House Passes War Funding Bill Over GOP And Left-Wing Dem Opposition
The House of Representatives passed the $106 billion funding bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, by a 226-202 margin. The roll call vote shows that only five Republicans voted in favor — due to a GOP effort to derail the bill over the inclusion of money for the International Monetary Fund — along with 32 Democrats voting No, on the grounds that the bill did not do enough to end the wars.
Obama’s Day Ahead
President Obama will meet with financial regulators at 11:40 a.m. ET. At 12:50 p.m. ET, he will deliver remarks laying out a comprehensive regulatory reform plan. At 2 p.m. ET, he will meet with Sec. of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan. At 5:45 p.m. ET, he will deliver remarks and sign a Presidential Memorandum to grant benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
Biden’s Day Ahead
At 9 a.m. ET, Vice President Biden will deliver the keynote address at the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee’s Green Jobs Summit. He will spend the afternoon in private meetings. Then at 5:45 p.m. ET, he will join the President in the Oval Office for the event regarding benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees.
NYT: Obama Sought Wide Consensus On New Finance Rules
The New York Times reports that President Obama’s new financial regulatory package is the product of weeks of discussion between the White House and disparate groups, aiming to arrive at a consensus: “They came from big banks and small ones, insurance companies and stock exchanges, hedge funds and mutual funds, and were joined by officials from consumer groups and big labor — often with conflicting views.”
Senators Getting To Work On Health Care, After Big Cost Report
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is set to begin meeting today to discuss health care reform, and will continue meeting through next week. This comes in the wake of the Congressional Budget Office report that the cost of the current Finance Committee proposal would be $1.6 trillion over 10 years, and the Kennedy bill would be about $1 trillion in that time — very serious amounts that Democrats could have a tough time grappling with.
Sotomayor Has Been Skeptical On Patriot Act, Other Measures
The New York Times reports that Sonia Sotomayor was publicly skeptical in 2003 of the new powers of surveillance and detention that the government gained under the Patriot Act and other measure. As she said in a lecture: “History will judge our democracy by how we balance the security threat to us with our allegiance to constitutional principles and notions of ordered liberty.”
House Dem, GOP Centrists Working In Secret On Health Care
The Hill reports that centrist House Democrats and Republicans have been holding informal discussions with each other on health care reform, with various members seeking to come up with their own compromise plan over the more hard-line liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans. Interestingly, only a few members were willing to be identified — including Reps. Lincoln Davis (D-TN), Ron Kind (D-WI), Patrick Tiberi (R-OH) and Mike Castle (R-DE), among others — and would not name others.
