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History > 2007 > USA > Politics > Congress > Senate (II)
$43.5
Billion Spying Budget for Year,
Not Including Military
October 31,
2007
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON,
Oct. 30 — Congress authorized spending of $43.5 billion over the past year to
operate spy satellites, remote surveillance stations and C.I.A. outposts
overseas, according to a budget figure released Tuesday by Mike McConnell,
director of national intelligence.
Government officials have refused for years to disclose the intelligence budget,
citing risks to national security if the United States’ adversaries learned what
it spent annually on spy services.
But lawmakers, acting on a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission, pushed a
law through Congress this summer requiring that the director of national
intelligence reveal the spending authorization figure within 30 days after the
close of the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
The number released Tuesday does not include the billions of dollars that
military services spend annually on intelligence operations. The total spying
budget for the last fiscal year, including this Pentagon spending, is said to
have been in excess of $50 billion.
The figure Mr. McConnell released, known as the National Intelligence Program,
covers some of the most expensive spy programs, including the fleet of
satellites run by the National Reconnaissance Office. It also includes the
budgets for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency,
charged with electronic eavesdropping.
Last year, John D. Negroponte, then the director of national intelligence,
revealed another secret of the spy world that was once closely guarded: he
announced that the work force in the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies numbered
nearly 100,000.
The intelligence budget has twice before been made public: in 1997 and 1998, the
C.I.A. disclosed that its budget was $26.6 billion and $26.7 billion,
respectively. But since the Sept. 11 attacks the Bush administration has refused
to make similar disclosures, fighting legal challenges from several advocacy
groups.
In late 2005, a senior intelligence official attending a public conference in
San Antonio revealed, apparently by accident, that the intelligence budget for
that year was $44 billion.
In a press release on Tuesday, Mr. McConnell’s office said no further details
about the annual intelligence budget would be revealed “because such disclosures
could harm national security.”
Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri and vice chairman of the
Intelligence Committee, said, “The American people have a right to know how and
where the government is spending their money.”
$43.5 Billion Spying Budget for Year, Not Including
Military, NYT, 31.10.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/washington/31intel.html
Senate
Confirms Judge Opposed by Democrats
October 24,
2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON,
Oct. 24 — The Senate today confirmed President Bush’s choice for the federal
appeals court that handles cases from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas despite
complaints from many Democrats and from civil rights organizations that he is
not committed to racial equality.
By 59 to 38, the Senate confirmed Judge Leslie H. Southwick to a seat on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Nominations to that court
are often sensitive because of the region’s history of discrimination, and this
one was no exception, as some civil rights advocates accused Democrats of
cynical deal-making with Republicans in return for support on spending bills.
Judge Southwick, 57, a native of Texas, was nominated in January to fill the
seat vacated by Charles W. Pickering. Judge Pickering, who was also accused of
insensitivity on racial matters, was unable to win Senate confirmation, so
President Bush appointed him to a temporary term that expired in December 2004.
The president hailed the confirmation as “a victory for America’s judicial
system and for the citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas” and said the
judge is “a man of character and intelligence who will apply the law fairly.”
Judge Southwick’s supporters have said there never should have been any
controversy over his nomination.
“His life is a life of service,” Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, said
today. “I believe we should honor him for that. There’s no question that the
nation would be well served by his service on the bench. And also no question
that questions about him have been contrived. And no question that there’s more
at stake today than the confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick.”
Mr. Kyl was alluding to the fate of some recent judicial nominations, which have
not been brought to a vote in the Senate because, in his view, “liberal activist
groups” had pressured Democrats to block them. But Judge Southwick was assured
of his “yes or no” vote earlier today when the Senate voted, 62 to 35, to invoke
cloture, a parliamentary step that ends debate and precludes a filibuster. The
62 votes were two more than needed to turn aside a filibuster threat.
Nine Democrats and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut,
joined the Senate’s 49 Republicans in voting for confirmation, despite a
denunciation of the nominee by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic
majority leader.
