WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate rejected on Wednesday a measure to delay a cap on what banks can charge merchants when a debit card is used.

The vote was a major defeat for the banking industry, which stands to lose billions of dollars when the cap goes into effect later this year.

The final vote for the amendment was 54 to 45, but it needed 60 votes under Senate rules to be adopted.

Banks of all sizes and retailers have been engaged in a fierce lobbying fight over a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law that requires the Federal Reserve to set a cap on the fees banks can charge merchants when a customer uses a debit card.

The Fed in December proposed capping the fees at about 12 cents per transaction — a 75 percent cut. The banking industry estimates this would cost them about $12 billion annually.

The measure considered by the Senate on Wednesday would have delayed the Fed rule for up to one year while the cap’s impact was studied.

The law specifically exempts small banks, those with less than $10 billion in assets, from the fee cap. But these smaller institutions argue the exemption will not work in practice and have joined larger banks in lobbying against the cap.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Republican called on Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner to resign on Tuesday, saying Congress cannot afford to be distracted by the sexually charged photos and tweets he sent to women.

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia became the first top lawmaker to say that Weiner, an outspoken liberal who easily won a seventh two-year term in the House of Representatives last year, should step down.

“I think he should resign,” Cantor told reporters during a trip to Virginia.

“We’ve got a lot of serious challenges going on in this country and a lot of work for Congress to do. The last thing we need is to be immersed in discussion about Congressman Weiner and his Twitter activities,” Cantor said.

Weiner, married to a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Monday acknowledged that he had sent lewd pictures of himself and had inappropriate online relationships with several women. But insisted he will not resign, saying he broke no law.

Political analysts and congressional aides said, however, that Democrats believe that Weiner undercut them politically and it is unclear if he can survive.

“Democrats are furious,” one Democratic aide said.

WASHINGTON, June 1 (Reuters) – The long-gone old bulls of the U.S. Congress — giants like Democrats Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill and Republicans Everett Dirksen and Bob Dole — knew how to fight.

But unlike some of their modern-day counterparts, they also knew how to get along and cut deals to rein in the budget, save Social Security, reform tax and immigration laws, expand healthcare and enact civil rights.

With Congress and President Barack Obama struggling over many of those same problems today, critics question whether Washington has the ability to overcome bitter partisanship and find a path to cut spending, raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt limit and avoid financial calamity by an Aug. 2 deadline. [ID:nN31107131]

“When I was in Congress, we’d get in a room, ask each other, ‘What the hell are you talking about,’ say ‘Stop your crying,’ and then do something for the sake of the country,” said Alan Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader who retired from the chamber in 1996 after 18 years of service.

“Nowadays, members are more interested in pummeling each other than working with each other. It’s sad,” said Simpson, who last year co-chaired the Obama deficit-reduction commission that failed to reach a consensus to force congressional action.

Today’s obstacles to a debt-limit deal have nothing to do with lack of experience by those now in power.

Between them, Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner — three central players in the unfolding debt and spending-cut debate — have worked 85 years in Washington.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress, racing the clock and rejecting demands for additional safeguards of civil liberties, passed a bill on Thursday to renew three expiring provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act.

President Barack Obama, travelling in Europe, signed it into law shortly before the provisions were set to expire at midnight on Thursday (0400 GMT on Friday). A White House aide said he used an “auto pen,” which replicates his signature.

Obama acted shortly after the Republican-led House of Representatives and the Democratic-led Senate approved the bill overwhelmingly. It passed the House, 250-153, hours after it cleared the Senate, 72-23.

Democrats and some Republicans favoured more protections of civil liberties in the legislation for law-abiding citizens.

But congressional leaders, facing the midnight deadline and possibly short on votes, agreed to a four-year, unaltered extension of the provisions to track suspected terrorists.

The provisions empower law enforcement officials to get court approval to obtain “roving wiretaps” on suspected foreign agents with multiple modes of communications, track noncitizen “lone wolves” suspected of terrorism, and obtain certain business and even library records.

“Although the Patriot Act is not a perfect law, it provides our intelligence and law enforcement communities with crucial tools to keep America safe,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congress, racing the clock and rejecting demands for additional safeguards of civil liberties, passed a bill Thursday to renew three expiring provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act.

With the provisions set to expire at midnight Thursday (0400 GMT on Friday), the Republican-led House of Representatives approved the measure, 250-153, just hours after it cleared the Democratic-led Senate, 72-23.

President Barack Obama is traveling in Europe. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said that he was prepared to use “the auto pen to sign” the bill quickly into law.

Democrats and some Republicans favored more protections of civil liberties in the legislation for law-abiding citizens.

But congressional leaders, facing the midnight deadline and possibly short on votes, agreed to a four-year, unaltered extension of the provisions to track suspected terrorists.

The provisions empower law enforcement officials to get court approval to obtain “roving wiretaps” on suspected foreign agents with multiple modes of communications, track noncitizen “lone wolves” suspected of terrorism, and obtain certain business and even library records.

