Iowa U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Cumming) can count himself among the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, according to a USA Today analysis of financial disclosures of members of Congress.

Harkin has an estimated net worth of $16.6 million, putting him among the 57 members of Congress or 11 percent that are worth $9 million or more and thus in the wealthiest 1 percent.

The wealthiest 1 percent measurement has become popular in recent months as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and others have begun referring to themselves as “the 99 percent,” decrying wealthy Americans and corporations they say aren’t paying their fair share in taxes.

Other members of the Iowa Congressional delegation aren’t included in the wealthiest 1 percent. U.S. Rep. Tom Latham (R-Ames) is worth $5 million; U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-New Hartford) is worth $3.2 million; and U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Des Moines) is worth $1 million.

U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack (R-Mount Vernon) is worth $499,000; U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Waterloo) is worth $435,500; and U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) is worth $240,000.

The wealthiest members of Congress are U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Cal.), at $448.1 million; U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), at $380.4 million; and U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), at $231.7 million (most of which is courtesy of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is worth $6.8 million; and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is worth $27.2 million.

House Speaker John Boehner is worth $4 million; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is worth $101.1 million; and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is worth $5.4 million.

Net worth doesn’t include primary residences or other personal property.

“The lawmakers I have appointed to serve on this joint committee are proven leaders who have earned the trust and confidence of their colleagues and constituents,” Boehner said. “They understand the gravity of our debt crisis and I appreciate their willingness to serve on this panel.”

Boehner named House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) as co-chair of the committee.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) chose Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and first term senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

Senate Democrats will be represented on the committee by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), John Kerry (D-MA) and Patty Murray (D-WA).

It is not yet clear who will represent House Democrats on the committee.

That sentiment was expressed in a post today on RedState. The Twitter account of the publication also tweeted this: “It Is Time To Burn Mitch McConnell In Effigy. He Goes Pontius Pilate On the Debt Ceiling.”

Here is McConnell’s plan, as presented to The National Review:

The initial legislation would authorize the President to submit a request to Congress asking to increase the debt limit by $700 billion, and would require submission of a plan to reduce spending by a greater amount.

Upon receipt of the President’s request, the debt limit would be provisionally increased by $100 billion to provide breathing room and avert an August 2nd default.

The House and Senate would have 15 days to disapprove of the request.

Within three days of the President’s request, it would be in order for the House and Senate to introduce a joint resolution disapproving of the President’s request.

Under expedited consideration of the Resolution of Disapproval, the resolution would be placed directly on the Senate calendar; the Motion to Proceed to the resolution would be privileged; there would be 10 hours of debate and passage would require a simple majority.

If either chamber defeats the resolution, the remaining $600 billion increase would be allowed.If both chambers pass the resolution, it would be sent to the President for a veto or signature.

If vetoed, debate on an override would be limited to one hour.

If the veto is overridden (which would require a 2/3 vote) in both chambers, then the request would be denied and the provisional $100 billion increase revoked.

If the veto is sustained in either chamber, the remaining $600 billion increase would be allowed.

For the second and third requests in fall 2011 and summer 2012, the President could request an increase of the debt limit by $900 billion once the Treasury Department determines that the country is within $100 billion of the debt limit. The President would also be required to submit a plan to reduce spending by a greater amount.  Each of these subsequent requests would be subject to the same disapproval process outlined above.

Congress has until August 2 to act before the U.S. defaults on its debt obligations. For a quick primer on the subject, click here.

Republicans have offered numerous amendments aimed at forcing Democrats to vote on EPA powers.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered an amendment that would prohibit EPA from taking any action to address climate change.

Stabenow’s amendment would give coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industrial sources a two year exemption from new EPA rules that require them to report their greenhouse gas emissions.

Stabenow spokespeople were not available to speak about the amendment.

The Hill reports that a League of Conservation Voters poll of voters in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania this week shows most people support letting EPA regulate carbon pollution.

“Three in five (63%) voters in the three Midwestern states say they trust the EPA more than Congress to decide whether there should be new standards for carbon pollution,” states a summary of the poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was the first to reject the invitation citing scheduling conflicts. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also jumped on the bandwagon and will not be attending the black tie event.

