Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has stepped up to the plate to fight reauthorization of the crony capitalist Export-Import Bank. I wrote yesterday that the Tea Party is losing on this issue despite the heroic efforts of Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) and other members who agree that the Ex-Im Bank is a high offense against free market capitalism. The Export-Import Bank was created in 1934 by FDR to facilitate trade | Read More »
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has tossed some red meat to his left wing base who have called for an end to the filibuster. On Monday, Reid filed cloture on 17 district court nominations as a means to argue that Republicans are obstructing President Obama’s judicial nominations. According to one Senate study, President Obama and President George W. Bush’s nominations are on the same pace. Reid’s allegations of Republican obstructionism are pure politics. | Read More »
The Senate will work through a Senate version of a highway funding bill this week. The House has a relatively light schedule. This week will dominated with discussion about “Super Tuesday” and President Obama’s Tuesday press conference intended to steal the press corps on “Super Tuesday.” The House is working on a bill that will partially repeal ObamaCare. The Senate is continuing work on a highway bill that spends too | Read More »
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is so terrified of a vote on the President’s American Jobs Act that he used the “Nuclear Option” to block a Senate vote tonight. The Senate was poised to vote on the President’s jobs plan, yet Reid used a tactic to obliterate the legislation without a vote. This is a dangerous game that Senate Democrats play, because Republicans could | Read More »
There is only one issue this week in Washington - a Continuing Resolution (CR). Both the House and Senate were scheduled to be out of session this week, so there are no major hearings or markups scheduled in committees. Friday is the deadline to pass a CR, therefore expect the House and Senate to convene off and on this week to cut a deal to keep | Read More »
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may cause a government shutdown. Senator Reid is employing a procedural strategy to deal with the House-passed long-term Continuing Resolution (CR), H.R. 1, that may make it more likely that the federal government will shut down when the government runs out of money on March 18. Remember this when we get closer to March 18 and both parties blame | Read More »
Liberals want to do away with the filibuster, in the name of “Filibuster Reform,” so they can have complete control over the Senate agenda in the next Congress. Before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took over his position as the most powerful member of the Senate, he was against filibuster reform. Now he is for it. The fight for so called Filibuster Reform is merely | Read More »
Taxes and spending are on the House and Senate agenda for today. After the Senate passes the President’s tax deal, the House may blow up the compromise by changing the Death Tax. Later this week, Senate appropriators are reportedly trying to sneak through a massive new Omnibus spending bill. They are planning on offering an Omnibus Spending bill as a complete substitute for the Continuing Resolution, a bill to fund the | Read More »
Today is a busy day for the House and Senate. The details of a final deal on the Obama tax negotiations have yet to be shared with Senators, yet Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has told Politico that “I’m hoping that in the next day or two that we can be on that.” The American people have a right to see the final details | Read More »
Today is check the box day in the Senate. Votes scheduled on one labor issue, one gay rights issue, one immigration reform issue, one 9/11 health care issue and one Social Security issue. None of the bills dealing with these issues are expected to pass, because all 42 Republican Senators are expected to vote against cloture on all legislative items until the tax issue is | Read More »
Conservatives disagree as to whether the tax deal cut between the White House and Capitol Hill’s leaders is a good deal for America. Some conservatives argue that the new congress could have forced a long term deal on extending tax relief permanently for all Americans. Some conservatives are happy to get some tax relief before tax season starts on January 1st and believe that it is the best we could | Read More »
A shorter post today, because nothing much happening on the Hill. The President’s Debt Commission failed to garner the 14 votes out of 18 necessary this morning on the official commission report that would increase taxes by one trillion over the next 10 years. The House passed last evening a bill that would increase taxes on families making more than $250,000 a year. The Senate passed late last | Read More »
The WikiLeaks document release will dominate the conversation inside the beltway today and this week. Tomorrow, the President’s Debt Commission will meet in an attempt to report a package of legislative items to Congress. The Commission needs 14 of 18 members to vote to report any measure and they are operating under a December 1st deadline to settle on a report. Also on Tuesday, the | Read More »
The Senate Republican Conference voted to ban earmarks yesterday. A victory for conservatives — Hold on a second. Moments after the announcement some Republicans stated that they would publicly flout the rule and Democrats pledged to fight to protect bloated pork barrel spending. Although the President has pledged his opposition to earmarking, the true test may come soon if Congress sends him an Omnibus spending | Read More »
Tonight was the big Nevada Senate debate between Republican Sharron Angle and Democrat Incumbent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Las Vegas. Mitch Fox of PBS, the debate moderator, asked Reid a very specific question. Reid gave a very misleading answer.
Although no votes are scheduled in the House and Senate today, there was breaking news early this morning in the negotiations in the Financial Services conference. CNN Money reports: After a grueling 20-hour session, lawmakers early Friday finished melding the House and Senate Wall Street reform bills, bringing Congress closer to passing the most sweeping changes to the financial system since the New Deal. They | Read More »
All eyes in Washington are on the Tuesday tea leaves to see if the Tea Party movement is here to stay. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) may have scored a Pyrrhic victory in squeaking out a win over lefty Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, yet she is going into this fall as the most endangered incumbent member of the United States Senate. Also, Washingtonians are taking note that Sarah | Read More »
Rahm Emanuel on November 19, 2008 in a Wall Street Journal video product 2008 Shaping the New Agenda uttered the now famous words: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Evidently, the left will not allow the Gulf of Mexico oil spill ”crisis to go to | Read More »
Solicitor General Elena Kagan will be making some house calls for one-on-one courtesy meetings with Senators. I can’t tell you how many times over the past two days I hear conservatives say “yeah, Kagan is bad, but if she is defeated or withdrawn, we will get somebody worse.” As many teams are finding out right now in the NBA and NHL playoffs, never look past | Read More »
Yesterday, President Obama rolled out Elena Kagan, the current Solicitor General and nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. The left wing noise machine distributed talking points to fight the argument that Kagan’s lacked necessary judicial and legal experience for the Supreme Court. Nobody, right or left, really knows anything about Kagan’s judicial temperament or philosophy, because of her absence of a body of legal writings. | Read More »
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