Big Spending Reid Calls House
GOP Budget Cuts 'Unworkable'
The Hill
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blasted a House Republican proposal to cut $32 billion from 2011 spending levels as "draconian" and "unworkable." Reid promised to work hard to avert a government shutdown that he warned would inflict grave harm on the economy. Reid told reporters Thursday that he is willing to negotiate with House Republicans over a bill to keep the government funded beyond March 4. "We are happy to work with Republicans; we recognize that there has to be some long-term financial austerity," Reid said. "We're not burying our heads in the sand; we recognize we need to do some things," he added. But he called a proposal by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) to cut this year's federal budget by $32 billion "unworkable...The chairman of the Budget Committee today, today sent us something even more draconian than we originally anticipated," said Reid...

Senate Democrats Defeat
Repeal Attempt 51-47
FOX News
Senate Democrats fended off a Republican effort to repeal the law overhauling the healthcare system, voting down the measure, 51-47, submitted as an amendment to an airports construction bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to push the House-passed repeal to the Senate floor didn't win a single Democrat vote, but he noted that every Republican voted for the repeal...Several states, meanwhile, have indicated they will not implement the healthcare law now that one federal district judge has ruled it void. The prospect of a repeal brought lawmakers to the Senate floor Wednesday to argue their points on the healthcare law once more. Critics of the law won a battle to roll back one unpopular provision, which called for the full repeal of the tax reporting requirement for medical businesses purchasing equipment worth $600 or more, passed by a vote of 83-17.

Obama Snubs Issa on
Major Document Deadline
The Daily Caller
The Obama administration snubbed top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa on his first major document deadline as new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sending a short letter promising to comply in response to a major information request that was due Saturday at noon. But Issa is hitting back Tuesday with a demand key documents be sent in two days. The Obama snub is the first sign of how the administration will respond to demands for documents and testimony by key officials from Republicans in control of the House now that the GOP holds the power of congressional subpoena. A Jan. 28 letter from the Department of Homeland Security promised to cooperate with Issa's document request sent Jan. 14 – but Issa's deadline for the documents expired the next day. Further, Issa charges that top DHS officials actually instructed career employees not to search for the documents he is requesting.

Royce to Introduce National
Version of Arizona Immigration Law
The Daily Caller
Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), is planning to introduce a national-level version of contentious Arizona state Senate Bill 1070, The Daily Caller has learned. Royce, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee's Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade subcommittee, told TheDC his legislation would give state-level cops and local law enforcement nationwide the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. Royce is planning to introduce the new legislation soon and said, in addition to giving state and local law enforcement more authority, it "establishes operational control of the border" by sending more fencing to the border and keeping the secretaries of Interior and Agriculture from over-regulating how Border Patrol officials put together fences and work on federal lands. "All the Border Patrol agents are swearing by it," Royce said. "So, that's part of establishing operational control."

McConnell to Force Senate Vote on Obamacare Repeal
The Hill
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will force an up-or-down vote on the repeal of healthcare reform on Wednesday, testing the unity of Democrats who had promised the rollback would never see the light of day in their chamber. The vote in the Senate will come two weeks to the day after the House voted, largely along party lines, to repeal the healthcare law.  McConnell (R-KY) told colleagues during a lunch meeting on Tuesday that he would offer healthcare reform repeal as an amendment to legislation on the Senate floor. In a statement, McConnell said the repeal vote gives Democrats a chance to "reevaluate" their support for the controversial healthcare law, which a federal judge in Florida struck down as unconstitutional on Monday. The vote will force Democrats to affirm their support for keeping a law that polls have shown is increasingly unpopular with the public.

Judge Rules Healthcare Law Is Unconstitutional
FOX News
A US district judge on Monday threw out the nation's healthcare law, declaring it unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause and surely reviving a feud among competing philosophies about the role of government. Judge Roger Vinson, in Pensacola, Fla., ruled that as a result of the unconstitutionality of the "individual mandate" that requires people to buy insurance, the entire law must be declared void. "I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate..."While the individual mandate was clearly 'necessary and essential' to the act as drafted, it is not 'necessary and essential' to healthcare reform in general," he continued. "Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void." The case is undoubtedly headed to the Supreme Court.

Obama Proposes Tax Relief for Small Businesses
The Wall Street Journal
President Barack Obama will ask Congress to permanently eliminate capital gains taxes on certain investments in small businesses as part of the budget plan he submits to Congress next month, a White House official said.  The White House will announce the proposal Monday as part of a package of initiatives aimed at boosting small businesses and entrepreneurship. The White House will also announce the creation of a new, private organization called Startup America, aimed at getting private companies to expand their support entrepreneurship programs. Mr. Obama hit the themes of innovation and entrepreneurship during last week's State of the Union address, an effort to show the White House is focused on the nation's economic future and to lay down markers for coming debates with congressional Republicans over taxes and spending.

GOP Set Sites on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
The Daily Caller
Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are planning to hold a hearing on February 9 to begin tackling reform of government sponsored enterprises like mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The hearing will be the first in a long series of investigations by Republicans to fix what is viewed as one of the main causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The first hearing will be held by the Financial Services subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises. The focus of the hearing and the ones that follow it will be stopping taxpayer losses on housing in the short term, preventing future bailouts and removing government from the housing markets all together. Reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is shaping up to be a primary area of concern for the GOP as Republican lawmakers figure out how to address the two financial institutions that were left out of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

GOP 'Moderates' Hedge on Balanced-Budget Amendment
The Hill
Senate Republicans are divided over whether to demand a balanced-budget amendment from the White House as a precondition for increasing the national debt ceiling. Members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus have said they will filibuster the debt-limit increase unless two-thirds of the upper chamber votes for a balanced-budget amendment. Two-thirds of the House and three-quarters of the states must also ratify the amendment for it to become law. But other Republicans are looking for more "realistic" concessions from Democrats, acknowledging it will be difficult to persuade at least 20 Democrats to join them in passing an amendment to drastically restrict federal spending. "I'm in the camp of I want to see a process that leads to some realistic, achievable solutions," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

GOP to Investigate Obamacare's Union Waivers
The Daily Caller
Labor unions have received 40 percent of the exemptions granted by the Obama administration from certain Obamacare provisions, prompting calls from top Republicans for investigations into whether President Barack Obama's administration has offered "special treatment" to those groups in its waiver decision process. The waivers allow certain companies and special interests, like labor unions, to delay meeting Obamacare's requirements for purchasing more health insurance for employees or members. The minimum amount of insurance group policyholders have to purchase is set to increase every year through 2014 as the Department of Health and Human Services is phasing out the annual coverage limits companies were previously allowed to provide for employees.