thehill.com — leading proponent of comprehensive immigration reform admitted Thursday that “there are an insufficient number of Democratic votes” to pass a bill this year.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s (D-Ill.) comments are significant because he has aggressively pushed President Barack Obama to pass immigration reform during this Congress.
inthesetimes.com — A new poll contradicts the widely held belief that the the tea party movement is opposed to government action to help the economy. It shows that self-described Tea Party supporters are very much in favor of government action to revitalize America's manufacturing base.
latimes.com — Senate Republicans on Thursday once again blocked legislation to reinstate long-term unemployment benefits for people who have exhausted their aid, prolonging a stalemate that has left more than a million people without federal help.
With the Senate apparently paralyzed by partisan gridlock, the fate of the aid, as well as tax breaks for businesses and $16 billion in aid for cash-strapped states, remains unclear. California and dozens of other states are hoping for federal aid to help balance their budgets.
bloomberg.com — Senate Republicans yesterday killed a bill to extend unemployment benefits, provide aid to state governments and raise taxes on buyout fund managers, saying the measure would add too much to the federal deficit.
Lawmakers voted 57-41 in favor of the measure, with 60 votes needed to advance it. Democrats repeatedly cut the bill in an effort to win backing from those who objected to its cost. The latest version would have added $33 billion to the budget shortfall, a fraction of previous proposals; Republicans said the cost-cutting didn’t go far enough.
politico.com — Her emphasis on small business is not surprising as a senior Republican tax writer on that Senate panel. But the allusion to health care tells something of the history of the past year, too. As much as Collins and Snowe were crucial to passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in the first weeks of Obama’s administration, there’s been a lot of water — and dollars — under the bridge since.
washingtonpost.com — Senate Democrats abandoned on Thursday efforts to provide fresh aid to cash-strapped state governments and extend emergency unemployment benefits for millions of jobless workers, leaving in limbo President Obama's push for more spending to bolster the economy.
huffingtonpost.com — Democratic leaders in the Senate have apparently failed to win enough support to overcome a Republican filibuster of a bill to help the poor, the old and the jobless, despite making a series of cuts to the measure over the past several weeks to appease deficit hawks.
boston.com — John Nocella checks the job listings at state career centers almost every day. He’s sent out at least 150 resumes. But it has been more than a year of searching since he lost his sales job, and Nocella is about to run out of time.
thehill.com — Congressional Republican leaders are using the nation’s jobless rate as campaign ammunition while facing pressure from some in their ranks who want to stop extending unemployment benefits.
Most Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), support unemployment benefit extensions, but say they should be paid for.
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com — The Senate will continue trying this week to break a partisan logjam over a major package of tax changes and safety-net spending, including added unemployment benefits.
The Senate’s inability to advance the bill is a sign that the partisan discord in this highly competitive mid-term election year is causing legislative paralysis.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
