House To Vote On Budget Deal Today
"This deal fails America!" CLICK HERE to tell your House representative: "It abandons the unemployed, picks the pockets of federal workers and leaves every last corporate loophole and tax dodge in place."
Budget deal splits conservatives. National Journal: "One person who wasn't bothered by the schism was Ryan himself, who told National Journal Daily that his deal has enough votes to pass the House, regardless of conservative defections."
But conservative outrage may no longer matters, notes American Prospect's Paul Waldman: "Have we finally reached a point where the perpetual anger of Washington conservatives is no longer a threat to the republic? ... Just look at how John Boehner is acting ... [He] now feels free to attack the likes of Heritage Action, obviously without concern that they can make him pay for his insolence..."
Passage today in House predicted, reports Reuters: "Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday were falling in line behind a bipartisan two-year budget deal, indicating that the normally rambunctious group of lawmakers is not spoiling for a year-end fiscal fight."
But some Senate Republicans "balking" says Politico: "In the Senate, Republican leaders and senior GOP senators are balking at the budget deal, arguing that it hikes spending too high without demanding more immediate cuts in return. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is widely expected to oppose the proposal, and his top GOP leadership lieutenants also raised deep concerns Wednesday..."
"Some Democrats Holding Out for Unemployment Benefits" reports Roll Call: "Senior House Democrats are warning that they could withhold pivotal votes ... This would be a shift for some Democrats ... However, GOP leaders at the last minute instructed the Rules Committee to tie a vote on the budget deal to three months of relief for physicians who faced looming Medicare payment cuts — but not to the unemployed. That relief was not part of the original agreement, Democrats argue, and if lawmakers are going to make an exception for the 'doc fix,' why is there no similar exception being made for unemployment insurance? ... [Dem Reps. Chris] Van Hollen and [Sander] Levin have filed an amendment with the Rules Committee that would let the budget deal come to the floor on Thursday with a three-month doc fix alongside a three-month unemployment insurance extension, paid for by cutting direct payments on agriculture subsidies."
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that he would push to renew unemployment insurance when lawmakers returned next year" reports The Hill.
GOP Slows Nominations
Senate GOPers talk on floor all night to protest nominations. Time: "In what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office called a Republican 'temper tantrum,' the GOP delayed votes on Nina Pillard, one of three of President Obama’s nominees to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ... If the GOP doesn’t yield back time, the Senate will stay in all-night session straight through Saturday night on the first 10 nominations alone."
Senate will work through Christmas if necessary to clear nominees, says Sen. Reid per The Hill.
Key GOPer Lays Out Immigration Strategy
House Judiciary Cmte Chair Bob Goodlatte insists GOP is working hard on immigration. National Journal: "Goodlatte's process calls for the panel to pass a few more bills in 2014 to round out the four completed in committee this year that address highly skilled workers, agriculture workers, electronic verification, and local police enforcement. The House would then take up those bills at various points in the year, perhaps in bunches of two or three to keep lawmakers from being overwhelmed. They would then wait for the Senate to respond, and nobody knows how long that would take ... The committee is expected to mark up at least three more bills next year. Lawmakers are preparing one on asylum and one on guest workers. The trickiest bill the committee could take up would be to legalize some portion of the undocumented population. It remains to be seen whether that bill would cover only those who were brought here as children, or a broader swath of people."
VP Biden reveals his ancestors came to America illegally. Politico: "'My great-great grandparents came escaping the famine and they didn’t all come here legally,' Biden said in response to a questioner who said her family came to the country legally from Ireland in the 1800s. 'They didn’t all come legally. And the existence of the system isn’t all truncated like it is now. I’d check your ancestry to make sure that they did come legally if that’s a concern to you.'"
Wall Street Warming Up To Hillary
Wall Street down on Obama and Republicans, but warmer to Hillary, reports Politico: "...Clinton offered a message [at Goldman Sachs] that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, according to accounts offered by several attendees, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish ... Clinton’s remarks were hardly a sweeping absolution for the sins of Wall Street ... But they did register as a repudiation of some of the angry anti-Wall Street rhetoric emanating from liberals ... leaders in the finance industry, as in so many others, want to know they have friends and influence in high places—a feeling that’s not been forthcoming from the Obama administration ... But Wall Street donors have been equally turned off by the GOP for much of 2013 ... a shift back to Wall Street’s historic Republican roots is by no means a given, especially if the Democratic nominee is local favorite Hillary Clinton."
