Washington Extra – Waiting for fireworks
Will we see fireworks in the debt talks next week?
So far the White House and lawmakers have been cranky about the state of negotiations, but no one has actually drawn a firm line in the sand – still hoping for a compromise.
Senators and staff can’t be happy about having their Fourth of July recess cancelled next week over debt talks, setting up a perfect environment for tempers to flare.
And no matter how much critics try to pooh-pooh the deadline for avoiding default, Treasury is sticking with Aug. 2 as the drop-debt date.
White House economic officials are expected to attend meetings on Capitol Hill next week. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have been invited but it’s unclear whether they will venture over to that end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
They may have to tread carefully to avoid tantrums after Obama likened Congress to children earlier this week.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Rare agreement on Capitol Hill over confirmation process
Stop the presses!
A man-bite-dog moment at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
The normally grid-locked U.S. Senate — Democrats, Republicans, independents — came together and overwhelmingly passed a bill to reduce its workload, curb its power and perhaps even decrease partisan fighting.
Drafted by the chamber’s party leaders, the measure, which now goes to the House of Representatives for anticipated final congressional approval, would slash the number of presidential appointees who need Senate confirmation.
More specifically, it would eliminate the confirmation requirement for about 200 of the 1,200 posts in the executive branch as well as for more than 2,800 members of the U.S. Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Officer Corps.
Judicial nominees, along with senior department personnel, so-called policy makers, would still need Senate confirmation.
But it would no longer be required for those on part-time boards or commissions or for lower-level adminstrators.
Standing room only at Social Security rally
Social Security rock stars? Senate Democrats held a rally that turned into almost a religious revival-type event on Capitol Hill where they were treated like rock stars by a standing-room only audience.
The crowd, which included the old and disabled, embraced the lawmakers with a prolonged ovation, cries of approval and shouts of “back off Social Security.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a battle with Republican House Speaker John Boehner over how to keep the government running when temporary funding ends April 8, gave fiery defense of the popular retirement program.
“Republicans have shown they couldn’t care less about those who have the least,” Reid said. “Their plan on Social Security is simple, and it’s this: end it. They use words like ‘privatize’ and ‘personalize.’ But they’re all code words for the same thing: ending Social Security as we know it.”
“Give ‘em hell, Harry!” one member of the crowd roared.
Reid stood with fellow Senate Democrats Tom Harkin, Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal and Bernie Sanders, an independent who routinely votes with Democrats.
Polls show Americans don’t support weakening Social Security to help control the $14 trillion federal debt.
from Summit Notebook:
Ag committee chair says new faces mean new dynamic on Capitol Hill
They are new, enthusiastic and changing the environment on Capitol Hill.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas says "do not underestimate the effect" of the large number of freshmen lawmakers on his committee, which will sit down to overhaul U.S. farm subsidies next year.
"This session of Congress is a little different from the ones I've participated in previously. A huge number of new members," Lucas said at a Reuters Global Food and Agriculture Summit. "I've got a very enthusiastic bunch of new faces."
It turns out that half of the House Agriculture Committee is new -- 16 of 26 Republicans and 7 of 20 Democrats.
"Now, granted, freshmen Democrats are hard to come by," he said, not missing a beat in taking a swipe at Democrats who were pounded in the November elections and lost control of the House of Representatives to Republicans.
"So literally 23 of the 46 members of the committee -- no committee experience, no Farm Bill experience. It's a slightly different dynamic as we go through the course of this year and next year," Lucas said.
He said the large number of newbies will allow a focus on some issues that would perhaps have been more difficult if there were more senior members on the committee, with their own favorite causes. "It gives me an opportunity, with a very enthusiastic bunch of fresh faces, to conduct a lot of very necessary oversight on the committee this year."
Obama’s Senate savvy is showing
Looks like President Barack Obama hasn’t forgotten his political roots in the Senate.
Presidents over the years have found one sure way to annoy members of Congress: act like you don’t care about them.
