| Sounding a more centrist note, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday there is a “fierce determination” to reduce the deficit |
Pelosi’s comments Wednesday came as the House rushed through a final stretch of back-to-back year-end bills in hopes of going home for Christmas. |
Most striking were the increased tensions over deficit reduction that seemed to trip up the speaker herself. Democrats only narrowly won approval of an estimated $290 billion increase in the Treasury’s borrowing authority to avoid the threat of default in January. And then hours later, there was a backlash from some of her own freshmen against an estimated $150 billion jobs creation bill that Pelosi had championed but that barely survived on a 217-212 vote. |
“We’ve been here before,” Pelosi said. “We had to make very difficult decisions — and, as you know, we paid a political price for it — but we had to do it. … We did it then; and we will do it again.” Read more at dyn.politico.com |
With two-thirds of the House cosponsoring Dr. Paul’s H.R. 1207, my Senate colleagues have a great opportunity here to gain some traction for the movement to audit the Fed. The Senate Banking Committee is poised to clear Mr. Bernanke’s nomination on Thursday, sending it to the full Senate for a vote. Several lawmakers plan to use the proceedings to gain momentum for a bill that aims to subject the Fed’s monetary-policy making to congressional audits. |
The measure, crafted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), mirrors one written by Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) that was included in the House’s overhaul of financial-industry regulations passed last week. |
“It would surprise me if very many people would be willing, in public, to vote against the audit,” Mr. DeMint said. “Americans don’t trust the Federal Reserve,” he said. It has expanded its “mission well beyond anything that was ever discussed.” |
But the audit legislation has drawn backers from across the political spectrum, including Mr. Sanders — among the most liberal lawmakers in Washington — and conservatives such as Messrs. Paul and DeMint. Read more at online.wsj.com |
There is nothing in the healthcare bills thus far that reward consumers for staying healthy or consuming less healthcare. People taking financial ownership of their well-being means more efficient spending by both consumers and healthcare providers. The health-care bills moving through Congress contain little to reward consumers for lowering their health costs, an omission prompting some lawmakers to press for more such incentives. |
There are virtually no provisions in the Senate or House health bills that directly reward consumers for choosing cost-efficient care or lowering their medical costs through healthy behavior. Instead, the White House and top Democrats who drafted the health bills focused on giving doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers incentives for reducing unnecessary treatments. |
The idea of giving consumers more “skin in the game” when it comes to health costs has long been popular in some academic circles, especially among those who believe market forces can help solve the U.S. health-spending problem. |
“Most Americans don’t get a chance to benefit when they shop wisely,” he said. “That’s something that we ought to change, and it’s certainly not partisan.” Read more at online.wsj.com |
We have consistently stood strong against irresponsible, expensive Democratic bills this year, and will continue to do so if they try to piggyback more pieces of their political agenda onto this important defense appropriations bill. Using defense funding as a means to force through unpopular legislation is politics at its worst. Emboldened House Republicans who refrained from criticizing President
Barack Obama earlier this year have unanimously rejected Democratic
bills on spending, taxes and financial regulatory reform in December. |
On Friday, the House passed a regulatory reform bill, 223-202, with 27 Democrats voting no. The House also passed an omnibus measure, 221-202, with 28 Democrats rejecting it. And earlier this month, an estate tax cut extender cleared 225-200, with 26 Democrats defecting. Not one Republican backed any of the measures, which are all supported by the White House.
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The House GOP’s unity has complicated a possible Democratic strategy to attach language on increasing the national debt limit to the politically popular defense-spending bill.
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On Monday, 174 House Republicans sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) vowing to oppose the spending measure if the debt increase were attached to it.
Read more at thehill.com |
Moody’s tells the U.S. to shrink our deficits or lose our triple-A credit rating. Obama says that we should ’spend our way out’ of the downturn. The President needs the face the reality that taxpayers do every day: there’s no such thing as free money. Moody’s Investors Service says the U.S. and U.K. must prove they can whittle down their ballooning deficits to avoid threats to their triple-A credit ratings. |
In a report released on Tuesday, Moody’s set the two countries apart from other top-rated sovereign borrowers, calling them merely “resilient” rather than “resistant,” a label it applied to Canada, France and Germany, where public finances are in better shape. |
| There are 17 such “triple-A”-rated countries, ranging from the U.S. to Australia. |
In both the U.K. and the U.S., Moody’s said, much will depend on the vigor of the economic recovery and the willingness of governments to shrink the deficits. |
Under the most pessimistic scenario put forward by Moody’s, the U.S. would lose its top rating in 2013 if economic growth proves anemic, interest rates rise and the government fails to dent the deficit or recover most of its assistance to the financial sector. Read more at online.wsj.com |
Speaking in the Oval Office, Obama declined to say directly whether he would seek to redirect some of the repaid money from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to jobs programs. He did say he would address the topic in an economic speech on Tuesday. |
| The president said the key question is determining whether the bailout money could be put toward selective job creation that meets the original intent of the law. |
The president’s comments came as Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill were looking to tap as much as $70 billion in unused funds from the Wall Street bailout to pay for new spending on roads and bridges and to save the jobs of firefighters, teachers and other public employees. Republican leaders are voicing strong opposition to that idea, saying all the money should go toward reducing the federal deficit. Read more at www.businessweek.com |
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