U.S. MILITARY TROOPS FIRED DUE TO UNNECESSARY SEQUESTRATION CUTS; SEQUESTRATION HELPED DEMOCRATS LOSE IN NOV 2014

CUTS IN U.S. MILITARY MEAN JOB LOSSES FOR CAREER STAFF:

DOES CONGRESS CARE??

SEQUESTRATION IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY DEMOCRATS LOST IN NOV 2014.

FAYETTEVILLE — For all the insecurities of war, Capt. Elder Saintjuste always figured the one thing he could count on from the military was job security.

A Haitian immigrant who enlisted as a teenager, he deployed three times to Iraq, missing so many birthdays and Christmases that he sometimes felt he barely knew his four children. He hid symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder so he could stay in the Army, because he loved his job and believed that after 20 years he could retire with a captain’s pension.

Then this summer, on the day Saintjuste reached his 20 years, the Army told him that as part of the postwar downsizing of the force he would have to retire.

And adding insult to injury, he would have to retire as a sergeant, earning $1,200 less per month, because he had not been a captain long enough to receive a captain’s pension.

“I worked, I sacrificed, I risked my life, and they took it away like it didn’t matter,” Saintjuste said as he brought groceries into his house near Fort Bragg. “It wasn’t just losing a job. It was like having your wife leave you suddenly and not tell you why. It’s your whole life.”

For the first time since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the Army is shrinking.

Faced with declining budgets, the Army, the largest of the services, cut its force this year to 508,000 soldiers from 530,000, with plans to trim another 20,000 troops next year. If funding cuts mandated by Congress continue, the Army could have fewer than 450,000 soldiers by 2019 – the smallest force since World War II.

The cuts have largely come through attrition and reductions in recruiting, and have, so far, mostly affected low-ranking enlisted soldiers who have served only a few years. But this summer, the cuts fell on officers as well: 1,188 captains and 550 majors, many who were clearly intending on making a career of the military. More are expected to lose their jobs next year.

And for reasons the Army has not explained, the largest group of officers being pushed out – nearly 1 in 5 – began as enlisted soldiers.

Many are being pushed out despite having good records. When the Army announced the impending officer cuts a year ago, officials said they would target officers with evidence of poor performance or misconduct.

But an internal Army briefing disclosed by a military website in September showed the majority of captains being forced out had no blemishes on their records. The briefing, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, also showed that officers who had joined the Army as enlisted soldiers, then endured the demanding process required to rise into the officer corps, were three times as likely as captains who graduated from West Point to be forced to retire.

Many of those former enlisted soldiers had been encouraged to make the jump to the officer corps between 2006 and 2009, when the Iraq war was raging and the Pentagon was struggling to replace junior officers who were leaving the Army as soon as their initial commitments were over, often because they were worn out by multiple deployments.

The soldiers who volunteered to fill the gap – older than most junior officers because they had already served in the enlisted ranks – were picked from the best of the ranks, and some had to earn bachelor’s degrees to make the cut.

Many said in interviews they believed they were being pushed out because they were entitled to more pay and were eligible for retirement earlier, since they had been in the Army longer than other commissioned officers.

“The Army knew we had more years and they could save money by cutting us,” said Capt. Tina Patton, 43, a combat medic who became an officer in 2007. “Looking back at our records, a lot of us can’t figure out why else we would be cut.”

The Army declined to discuss in detail its criteria for trimming the officer corps.

“Selections for separation are based on a soldier’s manner of performance relative to their peers while serving as a commissioned officer,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Garrett, an Army spokesman said in an email. “The boards retained those with the highest demonstrated levels of performance and the most potential for future contributions on active duty.”

Promises of something big

Although the U.S. military has drawn down after every war, this one may seem more painful for many because they were not drafted but volunteered, often looking to make military service a career.

“They recruit with all kinds of promises, whether it’s career benefits or something more amorphous like being part of something bigger,” said Beth Bailey, a professor at Temple University who studies the Army. “They support families in a way that makes it a whole lifestyle. People become part of an insulated Army culture. For that to suddenly be taken away, I’m not surprised they feel betrayed.”

The Army has tried to ease the transition, offering separation pay – a cash buyout of sorts – sometimes amounting to more than $100,000, and months of notice to give officers time to find other work.

