Jobs Bill Will Help Reverse Deficit, Say Senate Democrats

The Senate continued to look for ways on Wednesday to muster the votes needed to pass a jobs bill filled with tax breaks, unemployment benefits and aid packages to states.

With the House having passed a jobs bill before the Memorial Day recess, Senate Democrats this week have proposed making changes to their bill, such as restoring $24 billion in Medicaid funds, money that was dropped from the House’s package. Additionally, in a move designed to court moderate support, the Senate bill now features a softer approach on taxing investments than does its counterpart legislation.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) called on both parties to put aside their differences and bring relief to folks struggling to make ends meet.

“Families are going through an emotional roller-coaster...and everyone knows around here that nothing is done in the Senate anymore without a filibuster, or two or three...It’s pretty outrageous.”

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said the bill would extend provisions within other bills -- most notably the Recovery Act -- that have “already changed the direction from a huge hemorrhaging of jobs...to several months of job growth.”

"We’ve gotta keep the pedal to the metal, we can’t now pull back,” Reed added.

At stake are several programs that need funding legislation to stay alive. In addition to the Medicaid dollars for states, there are matching $23 billion initiatives to prevent education layoffs and to reimburse physicians that accept Medicare. Stabenow said she supports the so-called “Doc-Fix,” and added that she plans on putting forth an amendment to extend COBRA benefits for the unemployed. She also downplayed concerns that the bill, totaling over $100 billion in cost, would add to the nation’s already-massive deficit.

“The reality is that this legislation is part of turning things around and I would argue lowering the deficit,” she said. “When people are working, they are paying taxes...and that’s part of how you lower the deficit.”

Republicans, however, say Americans should be skeptical of Democratic attempts to spark economic recovery and take on the ballooning budget. In an email to Talk Radio News Service on Wednesday, Parish Braden, a spokesman for the RNC, took aim at Reed, calling him an irresponsible steward of his struggling state.

“Senator Reed isn’t up for reelection and has the luxury of not having to match facts to his rhetoric," Braden said. "It’s odd that the Senator would hold a news conference on the Democrats’ efforts to cut taxes and create jobs seeing as Rhode Island has lost over 18,000 jobs since the ‘stimulus’ became law and unemployment has jumped from 9.9% to 12.6% in the same period.

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor, Rhode Island and Michigan possess two of the nation's four highest state unemployment rates.

$305 Million Project Facing Temporary Setbacks, Says FBI Director

By Laurel Brishel Prichard University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

Setbacks facing the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Sentinel project, a $305 million effort to revamp the bureau's case management system, are temporary, FBI director Robert Mueller told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Thursday.

According to Mueller, the project is stuck in the second of four phases. The makeover was halted when reviews of the program revealed what the director described as “coding defects.”

The delay of Sentinel made many of the committee members nervous that this program will end up like Trilogy, a separate, failed revamp of the FBI’s case management program that cost around $100 million.

“Are we on the way to [a] boondoggle?” asked Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Muller defended the stalled program, and explained that the setback was minor and has enabled the FBI to seize the opportunity to take a more in-depth look at the progress of the program.

The delay will move the project's completion date to 2011.

Doctors For America Rejoice Following Passage Of Health Care Reform

By Laurel Brishel Prichard University of New Mexico/ Talk Radio News Service

Advocacy group Doctors For America expressed their excitement Monday over the passage of sweeping health care reform legislation the previous day. The doctors joined together from across the country in D.C. for a march and rally to congratulate the Senate and House for their work on health care reform.

“This legislation will go further and do more to fix the problems of the health care delivery system in my state then anything that I have seen proposed in the 27 years I’ve been here in the Senate,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) during a news conference for the association. “This is a great day for our country.”

The doctors, who wore patient identification bands to help associate themselves with their patients that are struggling with the cost of health care, will continue to urge the Senate to pass the reconciliation, which Bingaman says will be passed this week.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) warned that many new programs will have kinks in the beginning, but that health care reform is a monumental achievement for the nation.

“What you are seeing happen here is the beginning of an enormous change, it is not a change that is all done,’ said McDermott “We have to keep coming back and working on it just like we did with Medicare.”

The new reform should be treated like Medicare, according to McDermott, which has been amended every year since its enactment in 1965. One of the amendments that McDermott and Doctors For America pressed hope to create is a program to help future doctors, dentists and nurses with the ever rising cost of school for those fields.

“This bill tells all Americans who are suffering with chronic conditions, whose insurance companies set a lifetime or annual cap on their benefits, that those days are over this year,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL.) said.

Democrats Writing Healthcare Bill Behind Closed Doors, Gregg Accuses

By Laurel Brishel Prichard
University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Sens. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said Thursday that the health reform bill must first become a law before reconciliation can be used to amend it.

“So much of this bill may be subject to the Byrd Rule and may go in one way and come out another way, assuming it comes out at all,” Gregg told reporters during a brief session.

Senate Republicans have secured 41 signatures on a letter demanding that reconciliation only be used on legislation involving budget adjustments, and not major policy changes, said Alexander.

“If any sentence is deemed that the policy is more significant then the budget adjustments that it applies to...it will be knocked out, the paragraph will be knocked out, and the section will be knocked out,” said Gregg.

Alexander reiterated a GOP desire to deal with reforming the nation's healthcare system in a "step-by-step" manner. Gregg agreed, and argued that a more piecemeal approach would yield a more transparent process.

“The simple fact is [Democrats] are hiding the bill. This is another one of those processes where it's being written in a hidden room, behind a hidden room, behind a hidden door,” said Gregg.

House May Try To Pass Smaller Individual Healthcare Bills, Says Hoyer

Unwilling to make the ultimate concession and pass the Senate’s healthcare reform bill, the House may try to pass a series of individual bills, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday.

“We may have individual bills on the floor...that’s in discussion,” said Hoyer, who acknowledged that passing piecemeal legislation could be difficult given that many reform provisions rely on others to be effective. Hoyer said that a decision on how to proceed would be made “as soon as [House leaders] know the way forward.”

In addition to healthcare, Hoyer touched upon a laundry list of issues during his weekly briefing with reporters, including Pay-Go legislation that passed the Senate last week. The Majority Leader said that the House would vote on a Pay-Go proposal of its own within a bill to raise the nation's debt ceiling on Thursday.

Addressing the big news story of the day -- testimony from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen regarding ending the military’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy -- Hoyer said he supported doing away with the controversial practice.

“‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ needs to be repealed,” he said. Hoyer added that although Mullen called for an end to the policy during Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Congress would wait to act on putting forth legislation.

Later, Hoyer blasted Republican leadership for blocking a Senate amendment last week that would’ve created a congressional debt commission. Hoyer took shots at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), noting that he had been for the commission before he voted against it. The Majority Leader expressed his hope that President Barack Obama would “go forward” on issuing an executive order to create a similar commission.

And for you sports fans out there, when asked for his pick to win the Super Bowl, Hoyer wouldn’t commit to either the Saints or Colts, but may have tipped his hand when he quipped that the “Colts were stolen out of Baltimore...in the dead of night.”