Boehner and Reid will be meeting the Chinese president on Thursday in a separate private meeting. But the meeting is unlikely to be filled with backslapping camaraderie — during an interview with a Las Vegas radio station on Tuesday Reid, described Hu Jintao as a ‘dictator’ –- though he quickly backtracked on his comments:

“He is a dictator. He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have,” said Reid, before quickly continuing, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said dictator, but they have a different type of government then we have, and that is an understatement.”

The atmosphere on the hill was far from friendly ahead of the Chinese delegation’s arrival with the promise of forging greater cooperation between the two economic superpowers. At a briefing on Wednesday morning, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) questioned whether China was a “responsible stakeholder” on the global stage, rhetorically citing China’s trade policy, relations with the Koreas and military action in the South China sea.

“We are back with a new energy from our newly-elected Members who are determined to take back America’s economy and are committed to a foreign policy that stands with our allies and holds accountable those who threaten our Nation’s security interests,” Ros-Lehtinen concluded her address.

Eighty-four lawmakers from both parties wrote a letter to Obama demanding that he takes a strong stance against alleged unfair competition by China. “America’s patience is near an end,” said the group, “We can no longer afford to tolerate China’s disregard [for international trade rules].”

Human rights is another contentious issue on many people’s minds as Obama and Hu meet for talks. A number of lawmakers have called for Obama, as a Nobel Laureate, to clearly voice his disapproval of China’s treatment of Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who remains under house arrest.

Obama did make a thinly-veiled reference to human rights as he welcomed Hu to the White House on Wednesday morning:

“The world is more just when the rights and responsibilities of all nations and all people are upheld, including the universal rights of every human being,” the president said.

Hu countered Obama comments, saying that both powers should “respect each other’s choice of development path and each other’s core interests.”

At a press conference held Wednesday afternoon, Hu did concede that “a lot still needs to be done” on human rights in China.

These comments have put political commentators on tenterhooks as the meetings between the leaders move into the second day.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) begrudgingly agreed Monday to a Republican moratorium on earmark requests. (Louie Palu/ZUMA Press)

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote by Senate Republicans to self-impose a two-year moratorium on earmark requests, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) released a statement indicating his avowed, albeit somewhat conflicted, support for the idea.

“I respect the spirit in which this moratorium has been agreed to and hope it will lead to a better use of taxpayer dollars,” Graham said. “However, I maintain the right to seek funding to protect our national security or where the jobs and economy of South Carolina are at risk. If the Obama Administration and their bureaucrats in the federal agencies take action against the best interests of South Carolina, I will take swift action to correct their wrongs.”

[Congress1] The heart of Graham’s worries is the Port of Charleston, which must be deepened to stay competitive with other ports along the Eastern seaboard, but it could just as easily stand for the pet project of any senator who now must worry about ways to ensure, and take credit for, worthy initiatives in his or her state. With the successful passage of Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) earmark moratorium among Senate Republicans — and a likely floor vote today on the question of whether to do away with earmarks in the next Senate altogether — Senate Republicans (and some Democrats who have signed on as well) are now facing tough choices about how to keep spending in check to better serve the national interest while still satisfying their constituents’ short-term needs.

Many of the Republican senators who ultimately signed onto DeMint’s proposal, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — a longtime proponent of earmarks — hardly did so wholeheartedly.

“Make no mistake. I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state,” said McConnell during his announcement Monday that he would vote for the moratorium. “I don’t apologize for them.”

Indeed, for a speech renouncing earmarks, McConnell’s remarks struck some observers as odd for devoting long portions to the “truly vital projects” he has supported over the years in Kentucky. But to Steve Ellis, vice-president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that seeks to eliminate wasteful subsidies, earmarks and corporate handouts, such difficulties in adapting to a new earmark-less world seem unlikely to begin and end with McConnell.

“There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, I’m sure,” Ellis said. “And certainly there are growing pains and adjustments that come with it.”

Many senators, who are currently quite comfortable with obtaining funding for their state through simple earmark requests, will now have to devise new ways to successfully advocate for and obtain funds for their states. There are positive and negative channels, experts say, through which this might occur.