“It took the courageous action of judges on the Fifth Circuit to carry out the
Supreme Court’s desegregation decisions and destroy the vestiges of the Jim Crow
era,” Mr. Reid said. “Yet Judge Southwick’s record gives us no reason to hope
that he will continue this tradition of delivering justice to the aggrieved.”
But Mr. Reid’s role was more subtle than his statement indicated, according to
the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. The newspaper reported today that Mr.
Reid, despite his personal opposition, did not work hard to corral other
Democrats to vote “no.”
Roll Call said that Senators Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip, and
Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a conservative Democrat, had worked for weeks rounding
up wavering Democrats to support the nominee. In return, the newspaper said,
Republicans will help Democrats in negotiations with the White House over
spending measures.
Mr. Lott did nothing to discourage that impression. “Good-faith efforts on one
side beget good-faith efforts on the other side,” he said in an interview with
Roll Call.
Judge Southwick’s critics have pointed to some of his decisions as a Mississippi
state appeals court judge. In one case, he upheld the reinstatement with back
pay of a white state employee who had used a racial epithet about another
worker; in another, he joined a majority opinion that denied a bisexual mother
custody of her child.
But Judge Southwick’s supporters have said he is eminently qualified,
intellectually and personally. He served on the Mississippi Court of Appeals
from January 1995 through December 2006 and was a deputy assistant attorney
general in the Department of Justice’s Civil Division from 1989 to 1993. He is
now a visiting professor at the Mississippi College School of Law, where he has
been an adjunct professor since 1998. In 2005, he served in Iraq as a member of
the Mississippi National Guard.
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California was a key Democratic supporter. She
provided the deciding vote in the Judiciary Committee, which endorsed Judge
Southwick by 10 to 9 in August. The senator called the judge “a qualified,
sensitive and circumspect person” and anything but a racist.
But Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights,
called the confirmation “a slap in the face to African-Americans and people of
good will.” Despite Senator Reid’s statement about the judge, Mr. Henderson said
Mr. Reid was responsible for allowing the judge to be confirmed.
“The majority leader was in control of this process from the time Southwick’s
nomination left the Judiciary Committee,” Mr. Henderson said. He called the vote
“one of those inside-the-Beltway Senate deals between Democrats and Republicans
in which they sacrificed the interests of some in furtherance of comity between
the parties — let’s just be real about this , that’s just what this is.”
Other opposition came from the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
In addition to Senators Feinstein and Nelson, the Democrats who voted to confirm
Judge Southwick were Daniel Akaka of Hawaii; Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia;
Tim Johnson of South Dakota; Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas;
and Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, both of North Dakota.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
Senate Confirms Judge Opposed by Democrats, NYT,
24.10.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24cnd-southwick.html?hp
News
Analysis
Plainly,
a Justice Department Pick of Like Mind
October 20,
2007
By ADAM LIPTAK
The New York Times
The
senators questioning Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush’s nominee for attorney
general, seemed so pleased at first to be receiving direct and unadorned answers
that they appeared to be barely taking in what he was saying.
But in his two days of testimony this week, it became clear that Mr. Mukasey
believes presidential power to be robust, expansive and sometimes beyond the
power of Congress to control.
That is perfectly aligned with the Bush administration’s views, and if Mr.
Mukasey was initially a refreshing presence to the Senate Judiciary Committee,
it was only because he justified in plain terms what other administration
lawyers have said in secret memorandums often cloaked in obfuscation.
Mr. Mukasey did denounce torture in the abstract, but he would not say what it
is. He said he would work toward the goal of closing the prison at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, but only because it has harmed the reputation of the United States.
He disavowed a 2002 Justice Department memorandum authorizing harsh
interrogation techniques — but the department itself had disowned the opinion in
2004.
“He did a masterful and appropriate job of repudiating the excesses of what the
administration had done,” said Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at Harvard who
withdrew the 2002 memorandum when he served in the Justice Department. “But, at
the same time, he appropriately defended executive power.”
That defense was substantial and sustained. Asked, for instance, if the
president was free to violate a law enacted by Congress, Mr. Mukasey said, “That
would have to depend on whether what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies
within the authority of the president to defend the country.”
