Senate Healthcare Bill Is The 'Framework' For Further Reform, Says Key Democrat

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told reporters Tuesday that although the Senate healthcare bill may not contain a medicare expansion or a public option, she will vote for it.

Said Stabenow, "We’re in a legislative process where we have to bring everyone together and get the very best that we can, and then keep working.”

“This is about a framework...and that will change the debate going forward,” she added.

The Senator from Michigan advocated passing the healthcare bill rapidly so it can then be melded with the House bill and sent to the President's desk by the end of this year.

Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) said during the press conference that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) currently does not have the 60 votes needed to pass the bill.

“The goal here is to get the job done...to get 60 votes so that we can proceed and overcome the actions of the Republicans, that’s what we’re going to continue to focus on,” Cardin said.

Stabenow and Cardin denied to comment on Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) refusal to support the bill if it included a medicare expansion provision.

Lieberman Calls Ft. Hood Shooting “Most Destructive” Terrorist Attack Since 9/11

By Meagan Wiseley - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) Wednesday called the shootings carried out by Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood Army Base earlier this month the “most destructive terrorist attack on America since 2001.”

Lieberman said the Senate Homeland Security Committee will begin an investigation into the shootings to determine if they could have been avoided.

“We are interested in getting the facts and correcting the system so that our government can provide the best homeland security possible for the American people,” Lieberman said during an afternoon press conference, “At the completion of the investigation the committee will issue a report and recommendations.”

Lieberman said the investigation will focus on answering two specific questions: did the Federal Government know information concerning Major Hasan that could have prevented the attack on Fort Hood, and, how does this incident affect the government’s understanding and enforcement of “home grown Islamic terrorism” in the U.S.?

A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on the Fort Hood attacks was initially scheduled for Wednesday, but has been postponed until the following day.

“Our hearing tomorrow will begin with a focus on what we know on the public record about the Fort Hood attack and Nidal Hasan,” Lieberman added.

Bipartisan Group Pitches Commission To Examine Federal Overspending

John DuBois - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Speaking before the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) called for the creation of a bipartisan, 16-member panel to examine federal spending. The "Securing America's Future Economy" (SAFE) Commission would make recommendations to Congress regarding ways to limit overspending and would force lawmakers to vote on them.

According to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) the nation's deficit exceeded $1.4 trillion during the last fiscal year. Lieberman and other Democrats including Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) are in support of Wolf's proposal, making it a truly bipartisan bill.

Said Conrad, “We must also address the demographic challenge we face in Social Security and the revenue challenge we face from an outdated and inefficient revenue system."

The SAFE Commission mirrors legislation proposed by Wolf and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) in 2006. That bill, called the "Securing America’s Future Economy Commission Act," aimed to reform U.S. tax policy and entitlement benefit programs.

Lieberman argued that implementing Wolf's proposal will effectively help the country get back on the right fiscal track.

“The only way we will be able to make the difficult decisions needed to reduce our national debt is to create a special commission whose sole focus is to develop solutions to the long-term fiscal problems that our country faces,” said Lieberman.

Added Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), “The federal government is the worst credit card abuser in the world and we’re putting everything on the tab of our children and grandchildren.”

“We can continue down the same path, which means that in just 15 years every penny of the federal budget will go toward entitlement spending and retiring our debt, or we can start making the hard choices now," said Wolf.

Senate Weighs Economic Sanctions Against Iran

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is weighing the possibility of levying economic sanctions against Iran. During a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the committee discussed ways to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former State Department official during the Bush administration, said that Iran’s hotly contested presidential election has compromised the power of its government, and that America “should seek to diminish its strength further.” He said that “Americans should seek to maintain our position as the dominant power in the Middle East, because our influence is positive in that region, and Iran’s is not.”

Burns said that President Obama has generally followed former President’s Bush “basic strategy” by trying to end the nuclear weapons project in Iran through negotiations before applying “draconian” economic sanctions. He said that he did not believe negotiations alone will successfully end Iran’s nuclear program, but said that financial, economic, and energy sanctions would be more effective.

Dr. Suzanne Maloney, a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, discussed the economic outlook in Iran. She said the country faces “serious economic problems: double-digit inflation, power shortages, a tumbling stock market, stubbornly high unemployment rates,...increasing dependence on volatile resource revenues, and perhaps most ominously for the Iranian leadership, a rising tide of popular indignation about economic frustrations.”

The panelists agreed that unilateral sanctions will not be effective unless other countries join in sanctions against Iran. “We alone in the United States don’t have the capacity to cripple the Iranian economy with our sanctions,” said Maloney. She argued that “multilateral steps represent the only real alternative to a negotiated solution.”

Testifying before the committee, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I- Conn.) praised an amendment added to the Defense Authorization bill, which passed last week. The amendment places a time limit on how long Iran would have to respond to U.S. requests for negotiation before sanctions would be imposed.

“This bill will basically say to companies worldwide who are selling gasoline to Iran, who are shipping it to Iran, or who are insuring or financing those shipments, you got a choice to make. You can continue what you are doing with Iran, or you can do business in the United States of America. You cannot do both,” said Sen. Lieberman. He said that the amendment would not force President Obama to act, but would grant him the authority of enacting economic sanctions.

Sen. Lieberman said that the amendment had bipartisan support. “No matter what may divide us on other issues, we are very united in our concern, our anger about the Iranian program of nuclear weapons development,” he said. “The greatest threat to peace is for Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability.”