Hundreds of thousands of food stamp recipients will lose at least $90 a month in benefits, after an amendment to the farm bill failed badly in the Senate. The Senate overwhelmingly rejected a bid to preserve some $4.5 billion in food stamps funding, as part of the massive farm bill, on Tuesday. The amendment to [...]

Now that we know the state of play on the one year-end bill left outstanding, let’s redirect to the one that’s moving through the system currently. The House just passed the omnibus appropriations bill, funding all government agencies through the rest of the fiscal year, until September 30, 2012. It’s on to the Senate, where [...]

That’s the implication of the House Majority Leader’s statement that Congress has to “find the money” for federal aid for natural disasters: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor assured his constituents on Wednesday that Congress “will find the monies” to assist earthquake victims in Mineral, Virginia – but the Republican lawmaker noted that “those monies will [...]

Liberals have not been totally silent about their concerns with the Obama 2012 budget, but the criticism has been muted at best. However, Democratic Senators did make their frustrations known last night. And several lawmakers criticized certain policies contained in the Obama budget plan, even at a press conference put on to highlight the Republican [...]

A lot of the conference call from Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer today looked at the need to make spending cuts with a sharp scalpel instead of a meat axe (their phrase, not mine). But the President will reportedly wield the axe in his budget proposal, set for next week, which will reportedly cut low [...]

Responding to the Obama Administration’s apparent decision to cut Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding, Larry Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute says that progressives “are losing the argument at a higher level” about the budget in general, putting all programs and services at risk. The fundamental problem, Mishel says, is a spending [...]

I think “baffling” is the appropriate term for the response to the apparent line item in the President’s budget cutting LIHEAP, energy assistance for the poor, by $3 billion (sources now say $2.5 billion). Mainstream journalist Matthew Cooper asks, “Who Wants Grandma to Freeze?” John Kerry, who’s trying to get a job in the next [...]

We’ve seen today that Democrats are just as committed to near-term budget cuts as Republicans. They may want them in different areas, they may want to cancel out different programs or tax expenditures, but they’re happy to do them and right away. Multiple Democrats in the Senate have expressed a desire for cuts in the [...]

The Senate is in session right now, with votes scheduled to start at 10:30am ET. Cloture on the motion to concur on the DREAM Act is first. If that fails, the Senate will move to cloture on a motion to concur on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Last night, the Senate passed a House bill [...]