Independent voices from the TWT Communities
After briefly pumping the brakes, House Republicans were poised Tuesday night to pass the deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" despite deep misgivings about hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending included in the compromise foisted on them by Senate Republicans and the White House.
Still searching for enough Republican support to pass his fiscal cliff Plan B, House Speaker John A. Boehner added another bill to the agenda Thursday that would cancel the looming automatic spending cuts and replace them with other cuts to President Obama's health-care law.
Rep. David Dreier, the chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, said Wednesday that he won't seek re-election this year, ending a more than three-decade congressional career and setting up a potential scramble for his panel's chairmanship.
Rep. David Dreier, the powerful chairman of the House Rules Committee, announced on the House floor Wednesday that he will not seek another term. He becomes the latest lawmaker to decide to retire because of redistricting that complicated his re-election plans.
House Republican leaders have scrambled to repackage their transportation bill after a hard push by Speaker John A. Boehner failed to sell the measure to many reluctant members of his party.
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND | Governments that call themselves democratic often fear democracy in practice, leaving it up to their people to seize the initiative, as last year's Arab Spring revolutions across the Arab world have shown.
In its first real bit of business to mark the new year, the House passed a symbolic Republican measure against President Obama's request to increase the federal debt limit by $1.2 trillion.
While the majority party typically hangs on as long as it can in Congress, in California, where redistricting has significantly altered the congressional map, two senior Republican House members in recent days said they're calling it quits, with more reportedly mulling the option.
Last week's tax fight in Congress was about many things — Social Security taxes, unemployment benefits and an oil pipeline — but House Republicans tried to make it into an even bigger fight over the institutional relevance of the House of Representatives itself.
The Unemployment Insurance program's error rate has jumped as the program has grown during the economic downturn, paying out billions of dollars in improper payments in 2011, making it the second-worst program on a special government watch list.
The defeat last week of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution showed a remarkable shift in congressional opinion in just 15 years on what had, at one point, appeared destined to become the 28th addition to the founding document.
The House on Friday rejected a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, falling well short of the two-thirds vote required and signaling a striking slide since the amendment's high point in the 1990s.
Dear Sgt Shaft: I just wanted to drop you a quick hello. Hope all is going well. I am finally on my three weeks off of school. The semester went well. I received A's in all my classes. Not to mention, I made the Dean's List with a 3.94 GPA! Once again thanks again for all your help in getting my GI Bill squared away.
In a vote of theater politics, House Republicans introduced and then killed the Democrats' debt limit bill Saturday afternoon, trying to force both sides back to the negotiating table by showing there is no viable proposal left right now.
The Great Communicator would have been 100 years old on Feb. 6, and those at the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Library here plan to do a bit more than fire up another candle.
"We went over the cliff, and we are pulling ourselves back," Rep. David Dreier, California Republican, said on the House floor.
But Rep. David Dreier, California Republican and panel chairman, said his party was acting within its rights, and wasn't as bad as what Democrats did when they were in charge.
House GOP angling to build support vote ahead of Thursday 'fiscal cliff' showdown →