Despite the tense questioning of Mr. Mukasey on Thursday, there was no
indication yesterday that any senators intended to oppose the nomination.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who is chairman of the committee,
has said he intends to submit written questions about several of the issues that
were raised during the hearings, especially over Mr. Mukasey’s views on
expansive executive branch power. The senator said there would be no vote until
Mr. Mukasey had replied to the questions. The White House said yesterday that
Mr. Mukasey could not be expected to be specific in discussing classified
programs on which he had not yet been briefed.
In his testimony, Mr. Mukasey’s legal analysis was telling and occasionally
idiosyncratic.
He indicated, for instance, that he favored a narrow reading of the Supreme
Court’s sweeping 2006 decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, striking down the
administration’s initial plan for military commissions to try prisoners at
Guantánamo.
According to the Defense Department, the court decision means that Al Qaeda
prisoners under interrogation must be given the protection of the Geneva
Convention’s Common Article 3, which prohibits humiliating and degrading
treatment of prisoners. But Mr. Mukasey said he did not think Hamdan went that
far.
Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First, said the comment
was troubling and suggestive.
“I simply don’t know where in the decision he could be reading in order to get
the impression that Common Article 3 doesn’t apply to interrogation
methodologies,” Mr. Rona said. “He seems to be leaving room for the argument
made in the torture memos that the executive does have room to violate the
Geneva Conventions.”
Mr. Mukasey also said that Congress might be powerless to bar the president from
conducting some surveillance without warrants.
“The statute, regardless of its clarity, can’t change the Constitution,” Mr.
Mukasey said. “That’s been true since the Prize cases.”
But the Prize cases concerned whether President Lincoln had the power to impose
a blockade of Confederate ports without Congressional authorization — not in the
face of a Congressional ban. (Indeed, Congress later retroactively authorized
Lincoln’s actions.)
The distinction between Congressional silence, as in the Prize cases, and
Congressional limitation, as in the 1978 law that required warrants for some
intelligence surveillance, is an important one.
It is reflected in another decision Mr. Mukasey cited, Youngstown Sheet & Tube
v. Sawyer, a 1952 case in which the Supreme Court rejected President Harry S.
Truman’s assertion that he had the constitutional authority to seize steel mills
during the Korean War. The decision included a widely admired concurrence from
Justice Robert H. Jackson setting out a framework for considering clashes
between presidential power and Congressional authority. “I recognize the force
of Justice Jackson’s three-step approach,” Mr. Mukasey said.
The president has the most power when he acts with Congressional authorization,
Justice Jackson said, and an intermediate amount when Congress is silent. The
president’s power is at its “lowest ebb,” Justice Jackson wrote, when Congress
has forbidden a particular action.
In the Hamdan case, the Supreme Court made the same point, and perhaps more
forcefully. “Whether or not the president has independent power, absent
Congressional authorization, to convene military commissions, he may not
disregard limitations that Congress has, in proper exercise of its own war
powers, placed on his powers,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority,
citing Youngstown.
But, like many attorneys general of both parties, Mr. Mukasey indicated that he
understood Youngstown to leave room for presidential power even in the face of
Congressional action. “I would certainly suggest that we go to Congress whenever
we can,” he added.
The administration has in recent years met with substantial success in Congress,
obtaining legislation on surveillance, military commissions and the treatment of
detainees that authorized almost all of what it wanted.
“It’s been obvious from events of the last several years that everybody is
better off — the president is better off, the Congress is better off, the
country is better off — when everybody’s rolling in the same direction,” Mr.
Mukasey said on Wednesday.
By Thursday morning, though, there were signs that not everyone was rolling
together.
“So you are telling the committee, Judge, that anytime the president is acting
to safeguard the national security against a terrorist threat, he does not have
to comply with statute?” asked Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin,
referring to the 1978 law.
Mr. Mukasey did not answer directly, though he noted the change in tone of the
questioning.
“You’ve suggested that I’ve gone overnight from being an agnostic to being a
heretic,” Mr. Mukasey said.
Philip Shenon contributed reporting from Washington.
