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Articles by Stephen Dinan

Romney predicts 4% growth, 11.5M jobs

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Tuesday for deeper discretionary spending cuts and a broad rewrite of the relationship between businesses and Washington, saying he will lead the country to 4 percent annual growth and create 11.5 million jobs.

September 6, 2011
ASSOCIATED PRESS Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate, takes part in the American Principles Project Palmetto Freedom Forum in Columbia, S.C., on Monday. Mrs. Bachmann argued that the federal Constitution should prevent states from enacting individual mandates.

Hopefuls court tea party at S.C. forum

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney promised Monday to support repeal of a full range of financial-regulation legislation enacted over the past few decades as he sought to woo conservative and tea party voters in South Carolina, and pledged that his vice-presidential pick would be pro-life.

September 5, 2011

Academics dub tea partyers devout, racist

Two years after it burst onto the political scene, the tea party is getting a critical eye from political science academics who say the movement generally is populated by knowledgeable and religiously devout voters, but they are hypocritical and more likely to be motivated by "racial resentment."

September 4, 2011

Dark-cloud financial forecast precedes president’s speech

Ahead of President Obama's major speech next week, his administration on Thursday released a gloomy picture of the government's finances that shows that even with the deficit supercommittee's action, the government will pile up nearly $10 trillion in deficits over the next decade.

September 1, 2011
** FILE ** Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican (Associated Press)

Two senators riled by EPA payouts in lawsuits

A new government watchdog report says environmental lawyers have collected millions of dollars in lawyers' fees from taxpayers by suing and winning cases against the Environmental Protection Agency.

August 31, 2011

Napolitano wants National Guard to stay on Mexican border

Funding for National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexico border runs out in another month, but Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday she would like to see them stay there — if Congress or the Defense Department can find the money.

August 30, 2011
"The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission" is a new look at a very old dispute about American history. (Carolina Academic Press)

New book disputes claim Jefferson fathered children of slave Hemings

In a book due out Thursday, eminent scholars say it's unlikely that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings' children, disputing a decade's worth of conventional wisdom that the author of the Declaration of Independence sired offspring with one of his slaves.

August 30, 2011

Judge blocks Alabama immigration law

A federal district judge halted Alabama's tough new immigration law Monday just days before it was to take effect, making it the latest state to see a crackdown law blocked by a court.

August 29, 2011
AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka speaks with reporters Aug. 25, 2011, during a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor at the St. Regis Hotel in D.C. (Michael Bonfigli/Christian Science Monitor)

Trumka: Labor support for Obama in question

The AFL-CIO has not decided yet if it will participate in next year's Democratic National Convention, as labor union members ponder whether President Obama has earned their support heading into next year's elections, the organization's head said Thursday.

August 25, 2011

Stimulus boosted economy but fell short on jobs

President Obama's stimulus led to between 1.3 million and 3.3 million jobs at its peak last year, according to the latest account by Congress's chief scorekeeper, placing somewhere between a little bit and way short of the administration's goal of sustaining 3.5 million jobs.

August 24, 2011
In this file photo, The National Debt Clock, a privately funded estimate of the national debt, is shown on Feb. 1, 2010, in New York. (Associated Press) **FILE**

Trillion-dollar deficits seen for years to come

The government will run another $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal 2011, Congress' chief scorekeeper said Wednesday in a report that highlighted both an economy that will struggle over the next few years and a federal budget showing massive red ink for the foreseeable future.

August 24, 2011

Temblor moves Senate meeting

The earthquake Tuesday didn't stop the Senate, which made political history after the temblor shook Washington and sent lawmakers scrambling to hold a pro forma session outside the Capitol for the first time in recent memory.

August 23, 2011
Former Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, said open meetings give too much ammunition to single-issue interest groups that "have no interest in the national agenda of fiscal responsibility." (Associated Press)

Debt panel trade-off: Exposure vs. efficiency

The congressional supercommittee charged with tackling the federal debt crisis is facing overwhelming calls to conduct all its deliberations in the open, but some voices are warning that too much transparency could end up dooming the whole thing.

August 23, 2011
**FILE** Immigrant rights groups and community members call in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2011, for an end to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Secure Communities program, which was created in 2008 and calls for police to submit suspects' fingerprints to DHS so they can be cross-checked with federal deportation orders. (Associated Press)

Obama to deport illegals by ‘priority’

Bowing to pressure from immigrant rights activists, the Obama administration said Thursday that it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, such as attending school, having family in the military or having primary responsible for other family members' care.

August 18, 2011
** FILE ** Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens leaves federal court in Washington on Thursday, July 14, 2011, after a federal judge declared a mistrial in his perjury trial after prosecutors showed jurors evidence that the judge had ruled out of bounds. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Ex-congressman: Roger Clemens has ‘suffered enough’

A former U.S. representative who prodded the Justice Department investigation that led to charges against Roger Clemens for lying to Congress said the seven-time Cy Young Award winner has paid his dues, and he doesn't see a reason to continue putting him on trial.

August 18, 2011

Year after oil spill, Gulf seafood rebounds

President Obama is doing stomach stimulus this week as he eats his way across the Midwest, but exactly a year ago he had more riding on the presidential palate as he ate his way across the Gulf of Mexico coast, trying to revive the region's tourism and seafood industries one shrimp po' boy at a time.

August 17, 2011

Fitch keeps U.S. credit rating at AAA

The Fitch Ratings agency on Tuesday affirmed its AAA credit rating for the federal government, giving the U.S. a boost just two weeks after another ratings agency marked it down for the first time in history.

August 16, 2011
"Clearly, the policies of this administration are not working," said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, one of the lawmakers newly appointed to the congressional panel assigned to develop recommendations to cut the debt. "So, what went wrong? Well, a big part of the problem has been job-killing regulations." (Associated Press)

Toomey focuses on fighting for spending cuts

He's the only member who voted against last week's debt deal, and also the only one who wrote his own individual budget this year - both of which make Sen. Patrick J. Toomey the wild-card selection to the 12-member deficit supercommittee charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts by Thanksgiving.

August 14, 2011

Supercommittee is short on dealmakers, compromisers

The 12-member supercommittee tasked with straightening out the country's fiscal mess is long on lawmakers who have already whiffed in recent months on chances to strike deals and short on those who have shown a readiness to make the compromises that all sides say will be needed.

August 11, 2011

GOP picks 6 for deficit panel with tilt to spending cuts

Republican leaders Wednesday tapped six lawmakers with strong spending-cuts credentials to represent the party on the deficit supercommittee tasked with recommending $1.5 trillion in tax increases or spending cuts, sending a signal that the committee will focus heavily on trimming government.

August 10, 2011