an active contributor to Republican causes, but will not run for office in 2008."
In another troubling sign of crisis in the U.S. housing market, the number of home foreclosures rose a staggering 75 percent to a total of 
End note. SOTU affairs are always a laundry list, and few expect them to deliver poetry. This year's address (
When Gen. David Petraeus returns to Washington in March, he will brief Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the progress of the U.S. troop drawdown. He'll be asked how units are faring in Iraq as more of them leave, and whether the targeted reduction -- from about 160,000 to the pre-surge 130,000 by this summer -- should progress as planned. 
With Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois likely fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination well into February, and one of them virtually assured of being the nominee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might be doomed to spend 2008 much the same way he spent 2007 -- hamstrung by a slim majority.
To non-hyperpartisans who've been following developments in Iraq, it's been clear for some time that there will be a significant U.S. presence there going into the next decade, regardless of which party rules the White House next year. Though both sides called a de facto truce in Congress following the 
UPDATED.
Yesterday, President Bush and the leaders of his political opposition, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, strongly signaled that they were on board with the outlines of the White House's economic stimulus proposals. That may be by necessity, since all parties are under intense pressure to jolt consumers and businesses into spending again. 
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Henry Waxman fired the next volley in Congress' fight with the Bush administration over missing White House e-mails, 
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers this morning that if they were serious about putting the brakes on the U.S. economic slowdown, any congressional stimulus package would have to be implemented sooner rather than later.
Rising food prices may be one of the most underreported economic stories. New data show that this trend is impacting the larger economy.
Bud Selig, Major League Baseball commissioner, and Donald Fehr, executive director of the MLB Players Association, defended their ability to reduce performance-enhancing drug use in baseball against a threat by Congress to legislate tougher testing. 
After relying heavily on financial incentives to attract recruits and retain war-weary troops, the military has had to put the brakes on awarding signing bonuses until Congress and the Bush administration resolve a dispute over 
"My wife, Julie, and I have made this decision after much prayer and deliberation. It was not my initial intent to retire, and I fully expected and planned to run again right up until very recently. But it distilled upon us that we were ready for a change after spending almost our entire married lives with me in public service." Doolittle and his wife are under scrutiny as part of the influence-peddling probe of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Don't blame lawmakers, though. Blame 
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House Foreign Affairs Chairman 
In his 
UPDATED.
Speaking at his final White House press conference of the year, President Bush congratulated Congress on its 11th-hour legislative achievements while making sure to backhand lawmakers for taking so long to get there.
A campaign spokesman said he could not provide details. 
Putin sought to allay concerns that the coming election would amount to just moving the deck chairs, but few Russians are under the illusion that Putin's power would really be capped by the traditional bounds of the much-weaker prime minister's post. Nonetheless, Medvedev, who was formally nominated by United Russia today, is assured a decisive victory in the March 2 vote. Why hasn't Putin's authoritarian power-grabbing dented his popularity? The economy.
Flanked by the vice president and the rest of his Cabinet-level officials, President Bush cheerfully reminded Congress of the mountain of legislative work they must tackle before departing for the holidays.
Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said after the briefing that he plans to call CIA Inspector General John Helgerson and John Rizzo, the agency's top lawyer, to testify by next week "at the latest" on the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the tapes in 2005. 
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes were nonbinding, giving judges some breathing room on sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine. 
UPDATED.
As legislators return to the Hill after two weeks off for Thanksgiving, Bush noted that "there's two weeks to go before they leave town" again -- "not enough time to squeeze in nearly a year's worth of unfinished business." Bush has been playing the 
Former Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde (R), best known for leading the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton and authoring an amendment banning federal funding for abortions, died at the age of 83. The House Republican leadership confirmed his death today, 
In the weeks and months following the much-anticipated congressional testimony from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the progress of the Iraq war, the anti-war movement has been eerily silent.
Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., might return to Washington in January despite being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer last week, but the six-term member has ruled out a re-election bid next year, a spokesman said yesterday. 
Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, longtime Senate majority leader and current minority whip, said he had no health problems when announcing his early retirement today.
"America has a lot of work to do, and doesn't have the right leaders to do it," the conservative Republican said in his 
The Senate this morning defeated both Republican and Democratic attempts to consider supplemental funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, CongressDaily reports 
Former Speaker Dennis Hastert addressed his colleagues as a fellow member for the last time this afternoon, ending two decades of service in the House.
"Our new attorney general, Michael Mukasey, follows in the footsteps of a fine man and fine American, Al Gonzales," Bush said, as Mukasey and Chief Justice John Roberts stood by for the ceremony. "As White House counsel and attorney general in my administration, Al Gonzales worked tirelessly to make this country safer and to ensure all Americans receive equal justice in the eyes of the law," the president continued, thanking Gonzales and his family for their "service to our nation."
Rep. Jim Saxton is expected to announce today that he won't run for re-election, putting yet another dent in the Republican Party's hopes of being competitive in 2008. 
Many of the candidates for president say that the campaign finance system is in urgent need of repair, yet they are shelving the issue precisely because of said system. As a result, we've got the longest, most expensive and 
The Senate approved former federal Judge Michael Mukasey's nomination to be the 81st attorney general last night by a tight, mainly party-line vote of 
"This is not a blank check for the president," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The funding is a little more than one-quarter of President Bush's $189.3 billion FY08 request, and Democratic leaders hesitated to approve that much given heavy opposition to the Iraq war. But Democrats changed course under pressure from the Pentagon, which fears a significant funding shortfall in January, and from Republicans ready to pounce at any sign of "shortchanging" the troops.
