By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
We fought for freedom from European monarchs 200 years ago, but are coming perilously close to subjugating ourselves again to the authority of foreign powers. Recently, Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrats, and Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland Democrats, were among 46 senators who voted in a nonbinding test vote to enter into the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.
Senators voted Wednesday to make the first significant changes to the budget sequesters, shifting money to keep slaughterhouse inspectors on the job full time but refusing to rearrange money to reopen the White House for public tours.
Congress on Monday cleared $50 billion in additional Superstorm Sandy relief and reconstruction aid for the Northeast, sending it to President Obama for his signature and bringing the total tab for taxpayers from the storm to $60 billion.
The Senate passed a massive Superstorm Sandy relief bill late last week but not before lawmakers took a stab at some accountability — including insisting that the FBI, Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies first try to replace flood-damaged vehicles from within their existing fleets.
For months, we've heard about President Obama's "all of the above" energy policy, but recently, it has become clear that it would be more accurate to call it "none of the above." The administration has launched a war on affordable energy through actions such as the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new Utility MACT (for Maximum Achievable Control Technology) regulation.
Outages numbered in the hundreds of thousands for a second day, as officials warned residents across Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia that power might not be restored until late in the week, and crews worked in temperatures nearing triple digits to make repairs from a devastating storm that claimed more than a dozen lives.
Republicans on Tuesday filibustered Democrats' latest election-year effort to stoke the "war on women" issue, dooming a bill that would have opened up far more avenues for women to sue businesses when they suspect pay discrimination.
The Senate on Thursday handily passed a bill to renew the federal government's main program to prevent domestic violence, but many Republicans declined to support it because they said it was loaded up with too many new provisions that were unneeded or unconstitutional.
The Chesapeake Bay has spawned the most blue crabs in nearly 20 years, according to results of a study released Thursday by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Free birth control, including the controversial "morning-after" pill, could soon be added to a list of services insurers must fully cover under President Obama's health care law.
Poland sends troops to fight alongside U.S. soldiers and considers itself a strong ally, but it's the only Central European country whose citizens cannot travel to America without a visa, a sore point that Poles hope President Obama will rectify when he visits their nation Friday.
The ex-governors, Capitol Hill lawmakers and state legislators had by Wednesday largely said their goodbyes to William Donald Schaefer, and now it was time for this working-class city to bid farewell to their beloved mayor and native son.
IRS tax audits would be halted in their tracks, this weekend's National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade in Washington canceled, and national parks and the Smithsonian shuttered if Congress can't reach agreement on annual spending and the government shuts down at midnight Friday.
Senators from Maryland to Massachusetts are asking the federal transportation secretary to redirect high-speed rail funding rejected by Florida's governor to projects in the Northeast Corridor.
The State Department has abandoned plans to build an anti-terrorism training center funded in part with stimulus dollars on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
"This is indeed a very important moment," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, the Maryland Democrat and chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee who shepherded the bill through the floor. "We didn't want brinkmanship, we didn't want ultimatum politics."
Senate votes to keep White House closed, slaughterhouses open →
Ms. Mikulski said it would have meant "Armageddon" to the rest of federal spending if they had been forced to cut nearly $50 billion elsewhere.