So when Obama took the rare step of going to their turf to meet with just the Senate Republicans — the party that has pretty much stood in his way since he got elected — it showed some political savvy.
Whatever happens, the Republicans aren’t going to be able to cry that he never listens.
A love fest it wasn’t. But he did show up.
They talked about economic measures, the START treaty, his Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, immigration reform, and energy legislation.
As he left Capitol Hill, Obama told reporters: “It was a good, frank discussion on a whole range of issues.” (In Washington speak “frank” usually signals disagreement).
Pelosi cracks whip for healthcare votes
“I never stop whipping,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday.
She was, of course, talking about the virtually non-stop quest for healthcare votes. (Sorry were you thinking something else?)
“There’s no beginning, there’s no middle and there’s no end. My life is a constant whip operation,” she said to laughter at yet another event to promote healthcare reform on Capitol Hill.
People not familiar with the process for getting votes on Capitol Hill often think of arm-twisting, when in formality it is a whip operation with someone who actually gets the title “Whip.”
House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, the chief vote counter for the majority in that chamber, told Fox News on Tuesday that Democrats still don’t have the 216 votes needed for passage, but he was confident of getting there.
Democratic leaders are doing everything they can to whip their members into shape so they will vote for healthcare reform.
Did I miss something? When I was a kid and School House Rock came on the TV on Saturday morning with the cute little Bill who explained how he became a Law, I don’t remember seeing the part about “I’m just a Deem. Yes, I’m only a Deem…” How can the Dems (henceforth to be called the Deemocrats) change the Constitution like this? Every school kid who saw School House Rock knows how a Bill becomes Law, so why don’t the Deemocrats? http://patrioticmobster.wordpress.com/20 10/03/16/im-just-a-deem-yes-im-only-a-de em/
Talking healthcare: How close is “close”?
The talk on Capitol Hill is that a deal is close on healthcare legislation, President Barack Obama’s signature issue.
But trying to define what close means is not that easy. How far away is close can basically be anything since the definition of the word close does not have an actual time attached to it.
“I would certainly hope that within the next 24, 48, 72 hours, that we have a general agreement between the Senate and the House.” House Democratic leader Steny Hoyer told CNBC on Friday.
“I think we’re getting very close,” he said.
Two days earlier, on Wednesday, Hoyer had this to say: “Prospects of reaching agreement between the Senate and the House are better than they were 24 hours ago. We’re getting close.”
Even if there is no way to set a time on “close,” anecdotally it does appear that there is a big push to close the deal — it’s quite unusual for the President of the United States to make trips to the Hill to clinch an agreement on legislation.
Negotiators want to avoid ending up at “close, but no cigar.”
What trumps a car bomb, a blizzard and a trip to Kabul?
If you watched U.S. morning television or went online early today, you already know the answer to this media riddle. Top stories — a deadly car-bombing in Baghdad, a massive winter storm rolling across the United States and an unannounced flight to Afghanistan by Defense Secretary Robert Gates – took a back seat to a new development in the tabloid tale of Tiger Woods.
The latest turn in the super-golfer’s travails occurred overnight, when a Florida television station reported an unidentified woman was taken by ambulance from Woods’ home to a nearby hospital.
WESH-TV showed footage of a blond woman on a stretcher.
UPDATE: The woman wheeled out of Woods’ home was identified as his mother-in-law, who was suffering from stomach pains.
Evidently interest is so high that it can push arguably more influential stories out of the Washington limelight.
For example: President Barack Obama is set to talk about boosting jobs in this seemingly jobless economic recovery. Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, previewed the president’s message but was lower on the lineup than the little that could be reported about Tiger.
Or how about climate change? The EPA moved yesterday toward regulating planet-warming greenhouse gases as an international conference on climate change opened in Copenhagen. That didn’t make the morning news threshold, at least in the earliest hour, though Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is arguably the most vocal global warming skeptic in Washington, commented on CNN that no cap-and-trade bill would pass the Senate.