Captains who served more than 20 years get a full pension, and those who served more than 15 years get a prorated pension. But many of those getting pensions – about a third – have not served the eight years required to retire as captains, according to Army data. When they leave the Army, those soldiers revert to their previous highest enlisted rank, often sergeant, with lower retirement pay.

Capt. Tawanna Jamison, 43, who served 22 years in the Army but only seven as a captain, will get a sergeant’s retirement pay of $2,200 per month, less than half of what a retired captain receives, which is about $4,500.

“I could be facing bankruptcy,” she said. “I was helping my daughter pay for college. Now she’s on her own. I couldn’t have planned for this. It’s hard not to feel like the Army isn’t trying to save money on our backs.”

‘I get nothing’

Several officers said they neglected their home lives during the wars, believing they would eventually be repaid.

“Iraq, Afghanistan, jumping out of airplanes, doing all the training, leaving for work so early and coming home so late that I wouldn’t even see my family during the week, and I get nothing,” said Capt. Nathan Allen, who served more than 14 years as a linguist and intelligence officer and was awarded a Bronze Star.

As an officer, he worked 15-hour days, studying the latest intelligence for impending deployments while going through parachute and weapons training. He left for Iraq two weeks after the birth of his first child and was in Afghanistan for the birth of his third.

In seven years the family moved 10 times. Counting deployments and training, he estimated that he spent a third of his marriage away from his family.

“The whole time I told myself to just keep running and worry about the family later,” Allen, who is stationed at Fort Meade, Md., said in a phone interview.

After he learned he was being forced out, he said, “I fell into a deep despair.” He started having chest pains and body aches that made it hard to get out of bed. In October, he and his wife started seeing a counselor.

“I’m a mess right now,” he said. “They took away who I am. I’m a soldier.”

Source: News and Observer

Obama Vs. McConnell: Game On! Who Wins? Jobs, Defense & Taxes (Decision 2012)

Obama And McConnell: Debt Ceiling Gives GOP's Great Dismantler His Moment

If you haven't noticed, this is Mitch McConnell's moment. And if you haven't realized it, this won't be the last. In fact, there will be many more, especially if -- as is quite possible -- he becomes Republican majority leader of the Senate after next year's elections.

In what amounted to a victory speech as the final vote approached on the debt ceiling he brokered, the senior senator from Kentucky reached what has been a career-long goal: to be this century's Henry Clay.

Only instead of being Kentucky's "Great Compromiser," McConnell is and wants to be the Bluegrass's "Great Dismantler."

A handsome portrait of Clay hangs in McConnell's spacious Capitol suite. But the two men represent diametrically opposing traditions. Sen. Clay wanted to be president, and used his eloquence and shrewdness in the service of constructing and protecting the power of the federal government.



He championed the "American System" of national roads and public works, and spent decades trying to keep the Union from flying apart under the centrifugal stress of slavery, economics and ideology.

He inspired another Kentucky-born politician named Abe Lincoln, and infuriated yet another named Jefferson Davis.

McConnell, equally as shrewd if not as eloquent, has a fundamentally different view. He sees his job, as he said on the floor as the vote began, to "rein in Washington" and "slow down the Big Government freight train." He mesaures success in terms of how much he can reduce the power, purse and reach of a federal government he has been a part of since he was elected at the height of the Reagan Era in 1984.

McConnell is a past master of channelling middle-class resentment at the power of government to gain power for himself in government. And he is one of the most patient and canny legislators and negotiators in modern politics: always superbly prepared, never given to rash actions or statements and a potent mix of brains and chip-on-the shoulder disdain for people with fancier pedigrees but fuzzier minds.

With the debt ceiling negotiations, he basically took the president to the cleaners. He used the energy of the Tea Party as a threat, and the weakness and division in the House GOP leadership to make himself the indispensable player in the final days. He proposed a fail-safe route to avoid default that played to the president's vanity (the idea of giving the president the power to decide debt-ceiling raises on his own) and then used the sense of trust to drive a hard bargain that took takes off the table.



McConnnell also used his 26-year relationship with Vice President Joe Biden to smooth the pathway to a deal.

As Rep. Charlie Rangel said, the GOP "mugged the president but let him keep his wedding ring."

The president thinks that the "super committee" that now will be appointed will be able to -- and will -- recommend revenue increases and even tax cuts when it has to report Nov. 23. There may indeed be some loophole closings, but don't count on it.

Was the president listening today when McConnell discussed the "super committee" group of 12, which will include six Republicans and six Democrats? McConnell called it the "cost-cutting committee."

