On Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced that the country’s deficit had hit the $1 trillion mark just nine months into the fiscal year. Fear of the deficit had already led Congress to kill or delay an administration-backed jobs bill, a federal extension of unemployment benefits, a war More…
The House Budget Committee this afternoon approved a budget reconciliation bill that jumpstarts the process that Democrats hope will end in the Senate passing sweeping health care reforms by a simple majority.
The reconciliation bill, which will be the vehicle for the health care “fixes” the Democrats will More…
With Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) threatening to kill health insurance reform legislation unless it’s diluted considerably, liberals nationwide are urging Democrats to side-step Lieberman by using the budget reconciliation process, which would allow them to pass parts of the bill with a simple majority More…
The New Mexico Independent’s Marjorie Childress attended a town hall meeting yesterday in Albuquerque featuring Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) — a member of the so-called “Gang of Six” senators at the center of negotiations over the Senate Finance Committee’s pending health care reform bill. Bingaman said access More…
Many conservatives live in fear of the Democrats’ plans for health care reform, and they’ve been proportionately critical of the possibility that Democratic leaders will lean on reconciliation — the budget procedure that prevents filibusters — to get it done.
But not Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Speaking to ABC More…
The prospects for congressional approval of climate change legislation this year have dimmed but not disappeared. Yesterday the Senate voted against using the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to consider climate change legislation by a 67-31 vote and the House-approved budget did not include cap-and-trade in its budget reconciliation provisions.
All 41 Republican senators have signed an open letter asking Democratic leadership not to use the filibuster-proof reconciliation process to pass health care reform, a sure sign that the threat of reconciliation, which would allow the Senate to pass a health care reform bill with 51 votes instead More…
Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag kept up the pressure on Senate Republicans over the weekend by continuing to raise the possibility that the White House may use the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to pass comprehensive health care reform if the Republicans don’t show more flexibility. More…
In what The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim calls a “big boost for climate change,” Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and John McCain (D-Ariz.) today endorsed the idea of ”cap-and-trade” system to reduced carbon emissions. When President Obama offered his proposal for a cap and trade system last month, even Republicans More…
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