Search Results: ‘Max Baucus’

With unemployment tickling 10 percent (and likely to rise), Democrats in the U.S. Senate this week are hoping to push through a series of bills designed to encourage job creation. It’s as much a test of the Republicans’ commitment to bipartisanship as it is a gauge of the Democrats’ power to pass legislation in the [...]

With unemployment still hovering in double digits and no real relief in sight, a group of 30 Senate Democrats, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, is urging party leaders to extend emergency unemployment benefits through the end of 2010 — 10 months longer than current law dictates.

U.S. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Finance Committee’s ranking member, have sent a letter to Senate leaders signaling their intention to push in the new year for retroactive passage of tax extender legislation, which would include the biodiesel tax credit set to expire Dec. 31.

It’s the first rule of congressional lawmaking: Never miss an opportunity to grab everything you can for your constituents, even if it comes at the expense of everyone else.
That’s certainly been the case in the Senate’s health care reform bill, where it wasn’t just the moderate holdouts who successfully secured enormous earmarks for their states.

Senate Democratic leaders won quick praise from seniors this week when they vowed to close the nettlesome coverage gap in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit, but left unmentioned was a looming battle.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley has formally laid out his reasons for voting against proposed health care legislation taken up by the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday morning.

Although Senate Democrats seem to be moving toward a compromise on health care reform that would allow individual states to opt-out of a national public option, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley is adamant that such a provision would defeat the overall purpose of health care reform.

The hopes of a bipartisan bill to reform the nation’s health care system were dashed after President Barack Obama told Democrats to walk away from the negotiating table, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said.

Although some members of the U.S. House have voiced firm opposition to the long-awaited initial health care reform bill presented this week by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) isn’t necessarily among them. The process is not a sprint, he reminded reporters on his Thursday [...]

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin praised the efforts of Senate Democrats who sought a bipartisan agreement on health care reform, but he also noted that when push comes to shove, Democrats, as the majority party, are obligated to ensure that real reform actually passes.