Plainly, a Justice Department Pick of Like Mind, NYT,
20.10.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/washington/20mukasey.html?hp
Senate
Approves Military Spending
October 4,
2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times
WASHINGTON,
Oct. 3 (AP) — The Senate on Wednesday approved $459 billion in spending for the
Pentagon, after adding $3 billion for security at the Mexican border.
The bill, passed by voice vote, does not include President Bush’s request for
almost $190 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would
increase other Pentagon spending $43 billion, up more than 10 percent from the
last budget.
Much of the new money would be devoted to procuring new weapons, including the
V-22 tilt rotor aircraft, unmanned drone aircraft, the next generation of Joint
Strike Fighters and the F-22 Raptor fighter jet.
The border security money had been in a spending bill for the Homeland Security
Department that Mr. Bush has promised to veto because it exceeds his budget
request by $2 billion.
By shifting the money to the Pentagon bill, Republican leaders hoped to preserve
the financing without embarrassing the president by overriding his veto.
The military bill includes more money for National Guard equipment and military
health care and a 3.5 percent pay increase for military personnel.
Senate Approves Military Spending, NYT, 4.10.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04spend.html
Senate
Urges Bush to Declare Iran Guard a Terrorist Group
September
27, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON,
Sept. 26 — The Senate approved a resolution on Wednesday urging the Bush
administration to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a
foreign terrorist organization, and lawmakers briefly set aside partisan
differences to approve a measure calling for stepped-up diplomacy to forge a
political solution in Iraq.
Since last month, the White House has been weighing whether to declare the
Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group or to take a narrower step focusing
on only the Guard’s elite Quds Force. Either approach would signal a more
confrontational posture by declaring a part of the Iranian military a terrorist
operation.
Appearances by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday at Columbia
University and on Tuesday at the United Nations, where he said Iran would ignore
Security Council resolutions about its nuclear program, seemed to toughen the
resolve of Senate Democrats, who had been hesitant to take an overly aggressive
stance.
The Senate resolution, which is not binding, also calls on the administration to
impose economic sanctions on Iran.
Even if the White House took that step, policy experts said, it was unclear that
it would be anything more than a symbolic gesture without the cooperation of
nations that, unlike the United States, still had substantial business dealings
with Iran.
The measure, proposed by Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, and Senator
Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who usually votes with
Republicans on war issues, relied heavily on testimony earlier this month by
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker,
the top American political official in Baghdad.
In negotiations, two crucial paragraphs were deleted from the measure in an
attempt to reassure critics who had said the proposal seemed to urge the Bush
administration to deal with Iran on a war footing.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, a Democrat and the majority leader, voted for the
proposal after initially urging caution. “We certainly don’t want to be led down
the path, slowly but surely, until we wind up with the situation like we have in
Iraq today,” he said Tuesday. “So I am going to be very, very cautious.”
Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, warned Tuesday that an early draft of
the proposal “could be read as tantamount to a declaration of war.”
“What do we do with terrorist organizations if they are involved against us?”
Mr. Webb asked in a speech on Tuesday. “We attack them.”
Even with the two paragraphs deleted, Mr. Webb voted against the resolution. So
did a number of other Democrats who are among the harshest critics of the Bush
administration’s handling of the war. The measure passed by a vote of 76 to 22.
Among those voting against it was Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of
Delaware, and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who said he feared
that the administration could use the measure to justify military action against
Iran.
In a separate vote, by 75 to 23, the Senate approved a resolution by Mr. Biden
calling for greater diplomatic efforts with Iraq, and in particular, a focus on
partitioning Iraq into federal regions in hopes of reaching a political solution
and more swiftly ending the war.
While Democrats sought to portray the vote on the Biden proposal as a potential
breakthrough in reaching other legislative compromises that might force
President Bush to shift his war strategy, Republicans quickly made clear that
this was not so.
Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, praised Mr. Biden’s measure but
also predicted that any effort by Senate Democrats to dictate war strategy to
the president would fail. “We will not see a measure reach 60 votes,” he said,
the number needed to overcome a filibuster.
