Politics

Congress Links

By Sunlight Foundation & Participatory Politics Foundation

• House Committe to hold a hearing tomorrow on possible legislative responses to the issue of long-term unemployment. (Examiner)
• With the unemployment rate approaching 10%, Democrats in Senate push for coporate tax increases that would discourage overseas hiring. (Washington Post)
• Congress is set to raise taxes on small businesses in the professional services sector. (Forbes)
• Senator Jay Rockerfeller [D-W.VA] supports Senator Lisa Murkowski’s [R-AK] proposal to take away EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases. (NYtimes)
• …and the GOP is hopeful thta other Dems will vote for the EPA resolution tomorrow as well. (The Hill)
• To close the U.S. budget gap, Senate Democrats propose a tax hike on the share of income that comes from profits that private-equity, hedge-fund and certain real estate managers recieve. (Wall Street Journal)
• Senate Democrats want to increase the tax that oil companies pays for a spill fund which would help those that lose their jobs, states, and doctors. (Boston Globe)
• Pro-immigration protestors have initiated a hunger strike outside of Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D, NY) Manhattan office, accusing him of reneging on a promise to support the “DREAM act” that he had previously cosponsored. (Gothamist)
• Bernanke, in testimony to congress, warns that current deficit levels are unsustainable in the long term, but that now “is not the time, to radically reduce our spending, or raise our taxes.” (The Wall Street Journal)
• Senator Lindsay Graham (Sen. SC) backs away from climate change legislation he had sponsored, claiming that it overly restricts oil drilling (The Washington Post)
• C-SPAN confirms they will be televising the financial reform conference committee (.pdf via C-SPAN)
• Rep. John Culberson [R, TX-7] downplays the BP oil gusher, calls it a “statistical anomaly.” (Right Now)
• The 25 hardest working members of Congress. (The Hill)
• Sen. Charles Grassley [R, IA] has an idea for cleaning up the oil: “There’s a process for making beer — I don’t know if it’s the yeast or what it is in making beer. You can put those microscopic things on oil and they die, and all you’ve got is some methane gas left.” (The Hill)
• In testimony before Congress, Interior Secretary defends teh Administration’s decision to hit pause on offshore drilling expansion. (CNN)

Full post as published by Open Congress on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).