WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Senator John Ensign appears to have violated federal law in a sex-and-lobbying scandal that drove the once-rising Republican star from office, a congressional panel said on Thursday.

The Senate ethics committee said it found “substantial credible evidence” against Ensign, and referred the case to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

In a report capping its 22-month probe, the panel listed possible charges, including “potential obstruction of justice” for what it described as Ensign deleting “relevant documents and files.”

Paul Coggins, Ensign’s attorney, said, “I am confident that the Justice Department will conclude that Senator Ensign fully complied with the law.”

Ensign, 53, first elected to the Senate from Nevada in 2000, resigned last week after earlier announcing he would not seek re-election.

Ensign admitted in 2009 to having had an affair with Cynthia Hampton, who worked for his campaign, and whose husband, Douglas, was a legislative aide to the senator.

The Senate ethics investigation focused, in part, on $96,000 that Ensign’s parents gave to the Hamptons, which Ensign’s attorney has characterized as a gift.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of President Barack Obama’s fellow top Democrats in Congress said on Tuesday he opposes Obama’s plans to require federal contractors to publicly disclose donations to political campaigns.

House of Representatives Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters that making campaign contributions public should not be part of the contract-award process.

“There are some serious questions as to what implications there are if somehow we consider political contributions in the context of awarding contracts,” said Hoyer, who represents Washington suburbs in Maryland, where a number of federal contractors are located.

Hoyer’s position, quickly hailed by Republicans, will complicate efforts by Obama to issue the executive order, which the White House said last month was aimed at making the federal contracting system more accountable.

“I’m glad to see that somebody on the other side is standing up to this blatant attempt to intimidate people,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

The executive order, a presidential directive, was still being drafted, but a White House spokesman said in April that Obama believed taxpayers should know how federal contractors were spending their money in political campaigns.

Republicans, along with many in the business community, have criticized the move, calling it an attempt by Obama to muzzle his own critics.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Republican in the U.S. Congress on Monday laid down a tough new yardstick in talks over the nation’s debt, telling Wall Street that spending cuts must exceed any boost to the U.S. borrowing limit.

With less than a week until the United States runs up against its $14.3 trillion debt limit, the finance industry is counting on Congress to sign off on a further increase to avoid an unprecedented default that would roil markets across the globe.

But any increase will have to include unprecedented spending cuts, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner told top industry executives.

“We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions,” Boehner said, according to excerpts released ahead of his 7:00 p.m. EDT ((2300 GMT)) speech at the Economic Club of New York.

Cuts of that magnitude would dwarf the savings Republicans won in a separate budget deal last month, which they hailed as the largest domestic spending cut in U.S. history.

Many members of the party’s conservative Tea Party wing rejected that deal after the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found it would only reduce outlays by about $25 billion over the coming decade, and Boehner is under pressure to keep them in the tent this time.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned of economic catastrophe if the federal government’s borrowing authority is not increased. Geithner has said he will be able to stave off default until Aug. 2 by drawing on other accounts once the debt limit is reached.

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) – The top Republican in the U.S. Congress on Monday laid down a new yardstick in the debate over raising the nation’s debt limit, saying spending cuts must exceed the amount of new borrowing authority.

In an address to financial executives who are nervously watching the negotiations, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Republicans would be looking for deep spending cuts in any deal that may emerge from talks with the Obama administration.

“We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions,” Boehner said, according to excerpts released ahead of his speech at the Economic Club of New York.

Cuts of that magnitude would dwarf the savings Republicans won last month. Republicans hailed that package as the largest domestic spending cut in U.S. history, but it would only reduce outlays by about $25 billion over the coming decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Boehner’s speech, scheduled for 7:00 p.m. EDT ((2300 GMT)) will be closely watched in financial markets as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned of economic catastrophe if the federal government’s borrowing authority is not increased.

The Treasury Department is likely to run up against its $14.3 trillion limit next week, though Geithner says he will be able to draw on other accounts to avoid a default until Aug. 2. Treasury officials tell lawmakers that an increase of $2 trillion will be needed to cover the country’s borrowing needs through the November 2012 elections.

President Barack Obama wants to raise taxes on wealthier Americans and shield cherished entitlement programs like the Social Security and Medicare programs for the elderly, messages that will be central to his 2012 re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) – With Wall Street anxious to hear what he has to say, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner will offer more details in a New York speech on Monday night about his strategy in the battle over raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit, an aide said.

Separately, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer called on Boehner to guarantee a timely increase in the debt limit to ease investors’ concerns and avoid government default, and suggested that a deal is needed by mid-July.

Boehner’s speech at the Economic Club of New York will be closely watched in financial markets, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned of economic catastrophe if the federal government’s borrowing authority is not increased.

If the United States defaulted on its obligations – something that’s never happened– that would roil markets worldwide.

Boehner’s aide declined to release any new details that the speaker planned to disclose, but said Boehner would reiterate that Republicans are demanding trillions of dollars in U.S. spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the congressionally-set cap on U.S. borrowing.

On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden will hold the second meeting of his congressional group on deficit reduction that has become a key force in the search for common ground.

President Barack Obama, anxious to get a deal, will meet on Wednesday with Senate Democrats and on Thursday with Senate Republicans, the White House said.

WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, the administration’s high-stakes negotiator, is about to dive into U.S. deficit-reduction talks — facing skepticism about what, if anything, he will be able to accomplish.