Mr. Biden’s resolution called on the United States “to actively support a
political settlement in Iraq based on the final provisions of the Constitution
of Iraq,” which would essentially divide the country into loosely allied,
semi-autonomous regions.
And it said the United States should call on the international community to help
and on Iraq’s neighbors not to “intervene in or destabilize” Iraq.
In an interview, Mr. Biden said such an approach would be a striking shift from
the Bush administration’s insistence on a strong and unified Iraqi federal
government and would permit a quicker withdrawal of American troops. “This is a
fundamentally different goal, and it requires fundamentally fewer American
forces,” he said.
Senate Urges Bush to Declare Iran Guard a Terrorist Group,
NYT, 27.9.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/washington/27cong.html
GOP
senators voice skepticism over Iraq war policy
11
September 2007
USA Today
WASHINGTON
(AP) — Senate Republicans sharply challenged President Bush's top military
general and ambassador in Iraq on Tuesday in a blatant demonstration of
misgivings within the GOP about the protracted war.
"Are we
going to continue to invest blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now?
For what?" asked Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who supports legislation setting a
deadline to bring troops home.
The deep-seated doubt expressed at the hearing before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee reflected just how far Congress had come since the war began
over four years ago. And Republican senators raised questions that rivaled those
asked by several Democratic presidential hopefuls there.
The exchanges came just a day after the top U.S. war commander, Gen. David
Petraeus, recommended keeping the bulk of U.S. forces in Iraq — some 130,000
troops — deployed there through next summer.
"In my judgment, some type of success in Iraq is possible, but as policymakers,
we should acknowledge that we are facing extraordinarily narrow margins for
achieving our goals," Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, told the top U.S. military commander and the
American ambassador there.
Lugar, R-Ind., has called for a sizable drawdown in coming months, a plan that
runs counter to Gen. David Petraeus' recommendation. Petraeus says the United
States should withdraw the 30,000 extra troops deployed earlier this year, but
maintain the approximately 130,000 troops — who would be left there — at least
through next summer.
"The surge (in military troops) must not be an excuse for failing to prepare for
the next phase of our involvement in Iraq, whether that is partial withdrawal, a
gradual redeployment or some other option," Lugar said.
He spoke prior to testimony by Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and
Petraeus. Echoing testimony given to the House on Monday, the two highlighted
recent progress made in the war and say that more time is needed.
In a second day of testimony, Crocker said he could not guarantee success in
Iraq but believed it attainable.
"I do believe that Iraq's leaders have the will to tackle the country's pressing
problems, although it will take longer than we initially anticipated because of
the environment and the gravity of the issue," Crocker said.
The stakes are high, he added.
"An Iraq that falls into chaos or civil war will mean massive human suffering —
well beyond what has already occurred within Iraq's borders," Crocker said.
Petraeus echoed his past remarks as well, offering statistics that violence —
including car bombings and suicide attacks — is down since President Bush
deployed 30,000 extra troops earlier this year.
The hearing fell on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The fact of the matter is that American lives remain in jeopardy and, as I
said, if every single jihadi in the world was killed tomorrow, we'd still have a
major, major war on our hands," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee, and a candidate for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
Republican support for the Iraq war remains on shaky ground in Congress,
epitomized by Lugar's opening statement Tuesday. But that support wasn't lost
after Petraeus on Monday recommended maintaining substantial force levels in the
country.
Many rank-and-file Republicans — like Lugar — said they still were uneasy about
the lack of political progress in Iraq. But they also remained reluctant to
embrace legislation ordering troops home by next spring, increasing the
likelihood that Democrats will have to soften their approach if they want to
pass an anti-war proposal.
"I think people recognize the surge (in U.S. troops) has made a difference, but
it hasn't enabled the Iraqi government to get its act together," said Rep. Ray
LaHood, R-Ill., among the nearly dozen House Republicans who went to the White
House last spring to personally relay their concerns about the war to Bush.
"There's going to continue to be some heartburn," he said, adding that he would
like to see Bush call for new elections in Iraq and possibly a more drastic
drawdown of troops than suggested by Petraeus. He said he is not keen on forcing
a timetable on the war.
