Slashing $100 billion from the 2011 budget may have appeased the Tea Party caucus and the freshman class, but it’s turning out to be not so comfortable for some Republican moderates.
On Monday New York Republicans Pete King and Michael Grimm sent Speaker Boehner a letter protesting cuts to transit security grants, the COPS program …
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took both Republicans and Democrats to task for political cowardice on entitlement reform in his first big Washington speech today at the American Enterprise Institute.
“The President’s not talking about it because he’s waiting for the Republicans in Congress to start talking about it,” said …
South Dakota is apparently considering legalizing the murder of doctors who perform abortions.
The House GOP leadership has allowed a rare open amendment process to the FY2011 budget on the floor this week. Thus far 403 amendments totaling 459 pages have been filed with more to come. Most of the Democratic amendments will try and reinstate many of the $100 billion in cuts. Many of the Republican Study Committee amendments will …
Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican and ranking member on the Budget Committee, is an avowed free trader. Yet, Sessions is holding up the renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences, a trade agreement that has been around since the mid 1970’s. The GSP gives preference to 131 developing nations to sell certain goods in the …
Starting this week deficits and spending will take center stage in Washington. And barring a total meltdown in the Middle East, they will hog the stage for the next three months. The stakes are high. Odds of a government shutdown are getting better as are the chances the U.S. could default on its debt. Odds that President Obama will …
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington yesterday sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics demanding an investigation into members sleeping in their offices. By CREW’s estimation at least 32 members — and as much as a fifth of the freshman class — save on rent and sleep on cots, air mattresses …
Four years ago, I did a story about how three “pioneers,” or top bundlers for President George W. Bush, were giving money to Barack Obama.
[Madison Dearborn Partners founder and then deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago John] Canning says he’s fed up with the Republican Party. “It’s become a party that’s taken
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Last year, in the Pledge to America Republicans said if they gained control of the House they would lop $100 billion off the 2011 federal budget. Lo and behold they won. But the week they took office, they said that given that fiscal 2011 was already partly over so they would cut more like $60 billion. I never quite got this move as it …
The House Appropriations Committee today released a preliminary list of 70 programs they intend to trim – or in some places slash. The committee tomorrow is expected to release it’s omnibus appropriations package to fund the government for the rest of 2011. Congress last year failed to pass any of the 2011 appropriations bills and …
For all the hoopla over the Patriot Act extension failing the House last night, it really isn’t that big a deal. The majority often brings items up under suspension – meaning the bills are so innocuous that the regular rules are waived because they’ll likely easily pass, mostly post office namings and resolutions congratulating …
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who is exploring a bid for the Republican nomination, told S.E. Cupp, who hosts an online radio show on Glenn Beck’s website, that Sarah Palin is skipping CPAC because of her “business opportunities” and “other responsibilities” such as raising her five children.
“I don’t live in Alaska …
As Michael Scherer noted, Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, announced today he won’t run for a second term. Webb’s decision not to engage in a rematch with former Senator George Allen, whom Webb beat in 2006 by less than half of 1% of the vote, blows open the field for Democrats. Virginia went for President Obama in 2008 53% to John …