President Barack Obama hopes his vice president can build on last December’s feat when Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell held secret talks that led to an agreement to extend tax cuts for millions of Americans — and burnished Biden’s credentials as his top deal-maker.

Biden will be tested again starting on Thursday when he hosts the first meeting of a bipartisan congressional group aimed at developing a sweeping framework for U.S. deficit reduction.

“I have no idea if this group can deliver. But if Joe can’t do it, nobody can,” said Republican Alan Simpson, who served with Democrat Biden in the Senate for 18 years before retiring in 1997.

“Joe knows exactly what’s going on and what needs to be done. He has a lot of common sense and a lot of savvy. He can work with Democrats and Republicans,” said Simpson, who co-chaired a presidential deficit commission last year that failed to reach needed consensus to force a vote in Congress.

Republicans along with some Democrats have voiced doubt about Biden’s seven-member group, which includes senior members of Congress, but excludes some key players on budget issues.

Some have dismissed it as a “side show” to other efforts in Congress to tackle the deficit, including one by the bipartisan “Gang of Six” in the Senate.

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Wednesday that he will force Republicans in his chamber to vote on a House plan to cut popular healthcare programs while trimming taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

“We’ll see how much Republicans like it here in the Senate,” Reid, a Democrat, said of the budget written by House of Representatives Republicans, which passed that chamber on April 15 without Democratic support.

The House budget has drawn fire because in future years it would deeply cut Medicare and Medicaid healthcare for the elderly and poor, while also paring taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

“It would be one of the worst things that could happen to this country if that came into effect. It would have an adverse effect immediately and long term,” Reid said.

The House plan would likely be defeated in the Democratic-led Senate. But in bringing it to a vote, Reid would be forcing Senate Republicans to either go on record in favor of controversial spending cuts or abandon their House Republican colleagues.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has said the House-passed budget addresses “our most pressing problems head-on at a moment when the president and other Democrat leaders simply refuse to do so themselves.”

Reid, speaking to reporters on a conference call, also said he favored a “deficit cap” to get ballooning U.S. budgets under control. He did not provide details on how deeply the cap would cut spending or whether it also would rely on tax increases.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The powerful yet often criticized Tea Party movement found its fiscal conservatism strengthened on Monday when Standard & Poor’s threatened to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.

S&P’s move changing its outlook on the U.S. rating to negative from stable comes as Republicans and Democrats spar over how to slash the deficit and debate whether to raise the limits on U.S. credit.

The influential Wall Street rating agency changed its credit outlook for the United States citing a “material risk” that Washington may not agree on how to trim the massive U.S. deficit, projected to reach $1.4 trillion this year.

“It (the S&P report) is a vindication of the Tea Party and its stance that we’re spending too much,” said Republican Blake Farenthold, one of more than 50 members of the House of Representatives’ Tea Party Caucus.

“The Tea Party isn’t a bunch of radical crazies. They are everyday folks who have enough common sense to realize that we are on an unsustainable path of ‘spend, spend, spend,’” Farenthold told Reuters.

The Tea Party helped make deficit reduction a top issue in last year’s election, and, in doing so, helped Republicans win control of the House of Representatives from President Barack Obama’s Democrats.

Under pressure from the Tea Party, Congress last week approved what was billed as a historic deal to cut U.S. spending this fiscal year by $38 billion. But Tea Partiers, who favored at least $100 billion in cuts, complained it wasn’t nearly enough.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican leader John Boehner played the right-wing Tea Party against Democrats to win record spending cuts in last week’s budget fight, and now he’ll use the victory to push for even deeper reductions.

In his first big test since the Tea Party helped him become speaker of the House of Representatives, Boehner deftly used the grass-roots movement’s influence to get Democrats to accept $38 billion in spending cuts for the last six months of the 2011 fiscal year without forcing a government shutdown.

The deal left some critics demanding more and questioning his leadership, but Boehner avoided a rebellion from the Tea Party wing of his party in Congress, showed he could stand up to President Barack Obama and made clear he expects more spending cuts on the 2012 budget.

“If you understand how Washington works, John Boehner is looking very good right now,” said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Boehner, who became speaker in January, publicly scolded Democrats during the negotiations but aides say he also sought to reason and work with them behind closed doors.

He played a smart game, negotiating in private even as he declared in front of the cameras that there was no daylight between himself and the Tea Party.

Congressional sources say he repeatedly pushed up the price of any compromise with Obama and the Democrats, and refused to agree on any final spending cut tally until the very end.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats and Republicans did little to improve their battered image with Americans in a bitter budget debate that ended only with a last-minute deal that barely averted a government shutdown.

The political adversaries reached agreement to fund the government over the next six months little more than an hour before a midnight Friday deadline. The deal must still be voted on next week, after days of invective over spending and policy issues.

That was only round one. Now they have to launch into negotiations over the U.S. budget for fiscal 2012, and if the past few weeks have been any indication, it will be a difficult undertaking.

Welcome to divided government, 2011. Republicans won the House of Representatives in last November’s congressional elections, forcing President Barack Obama to take into account their views after he governed mostly with Democrats his first two years in office.

American voters are now seeing the results of the elections: Both parties battling over what they believe are the true concerns of the people. Republicans want deep cuts in spending, and Democrats want to protect programs for their constituents.

Who comes out ahead? The 1995 government shutdown was perceived to help the Democrats in a showdown between President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.

This time, the top House Republican, Speaker John Boehner, survived his first major test, gaining $37.8 billion (23 billion pounds) in spending cuts and averting a government shutdown that could have proven politically disastrous for Republicans in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.