Game on.

McConnell's whole career has been about skillfully tapping anti-government resentment and turning it into deals and power. That is how he began his rise in Louisville and Kentucky.

In 1974, Louisville -- a border city on the Ohio River in the Border State of Kentucky -- was sullen and divided in a way it had not been since the Union Army occupied it during the Civil War. The issues in many ways were the same: race and the power of the federal government. In the summer of 1974, a federal judge had ordered the widespread use of busing to integrate -- in fact not just in law -- the public schools in Louisville and surrounding Jefferson County. Well over 100,000 students were involved, but so were decades of de facto segregation.

In the working class neighborhoods of the city and its suburbs, anger at the order -- even occasional street protests -- was widespread. McConnell, originally born in Alabama, hailed from one of those neighborhoods. He wasn't a protestor or anti-busing leader by any means. He had worked for moderate GOP Sens. John Sherman Cooper and Marlow Cook, and had been an attorney in the Ford administration.

But he knew the neighborhood folks, as well as their fears and resentments. When he ran successfully for County Judge (the chief administrative job) in 1978, he ran strongly in places where he could make the case that government had too much say in local lives, and that services needed to be decided by families and neighbors, not by distant powers downtown or inside the Beltway.

That was the Reaganesque message he took statewide when he ran for Senate and won with the Gipper atop the ticket in 1984.

It is a straight line from there to the floor today.

And we may not have seen anything yet. As patient as he is remorseless, as deeply political as he is lawyerly, McConnell built a machine in Kentucky. It is crumbling now -- the incumbent Democratic governor is up by 25 points in new polls, and Sen. Rand Paul of the Tea Party is hardly a faithful ally -- but Mitch is moving on to do the same thing in the Senate that he did in the state years ago.

Meticulous, tactically focused, he runs a tight ship in the Senate and keeps a very close eye on the GOP's Senate election process. Here's the key statistic for 2012: of the 11 seats considered to be in play by handicapper Charlie Cook, nine are held by Democrats. The Democrats currently hold a 51-47 majority, with two others caucusing with them. Do the math. The GOP is within reach.

The Great Dismantler is on the march.



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Sources: CBS News, Fox News, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

McConnell Declares War On Obama Again! Defense & Taxes (Tea Party Terrorism)

Mitch McConnell Vows To Hold Debt Ceiling Hostage In The Future: ‘We’ll Be Doing It All Over’

While a deal has been struck to raise the debt ceiling for now, many progressives have worried that the damaged has been already been done in that Republicans learned that “raw extortion works and carries no political cost,” as the New York Times’ Paul Krugman wrote today. “Irresponsible brinksmanship” is now “a proven effective negotiating tactic,” ThinkProgress’s Matt Yglesias noted.

This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) confirmed this fear when he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Republicans will hold the debt ceiling hostage in the future, saying this debate “set the template for the future”:

MCCONNELL: It set the template for the future. In the future, Neil, no president — in the near future, maybe in the distant future — is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction. I expect the next president, whoever that is, is going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again in 2013, so we’ll be doing it all over.

The debt ceiling has been raised dozens of times in the past without controversy, including 19 times under President Bush alone. President Reagan increasing the debt ceiling by 199.5 percent during his eight years in office — more than any executive to date — while Presidents Bush, Jr. raised it 90.2 percent and Bush Sr. increased it by 48.0 percent.

Progressives should instead push to repeal it. The debt ceiling was intended to check the growth of federal debt, but it has clearly failed in that endeavor.

All spending must already be approved by Congress in the budgeting and appropriations processes, so the debt ceiling serves as nothing more than a redundant yet dangerous roadblock that can be taken hostage by a minority party in Congress.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office have both doubted the value of a statutory debt limit, and even former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan called for its repeal in 2003, saying, “The debt ceiling is either redundant or inconsistent with the paths of revenues and outlays you specify when you legislate a budget.”


Sources: Fox News, Think Progress, Youtube

Harry Reid's Deals To Get His 60 Votes, Defense Bill Clears

Mass., Vermont Bigger Medicaid Winners Than Nebraska


Perhaps the Republican criticism of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is misplaced: Nebraska is set to reap only a fraction of the $1.2 billion in special Medicaid deals for three states.

Vermont, which is represented by the once-wavering Sen. Bernie Sanders, would recieve $600 million over 10 years for its Medicaid costs, according to Congressional Budget Office figures requested by Senate Republicans.