The view of LaHood and other Republicans will factor in heavily as Democrats
decide their next step. Democrats had anticipated that a larger number of
Republicans by now would have turned against Bush on the war because of grim
poll numbers and the upcoming 2008 elections.
Without GOP support, Democrats repeatedly have fallen short of enough votes to
pass legislation ordering troop withdrawals to begin this fall and be completed
by spring.
Petraeus' testimony Tuesday was expected to be in an arena thick with politics.
In separate hearings conducted by the Senate Armed Services and Foreign
Relations committees, the general and Crocker were sitting in front of four
other presidential hopefuls besides Biden. They are: Republican John McCain of
Arizona and Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Christopher Dodd of
Connecticut and Barack Obama of Illinois.
Bush is widely anticipated to embrace the withdrawal goals Petreaus outlined
when he unveils his plan for Iraq later this week.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi government on Tuesday welcomed Petraeus' testimony and
said the need for U.S. military support would decrease over time.
National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, reading from a government
statement, said the Iraqis believed that "in the near future" the need for U.S.
and other coalition forces "will decrease."
Moderate lawmakers say there is plenty of room for compromise in the deeply
divided Congress. Aides say bipartisan proposals are in the works and that
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has reached out to several GOP senators to
discuss potential common ground. However, a major hurdle remaining are
politically influential organizations like MoveOn.org who say Democrats
shouldn't water down the debate with more moderate legislation.
Alternative legislative proposals on Iraq include:
* Ordering troop withdrawals to begin this fall, but set the spring date of
completion as a non-binding goal.
* Limit the mission of U.S. troops to training the Iraqi security forces,
fighting terrorists and protecting U.S. assets, but leave it up to military
commanders to determine force levels.
* Demanding Bush submit a new war strategy to Congress by fall that would limit
the mission of U.S. forces and begin drawing down force levels in coming months.
GOP senators voice skepticism over Iraq war policy, UT,
11.9.2007,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-09-11-hearing-day-two_N.htm
Senate
Passes Bill Raising College Aid
September
7, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:03 a.m. ET
The New York Times
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The Senate voted Friday to increase college financial aid by cutting
roughly $20 billion in government subsidies to banks and giving it to students.
The bill would boost the maximum Pell grant, which goes to the poorest college
students, from $4,310 to $5,400 by 2012.
The vote was 79-12.
The House is expected to vote on the bill later Friday and the president is
expected to sign the legislation soon.
The bill would cut interest rates on federally backed student loans to poor and
middle-class students from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over the next four years.
House Democrats pushed for the politically popular interest-rate cut. Such a
provision had not been included in an earlier Senate-passed version of the bill
but was added to the final version by congressional negotiators.
Democratic lawmakers say the roughly $20 billion in cuts are aimed at excessive
government subsidies to the banks that give student loans. The subsidies were
established to ensure that banks enter and stay in the college loan business.
Banking industry officials have objected to the cuts and have said they could
adversely affect services that banks provide to borrowers.
Nearly all of the cuts would go toward making college cheaper, but $750 million
would be spent on federal budget deficit reduction. The legislation is part of a
must-pass bill needed to meet spending targets in the federal budget.
The bill also sets up a loan-forgiveness program for college graduates who work
for 10 years in public service professions, such teaching or nursing.
It also would cap annual payments for students at a percentage of their income,
which lawmakers say would prevent people from having to pay back more than they
can afford.
------
On the Net:
Senate education committee:
http://help.senate.gov/
Senate Passes Bill Raising College Aid, NYT, 7.9.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Student-Loans.html?hp
Senate
Passes Children’s Health Bill, 68-31
August 3,
2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON,
Aug. 2 — The Senate defied President Bush on Thursday and passed a bipartisan
bill that would provide health insurance for millions of children in low-income
families.
The vote was 68 to 31. The majority was more than enough to overcome the veto
repeatedly threatened by Mr. Bush. The White House said the bill “goes too far
in federalizing health care.”
But Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chief sponsor of the bill, said,
“Millions of American children have hope for a healthier future tonight.”