“One is under the cloak of darkness or underground attempts at getting the agencies to do what you want them to do,” Ellis said. “The other is to work with the executive branch to develop the metrics and systems and create merit-based or competitive formulas for allocating spending.”

When House Republicans enacted an earmark ban this March, for instance, all but four members obeyed the new rule — but many found ways around it.

“There are other ways to indicate one’s preferences without technically earmarking,” said Daniel Schumann, policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for greater transparency in government. “Members can talk to the federal agencies, write them a letter, and ask them to consider certain companies or folks to do certain things. It’s not technically an earmark but it functions in a similar way.”

And when the rules applied only to House members, many simply made subtle requests of their senators.

“There are rules against members of the House lobbying members of the Senate, but as a practical matter there are ways to communicate what your preferences are for earmarks,” Schumann said. “One way to do it is to put in a request even if it’s not granted, because those requests are public. This of course becomes a lot harder if there’s a moratorium in both chambers.”

Another possibility, however, is that the moratorium will help foster a system in which legislators are forced to focus on drawing up more detailed authorizing legislation in the various committees designed to oversee the federal agencies. “One of the benefits of a moratorium is it concentrates the mind,” Ellis said.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who announced yesterday that he was joining Senate Republicans in a self-imposed moratorium on requesting earmarks, remains optimistic about the change.

“I’m hoping to lead by example and show my colleagues that there is life after earmarks,” he told reporters on a conference call devoted to explaining his decision to forgo the practice from now on. Udall was soon subjected to tough questions, however, about how he planned to guarantee grants for research initiatives at Colorado State University that had previously enjoyed his blessing though the earmark process.

“You’re right that I do support what CSU is doing, and there are many steps that can be taken,” Udall said. “I’m going to work with the administration so that when they’re drafting their budgets they’ll include funding for the state’s highways, bridges and roads and I’ll redouble my efforts during the federal grants process to advocate for districts and municipalities in the state. I have a senior staffer who works solely on that process. Ninety-nine percent of the state’s federal funding comes through federal grants and block grants, and I can write a grant bill if any needs go unmet.”

Graham, too, spent the majority of his announcement assuring South Carolinians that he would find alternative ways to address the infrastructure needs of the Port of Charleston, arguing that he still has two options.

“1. Pass Senator DeMint’s proposed legislation reforming the way port studies and harbor deepening are funded,” he said. “Or 2. Press the Obama Administration to include the necessary funding for the port study in their budget submission to Congress.”

If neither of those works, however, Graham made clear he was reserving the right to “use every option at my disposal to ensure funding is made available.”

Giving up earmarks might be painful at times, argues Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the CATO Institute, but it’s necessary if Congress is going to start governing in the national, and not parochial, interest.

“We’re a long way down a road that we shouldn’t be down, in which Congress gives huge authority to the executive branch to decide where money should be spent,” said Harper. “We need bills saying any community with these particular needs should get funding, not my community should get this project.”

The project of ending earmarks, in other words, is tied into a much broader project to increase congressional oversight over federal spending and rein it in in the process.

“[Arguing in favor of earmarks] is just saying we don’t want to do the oversight,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said on a conference call on Monday. “Bureaucracies can’t do the spending unless we allow it. We ought to be overseeing every penny the government spends everywhere.”

It’s an ambitious plan, and it just might sink a number of local projects that senators like Graham are still counting on finding a way to get done in their home states.

“Earmarks are the easy, lazy way of doing this stuff,” said Ellis. “Maybe the Charleston project is great, but is it the best? Every port along the East Coast wants to deepen and is undergoing this race to the bottom. Charleston is looking over its shoulder at Savannah, which is looking at Baltimore and Philadelphia. The question isn’t whether it’s in Charleston’s interest, but whether it’s in the national interest. Maybe, but maybe not.”

I know that while some earmarks have been employed for important purposes, like my funding request for the production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles to protect our troops in battle, there have been abuses.  These abuses have led many to question our willingness to get our nation’s fiscal house in order. [...]