Massachusetts would see $500 million, according to the CBO.

Nelson, who has been lambasted throughout the day, steered only (!) $100 million to his state to cost the full cost of the Medicaid expansion.





Payoffs For States Get Harry Reid To 60 Votes



Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback,” as the GOP is calling it, got all the attention Saturday, but other senators lined up for deals as Majority Leader Harry Reid corralled the last few votes for a health reform package.

Nelson’s might be the most blatant – a deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion for Nebraska, meaning federal taxpayers have to kick in an additional $45 million in the first decade.

But another Democratic holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers, while denying it was a “sweetheart deal.” He was clearly more enthusiastic about a bill he said he couldn’t support just three days ago.

Nelson and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) carved out an exemption for non-profit insurers in their states from a hefty excise tax. Similar insurers in the other 48 states will pay the tax.

Vermont and Massachusetts were given additional Medicaid funding, another plus for Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Three states – Pennsylvania, New York and Florida – all won protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at a time when the program is facing cuts nationwide.

All of this came on top of a $300 million increase for Medicaid in Louisiana, designed to win the vote of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Under pressure from the White House to get a deal done by Christmas, Reid was unapologetic. He argued that, by definition, legislating means deal making and defended the special treatment for Nelson’s home state of Nebraska.

“You’ll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislating is all about. It's compromise," he said.

It was Nelson who proved that he who plays hardest to get, gets the most.

He forced Reid to redraft the bill’s restrictions on federal funding of abortion. And while most insiders were focused on that deal, Nelson was quietly ensuring that his state would never have to pay for the Medicaid expansion being written into the bill – an agreement that had been in the works for weeks.

Medicaid is usually paid for with a mix of federal and state funding, but Nelson's carve out means that any Medicaid beneficiaries who join the program under the bill will be fully paid for by the federal government.

It's an important deal considering that many governors are worried that the Medicaid expansion will further strain already stressed state budgets – and one that came after Nebraska Gov.Dave Heineman called on Nelson to vote against the bill.

"The State of Nebraska cannot afford an unfunded mandate and uncontrolled spending of this magnitude,” the governor wrote to Nelson.

Nelson deferred all questions on the provision to Reid, saying only that he was “comfortable” the deal took care of Nebraska.

But Nelson’s deal could be a pittance compared to where the Nebraska compromise might ultimately lead – to 49 other states demanding that the feds pick up their share of health reform’s new Medicaid burden when it kicks in during 2017.

"When you look at it, I thought well, God, good, it is going to be the impetus for all the states to stay at 100 percent [federal funding]. So he might have done all of us a favor," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said of Nelson’s dealings.

Nelson and Levin also pushed a provision that exempts non-profit insurers in Nebraska and Michigan from an annual multi-billion dollar excise tax on insurance companies.

Not surprisingly, both states are home to non-profit insurers who control a high-percentage of the industry’s profits. In Michigan, non-profit insurers control 76 percent of the industry’s profits – one of the highest percentages in the nation – while Nebraska non-profits control 46 percent of their state’s profits.

And in an example of how closely senators guarded details, Levin’s office did not answer any questions about the proposal when asked about it on Friday.

Republicans, meanwhile, expressed outrage at the wheeling and dealing, as if their party had never cut a legislative deal in its 150-year history.

“This bill is a monstrosity, a 2,100-page monstrosity full of special deals for people who are willing to vote for it,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. “And they’re playing these kind of games with the nation’s health care. This is an outrage.”

But Sanders didn’t sound outraged when he talked about the extra Medicaid funding Vermont will get for six years. Massachusetts, meanwhile, received three years worth of additional Medicaid funding. Under the original bill, neither state had qualified for the money.

Republican Sen. Mike Enzi accused Democratic leaders of favoring Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Pennsylvania, New York and Florida at the expense of seniors in other parts of the country.

“The Democrats are playing ‘Let’s make a deal’ with trillions of your hard-earned tax dollars. You and all the American people should know that the majority leader is buying his votes with your money,” said Enzi (R-Wyo.) “The Reid bill gives sweetheart deals to a few states and the rest of the country will foot the bill. Making unfair deals like this is the wrong way to legislate and the American people know it.”

And while there were plenty of state-specific deals, some of the changes were clearly aimed at pleasing specific Democratic factions. For instance, tightened insurance regulations went a long way toward putting a smile on the faces of liberal senators who have lost their much-loved public option.