“Although the Patriot Act is not a perfect law, it provides our intelligence and law enforcement communities with crucial tools to keep America safe,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate passed a bill on Thursday to renew three expiring provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act, rejecting demands for additional safeguards of civil liberties.

The vote was 72-23. With the provisions set to expire at midnight on Thursday, the House of Representatives was expected to give swift final congressional approval to the Senate-passed bill.

Democrats and some Republicans favored more protections for law-abiding citizens. But congressional leaders, racing the clock and possibly short on votes, agreed to a four-year, unaltered extension of the provisions to track suspected terrorists.

President Barack Obama is traveling in Europe. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said that he was prepared to use “the auto pen to sign” the bill quickly into law.

The provisions empower law enforcement officials to get court approval to obtain “roving wiretaps” on suspected foreign agents with multiple modes of communications, track noncitizen “lone wolves” suspected of terrorism, and obtain certain business records.

“Although the Patriot Act is not a perfect law, it provides our intelligence and law enforcement communities with crucial tools to keep America safe,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat.

“The raid that killed Osama bin Laden also yielded an enormous amount of new information that has spurred dozens of investigations yielding new leads every day,” Reid said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Republicans unveiled a jobs agenda on Thursday, shifting the subject from their unpopular healthcare plan and hitting President Barack Obama where it hurts — the 9 percent unemployment rate.

Their jobs-creation proposals, largely a repacking of policies they have long advocated, include lowering taxes, reducing federal regulations, increasing domestic energy production, boosting trade and discouraging frivolous lawsuits.

“Just because we proposed it in the past doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea,” House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner told a Capitol Hill news conference.

“We’re trying to package this in a way where the American people understand what it’s going to take in terms of changing policies here that will create jobs in America,” said Boehner, flanked by fellow House Republican leaders.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi brushed off the Republican plan as a “warmed-over stew” of failed ideas that contributed to the weak economy under former President George W. Bush.

The economy promises to again be a core issue for voters in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

America’s unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when Obama took office in January 2009. It rose to nearly 10 percent during last November’s election and has since dipped to 9.0 percent.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Democrats on Wednesday defeated a Republican plan to scale back health benefits for future retirees and forced their opponents to take a stand on the unpopular proposal.

Pressing their advantage after winning an election to fill an open congressional seat in New York state, Democrats in the Senate staged a vote on the Republican budget plan, which would save trillions of dollars in coming decades by privatizing the Medicare health program for the elderly.

The measure failed, as expected, by a vote of 40 to 57 as five Republicans broke ranks to oppose it.

Democrats say voter opposition to the Republican plan helped them win Tuesday’s election in a conservative district and boosted their prospects in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

The architect of the Republican plan, Representative Paul Ryan, warned that political maneuvering could scuttle efforts to tame the national debt and increase the country’s borrowing authority before an early August deadline.

“Trying to scare seniors and turning these things into political weapons, what that ends up doing is inflicting political paralysis,” Ryan said at conference that drew together some of the main players in the U.S. deficit debate.

Ryan’s comments underscored the political risks inherent in efforts to bring the spiraling national debt under control.

WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday defeated a Republican plan to scale back health benefits for future retirees and forced their opponents to take a stand on the unpopular proposal.

Pressing their advantage after winning an election to fill an open congressional seat in New York state, Democrats in the Senate staged a vote on the Republican budget plan, which would save trillions of dollars in coming decades by privatizing the Medicare health program for the elderly.

The measure failed, as expected, by a vote of 40 to 57 as five Republicans broke ranks to oppose it.

Democrats say voter opposition to the Republican plan helped them win Tuesday’s election in a conservative district and boosted their prospects in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections. [ID:nN25154148]

The architect of the Republican plan, Representative Paul Ryan, warned that political maneuvering could scuttle efforts to tame the national debt and increase the country’s borrowing authority before an early August deadline.

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Full coverage of budget, debt issues [ID:nUSBUDGET]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans on Wednesday stuck by their plan to privatize the Medicare federal health insurance program for the elderly despite a rebuke from voters in a special congressional election in New York state.

“We can no longer let politicians in Washington deny the danger to Medicare — the danger is all too real, and the health of our nation’s seniors is far too important,” Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, said in an Internet video.

Democrats on Tuesday won a vacant House seat in a district in upstate New York, a traditional Republican stronghold, by turning the special election into a referendum on the plan pushed by Ryan to privatize Medicare.

Democrats aim to ride a public backlash against the Republican plan into the 2012 presidential and congressional elections just as Republicans capitalized on President Barack Obama’s unpopular healthcare law in last year’s congressional elections.

The Senate, on the offensive, planned to force a vote later on Wednesday on the Ryan plan, which was passed last month by the Republican-led House.

Yet Republicans ratcheted up efforts to build support for the Ryan plan, warning that bold action is needed to save Medicare from financial ruin.

“We aren’t going to abandon this,” a senior Republican aide said. “We want to save Medicare, while Democrats would let it die. Those must be the first words out of our mouths from now on: ‘We want to save Medicare.’”