House Might Return to Vote on State Aid Bill

Today, the Senate overcame a key procedural hurdle to move forward on a much-needed $26.1 billion state aid bill. The provision provides $10 billion in funds for teachers’ jobs and $16.1 billion for Medicaid. Without the additional funding, promised to states for months, local governments might have laid off More…

Senate Makes Further Cuts to Food Stamps to Pay for Medicaid, EduJobs

To pay for a much-needed, job-saving and job-creating bill to help ease states’ budget woes, Democrats have made further cuts to food stamps, and for the first time ever, benefit recipients could see their monthly checks shrink.

Amid Recession, Federal Workers Targeted

At Politico, Maggie Haberman and Ben Smith have a good piece on the “perfect storm” ginning up politicians’ opposition to public-sector workers. Firefighters and teachers sometimes earn more than the average American, and sometimes benefit from pricey defined-benefit pensions and union backing. With the public angry and states slashing More…

Governors Still Resisting Dems’ Medicaid Expansion Proposal

One of the central elements of the Democrats’ plans to cover the tens of millions of uninsured Americans is a sweeping expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal partnership to cover the lowest-income folks. But the success of that strategy is in doubt for a couple of reasons.

First, Medicaid pays providers More…

Obama Tacks to the Center at Governors Meeting

Among the many ad-libbed lines during President-elect Barack Obama’s remarks this morning at the National Governor’s Association was one that may raise the eyebrows of environmental and labor activists.

Trickle-Up, the New Trickle-Down

Following up on Mike’s follow-up that touched on the failure of trickle-down economic policies to, well, trickle down, it looks like President-elect Barack Obama intends to pursue an altogether different track.

Politico’s Mike Allen has some excerpts from Obama’s prepared remarks, to be delivered today at the More…

Obama Sends Video Message to Governors’ Climate Summit

President-elect Barack Obama today sent a taped video message of support to the Bi-Partisan Governors Global Climate Change Summit, hosted by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles.

In the video, Obama reiterated his campaign pledges for quick and dramatic action on global warming, and vowed to partner with any More…