The amendment mandates that insurers spend no less than 80 percent of their premium revenues providing medical care. Currently, insurers spend about 70 percent of their premiums paying for health care. The bill also eliminates insurers’ ability to cap annual coverage amounts.

In brief remarks at the White House, President Barack Obama also highlighted some new provisions, including penalties for insurers who “arbitrarily jack up rates” and an immediate prohibition on insures’ ability to deny children coverage.

Obama, too, talked of the deals as just the cost of doing business in Washington.

“As with any legislation, compromise is part of the process,” Obama said. “But I'm pleased that recently added amendments have made this landmark bill even stronger.”





War bill Survives Poisonous Vote



A $626 billion Pentagon budget narrowly advanced in the Senate Friday morning, but not before Washington’s political battles seemed to eclipse the real wars of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Senate scene, played out in a post-midnight session on a freezing night, dramatized how poisonous the atmosphere has become in the health care fight.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to weigh in for fear the military would be left with only stop-gap funding while fighting two wars overseas. And ailing 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) was wheeled in for the 1 a.m. vote while his old friend Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) deserted the bill under pressure from his own leadership to slow action.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made no secret of the fact that he was looking for leverage over Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to delay action on health care reform until after Christmas. The pressure on rank-and-file members was severe, and it was only after Democrats had secured the needed 60 votes that three Republicans broke ranks in support of cutting off debate.

“Not even the darkness outside can conceal the games being played inside this Senate chamber,” Reid said in closing remarks before the vote. “We are here in the middle of the night, but the reason is as clear as day.”

By contrast, the same defense measure — including $128 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — sailed through the Houseon Wednesday on a 395-34 vote. Cochran, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, had worked closely with Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) to ensure passage. And toward this end, Democrats pared back extraneous provisions and devoted the bulk of the additional domestic spending to jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

“It is a good bill. It ought to be passed, and it ought to be passed as soon as possible,” Cochran said on the floor Wednesday. But after a health care blowup on the floor that day infuriated McConnell, Cochran was pressed by his leadership to slow progress at least until Reid comes forward with the text of proposed changes being made in the Democrats' health care package.

In a statement after the vote, the Mississippian said his party felt it was important to act in “unison,” but that he was confident the measure would soon pass. “I regret that its consideration is being affected by the divisive end-of-session debate on health care reform.”

Neither party is blameless in the sorry state of the defense budget, which should finally clear Congress on Saturday, almost three months into the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Democrats stalled action themselves for months, hoping to use it as the locomotive for an end-of-the-year train of legislative items. “The Republicans didn’t control the timing on this bill,” said Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). “Why haven’t the Democrats been able to bring this most important bill to the Senate for a vote until a week before Christmas?”

Nonetheless the bare-knuckle Republican tactics are most striking because GOP members are typically very supportive of defense spending and reluctant to do anything to obstruct the annual Pentagon budget.

That tradition is wearing thin in today’s Washington. The 1 a.m. vote in the Senate echoed a fight last summer in the House during which Republicans opposed new war funding because they were upset that money for the International Monetary Fund had been added to the package.

“I think they picked the wrong bill for it,” said Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.). “Why are we putting the men and women in uniform in the middle of this debate? They didn’t ask for that.”

The three Republicans who supported cloture were Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — all representing states with a major economic stake in the defense budget.



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Sources: Politico, Google Maps

Pelosi Passes Jobs Bill, Prepares For 2010 Elections

Democrats find themselves in a lose-lose situation. According to the latest NBC News/WSJ poll, if the Democratic majority passes or fails to pass their health reform legislation, they might be swept out of office in the 2010 elections. The Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas discusses.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

US House narrowly approves Democratic Jobs Plan


President Barack Obama's Democratic allies in the House Wednesday muscled through a year-end plan to create jobs, mixing about $50 billion for public works projects with another almost $50 billion for cash-strapped state and local governments.

The unemployed would get continued benefits. But conspicuously absent from the plan were Obama's recently announced initiatives to give Social Security recipients $250 payments, a tax credit for small businesses that create jobs and a program awarding tax credits to people who make their homes more energy efficient.

Not a single Republican voted for the plan, which passed on a 217-212 vote after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., worked the floor for an hour before it passed. The measure now goes to the Senate, which won't consider the measure until next year and which generally has a smaller appetite for such deficit-financed economic stimulus measures.

