The week ahead on the Hill: Boehner to give debt ceiling speech; deficit talks, Round Two; Senate gets a new member
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 10th, 2011 4:30 am by HL
The battle lines in the fight over raising the country’s $14.3 trillion debt limit could come into focus this week at a series of congressional events.
First up is House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) speech Monday night to the Economic Club of New York. In the address, Boehner is expected to sketch out House Republicans’ strategy in the fight over raising the legal limit on federal borrowing, which is expected to be reached in early August. In addition to delivering a speech, Boehner will also engage in a question-and-answer session with financial executives.
At VA, a blogger criticizes from the inside
Back from a 15-month deployment to Iraq, Alex Horton penned a 1,000-word rant against the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“How many obscene scandals, misappropriations and misdiagnoses does it take to see there’s a rotten core at the center?” the 23-year-old soldier wrote on his war blog from Austin in 2009. He was in his fourth semester at community college, and VA was holding up money he needed for rent and schoolbooks under the new GI Bill.
His unsympathetic VA counselor “provides the same level of care you would expect from a Tijuana back alley vasectomy,” Horton wrote, expressing a frustration felt by generations of veterans.
Newt Gingrich: Serious candidate or sideshow?
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has always been a divisive figure — even within the Republican party. So, it’s not all that surprising that Gingrich’s plan to run for president in 2012, which will be formally announced on Wednesday, has quickly divided people into two camps.
On one side are those who believe Newt is an old face in a party hungering for new ones, a man whose political abilities are only exceeded by his belief in those abilities. For that group, Newt is a sideshow — a highly entertaining one, to be sure, but not someone who is a serious candidate for the nomination.
Feds redistribute $2 billion for rail projects
The Obama administration on Monday announced the reallocation of $2 billion in its signature transportation program to create a national high-speed rail network, including $795 million for upgrades that would permit speeds of 160 mph in parts of the Northeast Corridor.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made the money available to other states this year when Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) opted not to accept funds that had been allocated to build high-speed rail between Tampa and Orlando.
LaHood said almost 100 applications came in from 24 states, the District and Amtrak.
A shout-out to the best, but not most popular, ideas in Congress
This column is usually about the Big Issues. Health-care reform. The deficit. The debt ceiling. The grand, Ragnarok-level clashes (you were into Norse mythology when you were younger, too, right?) between the two parties.
But not today. Today I want to introduce the No-Brainer Awards: a roll call honoring some of the best legislative ideas you won’t see leading the evening news. These thoughtful bills and responsible reforms aren’t polarizing or sweeping, which you’d think would make it easier for them to pass. But for many of them, the absence of partisan passion means they never make it to the front of the congressional agenda. So let’s give them a push.