The bill would increase spending on the popular Children’s Health Insurance
Program by $35 billion over the next five years.
“Covering these children is worth every cent,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch,
Republican of Utah, who helped create the program 10 years ago.
The House passed a much larger bill on Wednesday, presenting negotiators with a
formidable challenge in trying to work out differences between the two measures.
Still, the strong commitment to the issue by Democratic leaders virtually
guarantees that they can work out a compromise before Sept. 30, when the program
is set to expire. But that compromise is likely to be unacceptable to Mr. Bush.
If Mr. Bush vetoes the bill, the future of the program would quickly become an
issue in 2008 campaigns for Congress and the White House, in the context of a
broader debate about universal coverage for health care.
The House bill, which passed on a vote of 225 to 204, would increase spending by
$50 billion over the next five years. The Senate rejected a proposal by Senator
John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to match that increase — and to cover the
extra cost by raising taxes on people with incomes exceeding $1 million a year.
Both bills would raise tobacco taxes. The federal excise tax on cigarettes would
rise to $1 a pack under the Senate bill and to 84 cents a pack under the House
measure, from 39 cents a pack.
The House bill would sharply reduce federal subsidies paid to insurance
companies offering private health plans to Medicare beneficiaries. Many
Democrats say these plans, which serve nearly one-fifth of the 43 million
Medicare beneficiaries, are overpaid. The Senate bill does not deal with
Medicare.
Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said Congress
was jeopardizing health care for millions of needy children by passing bills
that “the president will have no choice but to veto.”
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, a Republican who helped write the Senate
bill, said he intended to try to persuade Mr. Bush to sign the legislation that
emerges from Congress. But Mr. Grassley said that he would fight the proposed
cuts in Medicare payments to private plans.
“It’s a question of equity for rural America,” Mr. Grassley said. “Before 2003,
rural Medicare beneficiaries rarely had private Medicare plans to choose from.
They did not have the same choices people have in urban America. These plans can
be a good choice for people with a chronic illness, for lower-income people and
for those who want extra benefits.”
Insurers say the private plans would disappear from many parts of the country if
Medicare payments were cut as proposed by House Democrats.
But AARP, the lobby for older Americans, has endorsed the House bill. It says
the “excess payments” to private plans cause higher premiums for all
beneficiaries, including those in traditional Medicare.
In the final Senate vote, 18 Republicans and 2 independents joined 48 Democrats
in supporting the legislation. All the no votes were cast by Republicans.
Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, set forth the case this way: “As
lawmakers, we have a moral obligation to provide health care coverage for the
millions of uninsured children. Health care should be a right, not a privilege,
and covering every child is an important step toward this goal.”
But the Senate Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, said: “If you want to
go to government-run, socialistic medicine, this is it, this is the way it’s
going to happen. Even my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle are
buying this deal.”
Senator Baucus insisted that “this is not a huge massive expansion. This has
nothing to do with national health insurance.”
Under the bill, states can use federal money to pay health care providers or to
help families buy private insurance.
Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said, “To suggest that this is
somehow socialized medicine is one of the most far-fetched arguments I have seen
on the Senate floor. This care is provided by private physicians, using private
insurance companies.”
Both bills would offer bonus payments to states as an incentive to find and
enroll low-income children.
The Congressional Budget Office says the Senate bill would cover 3.2 million
uninsured children, including 2.7 million who are currently eligible but not
enrolled. The House bill, it said, would cover 4.2 million children, including
3.8 million already eligible for benefits. In addition, both bills would provide
money to prevent 800,000 children now on the program from losing coverage.
The current allocations of federal money, totaling $5 billion a year, are not
enough for states to maintain their current programs.
Senators of both parties said the bill would help Mr. Bush fulfill a promise he
made at the Republican National Convention in New York City on Sept. 2, 2004.
“America’s children must have a healthy start in life,” Mr. Bush said then. “In
a new term, we will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor
children who are eligible but not signed up for the government’s health
insurance programs. We will not allow a lack of attention, or information, to
stand between these children and the health care they need.”