Given increasing anxiety among Democrats over massive budget deficits and the party's poor marks with voters for its free-spending ways, the measure could face a tough road. Almost 40 Democrats voted against the plan, mostly moderates and junior members elected from swing districts.

According to documents released by Democrats, the measure would cost $154 billion. But there's also another $20 billion from the federal treasury to keep the highway trust fund afloat.

The measure blends a familiar mix of money for highway, transit and water projects and aid to help communities retain teachers and firefighters. There's also $41 billion for a six-month extension of more generous unemployment benefits and $12 billion to renew health insurance subsidies.

Many of the ideas are renewals of programs started in February's $787 billion economic stimulus bill, which has earned mixed reviews from the public as unemployment has hit 10 percent.

The idea behind the "Jobs for Main Street Act" was to enact fast-acting steps that would quickly boost employment. The bill also reflects concerns among rank-and-file Democrats that the original stimulus measure didn't have enough money for infrastructure projects.

But infrastructure spending is notoriously slow to spend out as projects need to be planned and can require a lengthy contracting process. Most of the so-called shovel ready projects have already been funded.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, less than half of the $39 billion in the measure for transportation and housing projects would be spent over the next decade, with just $1.7 billion being spent through next September.

Democrats claimed $75 billion of the measure is "paid for" with unused money from the Wall St. bailout. Republicans countered that the bill is really financed with red ink since the bailout money would otherwise revert to the Treasury to lower the deficit.

Republicans branded the new bill "Son of Stimulus" and were withering in their assessments.

"More spending, more debt. Same lousy policies that haven't produced jobs all year," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Democrats also say that economists largely credit the earlier stimulus measure for the fledgling economic recovery and the improving unemployment picture.

"The situation is worse than we thought and getting better more slowly than we hoped but it's clearly getting better," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.

Democrats said that the measure would prevent a double-dip recession by giving state and local governments $23 billion to retain teachers and lesser amounts to keep firefighters and police officers. And it would help prevent tax increases by state governments by giving them $23.5 billion for the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.

Republicans also distributed a chart showing that roughly half the money goes into accounts brimming with cash from the earlier stimulus bill.

"The agencies are awash with money coming through the pipeline," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.

But Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., countered that most of the earlier stimulus money has been committed if not actually spent.

The measure also includes money for Amtrak construction, school renovation and job training. There's also $1.1 billion for part-time college jobs, summer employment for low-income teenagers and money for workers in national parks and forests.

The bill also allows very poor people with as little as no income to claim a $1,000-per-child tax credit in what Republicans charged was simply a welfare payment to 16 million poor families.

The bill also would extend federal surface transportation programs through the end of next September.

Democratic leaders had to scramble to find the votes for the measure, which came up right after the House approved a $290 billion increase in the government's ability to borrow. That 218-214 vote reflected unhappiness by moderate Democrats about adding to the nation's red ink.






Nancy Pelosi in "Campaign Mode"


Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted Wednesday that job creation and deficit reduction will be the central Democratic themes for the coming year – and that public support for health care reform will rebound once a bill has been sent to President Barack Obama.

On the divisive issue of Afghanistan, the California Democrat ducked the question of how she would vote on increased war funding: “Let’s see what they request,” she said. But she has urged her party, including old allies on the anti-war left, to listen and give some “room” to Obama, recognizing that the president had been “dealt a very bad hand because there was no plan in Afghanistan for years.”

Pelosi made her comments at a year-end roundtable with reporters where she described herself as back in full “campaign mode” and confident House Democrats will retain “a strong majority” after the 2010 elections.

“He didn’t give me 72 hours notice,” she joked of Rep. Brian Baird’s surprise decision to not seek re-election in his swing district in Washington state. But Pelosi said her rule of politics was “don’t assume anything” and she wasn’t panicked by the recent spate of retirements in her ranks.

In the case of health care reform, Pelosi credited House Democrats with having saved Obama’s initiative after the onslaught of attacks during the August recess. And if the Senate can complete its bill this month, she will work to try to send a House-Senate compromise to the White House before the State of the Union.

“They will pass a bill and we will have a bill,” the speaker said, and once that happens, she predicted the focus will shift away from the differences among Democrats and more on what is in the package itself.

“We are in a define-or-be-defined occupation,” she said, and her adversaries have had the advantage of picking out single issues, such as abortion or the public option, to characterize the whole.