I respect the spirit in which this moratorium has been agreed to and hope it will lead to a better use of taxpayer dollars.  However, I maintain the right to seek funding to protect our national security or where the jobs and economy of South Carolina are at risk.  If the Obama Administration and their bureaucrats in the federal agencies take action against the best interests of South Carolina, I will take swift action to correct their wrongs.

With both Republican senators from South Carolina now on board with the idea, Graham is essentially trying to hold onto an escape clause should he feel his state is in dire need and the Obama administration is giving it the cold shoulder. His concerns mainly focus on a single project for which he’s advocated tirelessly in the past — deepening the harbor of the Port of Charleston — and his vow (included elsewhere in his statement) to “use every option at my disposal to ensure funding is made available” for the project illustrates nicely how the earmark moratorium will likely generate conflicts for a number Republican senators during the next Congress. Graham, who feels the port is essential but fears a Tea Party challenge as well, is now caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to advocating for the project, and it will be interesting to see if he manages to keep both sides happy.

As the cross tabs indicate, it’s not just conservatives who say Congress should do away with the practice of earmarking. Let Freedom Ring’s president Colin Hanna said he has shared the survey results with several Senate offices, but he declined to indicate which ones.

“It’s about trust but verify,” Dallas Woodhouse, the North Carolina state director of AFP, told TWI sister site The American Independent when asked whether or not Congress would achieve anything during the lame-duck session. He added that AFP wanted Congress to pass a “clean, continuing” resolution to fund the government until the new Congress could make decisions, and to extend the Bush tax cuts.

On whether to pass unemployment insurance that expires at the end of the month, he said if the measure passed with the tax cuts, it would not be a “major issue,” but had problems with its continual extension. “Is unemployment insurance, insurance? Or is it welfare?” he asked.

Others in Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group founded in 2004 by billionaire David Koch but closely associated with the Tea Party, were convinced that Congress might pass bigger legislation. “Now Congress must respect the will of the people and refrain from passing any new legislation that supports or funds the Left’s global warming agenda, the bailout for union pensions, or funding for the Obama/Pelosi health care takeover,” said AFP President Tim Phillips in a press release preceding today’s rally.

“How egregious it would be to increase taxes,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), chair of the Tea Party Caucus and the headline speaker for the protest. “In the 6th District of Minnesota, they could take out $1.2 billion out of my district to spend more … they spend more than that before their morning coffee!” Ostensibly commenting on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts slated for the end of the year, she said, “The largest tax increase in history could cost 2,000 jobs in my district.”

Bachmann could hardly leave the rally as so many fans mobbed her. “Join my Facebook page!” she said, trying to leave.

Several other members of Congress stepped out of their nearby offices to speak. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and several newly elected congressmen staying at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel for new member orientation also spoke.

“The repeal of welfare reform was in Obamacare,” claimed Gohmert.

The event drew fewer than 300 people, even though AFP provided buses from North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. “We needed to send a message to be a watchdog,” said Fay Kist, a retired teacher who traveled by bus from Virginia Beach. When asked about her specific concerns for the lame-duck session, her response, over AFP-provided Domino’s Pizza, was immediate: “Earmarks, I never liked earmarks.”

After the rally, AFP steered many attendees to the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has opposed a moratorium on earmarks proposed by congressional conservatives. But just after 2 p.m., at the start of the lame-duck session, he changed his position in his opening speech on the Senate floor.

“This is no small thing. Old habits are not easy to break, but sometimes they must be,” he said. “There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and out of control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight.”

Luke Johnson reports for The American Independent.

I have thought about these things long and hard over the past few weeks. I’ve talked with my members. I’ve listened to them. Above all, I have listened to my constituents.  And what I’ve concluded is that on the issue of congressional earmarks, as the leader of my party in the Senate, I have to lead first by example. Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people. When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.

Make no mistake. I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them. But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight. And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government.

That’s why today I am announcing that I will join the Republican Leadership in the House in support of a moratorium on earmarks in the 112th Congress.

The vote on earmarks tomorrow is a pretty small, symbolic issue, compared to other fissures that will doubtless arise between the GOP establishment and Tea Party-backed candidates. The question is whether this is a relatively small bone McConnell figured he could throw the Tea Party, or whether it’s a sign of a whole lot more capitulating to the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party to come.