Senate Passes Children’s Health Bill, 68-31, NYT,
3.8.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/washington/03health.html
Joint
Chiefs Nominee Questioned on Iraq
August 1,
2007
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON,
July 31 — The Navy admiral nominated to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff said Tuesday that American military efforts in Iraq would fail unless
Iraqi leaders did more to bridge sectarian divides. But he also warned that a
rapid exit of American troops could turn Iraq into a “cauldron” for broader
Middle East strife.
The failure of the Iraqis to make progress toward political unity imperils Iraq,
said the nominee, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who said that unless things changed,
“no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference.”
He said he believed that the American troop increase this year in Iraq had
helped tamp down violence, saying security was “not great, but better.” But he
also said that the United States risked breaking the Army if the Pentagon
decided to maintain escalated troop levels in Iraq beyond next spring.
During more than three and a half hours of often blunt testimony before the
Senate Armed Services Committee, both Admiral Mullen and Gen. James E.
Cartwright, the nominee to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, were generally
praised for giving candid answers about the security and political situation in
Iraq.
The departing chairman, Gen. Peter Pace, has faced sharp criticism from Congress
during his two-year tenure for painting what lawmakers from both parties have
described as an overly optimistic portrait of the situation in the country.
Admiral Mullen and General Cartwright were nevertheless careful not to stray too
far from assessments about Iraq given by other top administration officials,
saying they would await a September report from military and civilian officials
in Iraq before they could decide on the future of the additional troops there.
The officers said the American and Iraqi militaries had made gains against Al
Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American
intelligence agencies have concluded is foreign-led. But General Cartwright said
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia seemed “to have an unlimited pool from which to draw
from.”
Admiral Mullen, who initially opposed the Bush administration’s “surge” plan but
came to believe that it could work if accompanied by economic development and
political reconciliation, was generally unsparing in his criticism of Iraqi
politicians. It is imperative, he said, that American officials “bring as much
pressure on them as we possibly can.”
Neither Admiral Mullen nor General Cartwright faced particularly difficult
questioning, partly because neither man has been central to the Pentagon’s
decision making about the Iraq war. Both are expected to be swiftly confirmed by
the Senate.
Most of the session focused on the future of the Iraq war, a sign of just how
much the administration’s once grand plans for the military have been altered by
the past four years.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, top administration officials spoke of
transforming the military to win quick military campaigns with relatively few
combat troops, and become more adaptable to fight terrorist leaders like Osama
bin Laden and netwroks like Al Qaeda. On Tuesday, Admiral Mullen made clear that
he expected the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to impose a strain
on the armed services for years to come.
For instance, he said that even if the United States were to cut its force in
Iraq by half next year, it would still be another three to four years before it
would be possible to guarantee that troops could spend two years at home between
combat tours, a deployment tempo that Admiral Mullen said was the goal.
Both General Pace and his predecessor, Gen. Richard B. Myers, have drawn intense
criticism from Congress for refusing for years to enlarge the military even as
troops were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan on multiple combat tours, many of them
seeing their tours of duty extended by months. The administration reversed
course late last year and announced plans to expand the Army and Marine Corps.
Under questioning, Admiral Mullen said that strains on the force could end up
dictating military decisions about troop deployments in Iraq. He said that
maintaining current troop levels in Iraq beyond next April would force planners
to extend tours of duty beyond 15 months, a decision he said he opposed.
Admiral Mullen was also questioned on a range of subjects beyond Iraq, and he
warned that Iran was aggressively challenging the United States across the
Middle East and that it had made a “strategic shift” to enter into an alliance
in Afghanistan with the Taliban, the militant Sunni Muslim group that
Shiite-dominated Iran has long regarded as a foe.
Admiral Mullen said he was also concerned about the situation in Pakistan,
including the speed with which Al Qaeda has built up a safe haven in the tribal
areas near the Afghan border. He said it was a good sign that Pakistan’s
president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, had sent his military back to the tribal
areas, but said he was unsure how effective they will be against entrenched
Qaeda operatives.
Joint Chiefs Nominee Questioned on Iraq, NYT, 1.8.2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/washington/01military.html?hp
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