Matching the House bill against the still-evolving Senate package, she said she saw differences of affordability for families and the revenue-raisers that would have to be negotiated. But she downplayed differences over the public option for coverage, saying the emphasis had always been on giving consumers an insurance option, not that it be public or government run.

“We know that, between the two bills, we have the makings of a big difference for the American people,” Pelosi said. “When we have a bill . . . the discussion is no longer about the bishops or about the public options, and it’s about what’s in the bill for people.”

She plans to travel to Michigan for the Detroit auto show in January and is already pressing the Senate to respond quickly next month to a new job-creation package on the floor Wednesday. When a Michigan reporter asked her response to White House proposals about job-creating investments in environmental technologies, she bridled a bit: “We need no introduction to these subjects, and we’re thrilled that the White House is joining them.”

But in contrast with this past year, dominated by the Democrats aspirations for health care or climate change legislation, she said the grim federal debt now loomed over the agenda.

“There is a very, almost fierce determination to reduce the deficit,” she said, and repeatedly returned to her early years in Congress and budget battles under President Bill Clinton that contributed to the Democrats losing control of Congress in 1994.

“We’ve been here before,” she said. “We had to make very difficult decisions, and as you know, we paid a political price for it but we had to do it.”

Pelosi predicted in January ‘we’ll come to terms on a commission” such as those proposed to make recommendations to Congress on difficult deficit-reduction measures. But without mentioning Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) by name, she seemed cool still toward his legislation, which would usurp the speaker’s power over legislation and dictate an up-or down-House vote -- without amendments -- on whatever the commission recommends.

“I said pass it in the Senate,” the speaker said. “Send it to me, I’ll have to face it.” But when Senate leaders told her that it was unclear still if the Conrad plan had the 60 votes needed for passage, her answer was: “Then let’s talk about what we can both pass rather than talk about what some people think should happen but doesn’t really have the votes.”

“This is not a completely whole new ball game because we had to do it when President Clinton made the determination that we would go forward,” the speaker said. “We know how to do it -- we’ll do it again.”



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Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Google Maps

GOP Succeeds In Health Care Reform Slowdown

Senate debate stalls as GOP forces reading


The debate on the health care reform bill stalled Wednesday as Senate Republicans forced the Senate clerk to read a 767-page amendment establishing a government-financed health care system.

"Republicans have a number of tools at their disposal that can be used, this is an option that was discussed for some time and our conference is unified in its execution," said a Senate Republican leadership aide.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), added, "This will take several hours, if not the balance of the day."

Senate staff estimate the reading could take eight hours.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered the amendment, and asked to dispense with the reading of it, which is almost always agreed to by unanimous consent. But Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) objected -- it takes only one senator -- which then forced the reading.

Sanders called it a "bit absurd" that Coburn was objecting. Coburn insisted he wasn't intentionally stalling the bill. "We're going to understand what single payer is all about and read the bill," he said.

Republicans appear to have no immediate plans to stop the reading.

This development will prevent senators from offering, debating or voting on any other amendments. While it might seem like the reading would set back efforts to finish the bill by Christmas, the timetable doesn't really depend on what happens on the floor.

It depends entirely on Majority Leader Harry Reid's ability to reach a compromise on the bill that can pick up 60 votes.

“The only thing that Sen. Coburn’s stunt achieves is to stop us from moving to the DoD appropriations bill that funds our troops – not exactly the kind of Christmas gift that our troops were expecting from Dr. No,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid.

Manley said the amendment will take 12 hours to read. The reading can only be interrupted to ask that it be waived, which presumably would be objected to by Coburn, who is sitting in the chamber.

Before forcing the reading, Coburn asked to certify that every senator has read and understands the bill. But Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said it would be impossible for the Senate to certify that all its members understand the bill.


Sources: Politico

House GOP Refuses To Continue Raising National Deficit

House budget splits defense, jobs



A year-end budget bill taking shape in the House on Monday night would meld $626 billion in new defense spending with a set of pared-back tax- and unemployment related provisions designed to get through the Senate without a prolonged fight.

At the same time, the leadership has opted to pursue a second, more robust job-creation package that will allow the House to speak on the issue but with no anticipation of Senate action before January.

What’s evolved then is a two-bill strategy with the primary focus this week on finalizing the budget package that will carry must-pass measures to extend the estate tax and authorize billions in extended jobless benefits.

“Our whole interest in life today is what can get through the Senate,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)

Over Pentagon protests, the defense chapter in the bill is expected provide an estimated $2.5 billion for the purchase of 10 more of Boeing’s C-17 transports, and $465 million is included for the continued development of a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But elsewhere, Defense Secretary Robert Gates largely gets his way, including a full order of 30 F-35 fighters and the terminations he wanted of funding for the F-22 and VH-71 presidential helicopter programs.

Included in the package is $128 billion in contingency funds for on-going military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the Pentagon is expected to seek at least $35 billion more next year to help cover the cost of President Barack Obama’s decision to add up to 33,000 more U.S. troops.

As seen in the bill now, the ripple effect of this buildup is already being felt.

There has been increased pressure to add funds for the purchase of more armored vehicles able to cope with the rough Afghan terrain. The final core defense budget is expected to include an additional $825 million for this purpose on top of the administration’s request. And as proposed by the Senate months ago, hundreds more vehicles would be purchased by trimming back on spending for the training of Afghan security forces.

Hoyer’s goal is to get the bill to the House floor by Wednesday, but it’s no longer certain that Democrats will use this measure to address the sensitive issue of expanding Treasury’s borrowing authority to finance the growing federal debt.

Just a week ago, the Maryland Democrat had hoped House and Senate leaders could join forces on the defense bill to raise the ceiling by as much as $1.8 billion — enough to carry the government through next year and the 2010 elections. But this proved nerve-racking for Senate moderates, who are insisting on the creation first of an independent commission to force Congress to do more to address deficit reduction.

Hoyer is still pursuing some resolution of the issue. Even as the House bill moves forward, he remains in negotiations with Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) over such a task force, already championed by 33 senators including 14 Democrats.

“I haven’t given up on that,” Hoyer told POLITICO. And if agreement can be reached, a long-term increase in the debt could still be added by the Senate and sent back to the House together with a compromise on the Conrad-backed deficit commission.

The senator himself has said he is open to giving Treasury the authority to borrow what it needs for a short term period—perhaps two months. But where this goes is ticklish still.

Threading the Senate needle is complicated by the fact that some liberals oppose the defense funding itself because of their opposition to the wars overseas. So it could be that the debt debate shifts to what would be a third hastily assembled vehicle, a stop gap spending bill to keep agencies operating while the budget bills are resolved.

As these many scenarios suggest, the whole year-end exit strategy is still evolving and something of a roll of the dice.

With Christmas next week, House leaders are anxious to send their members home for the holidays — but it’s proven difficult to get a clear read from Senate Democrats, who are consumed by the ongoing health care reform debate.

To appease the Senate and hold down costs, House Democrats are prepared to pare back plans to authorize a full one-year extension of benefits for the long-term jobless. Instead, any extension will be close to six months, costing $40 billion, and this may have to be reduced further, Democrats said Monday night.

At the same time, liberals are desperate to preserve some job creation and infrastructure investments. Tempers are frayed, and the two-track approach on jobs is born of this frustration.

In a remarkable effort to force the Senate’s hand, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) went so far last week as to actively pursue a strategy of providing only stop-gap funding for the Pentagon, thereby freezing out billions of dollars in home-state projects added by lawmakers in both chambers.

At one level, it was an anti-pork-barrel statement in the name of helping the unemployed. On the other, it would have put Democrats in the untenable posture of freezing defense funds in the midst of two wars.

A more peaceful approach, taken by tax writers, seeks to minimize their differences with the Senate by scaling back the scope of the bill. The House will insist on perhaps a one year extension of the current estate tax, which otherwise drops to zero in January. But tax writers have agreed that they can afford to wait before renewing billions of dollars in often popular tax breaks due to expire at year’s end.

Since many won’t affect tax filings until April 2011, there is a longer window for Congress to act. But the biodiesel industry is anxious, since transactions in January would be immediately impacted by the removal of the credit to encourage the blending of diesel with biofuels.

Watching from the sidelines, California Rep. Jerry Lewis, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, complained that Democrats were creating a “hodgepodge” and should just let the defense agreement — finalized over the weekend — stand on its own.

“Let me make it easy for my Democrat colleagues,” Lewis said in a statement late Monday. “Put a clean Defense Appropriations bill on the floor, let members and senators cast a vote they can be proud of and send our troops and their families the resources they need and deserve.”


Sources: Politico