Word: congress
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...before the historic health care reform vote, Barack Obama made his final argument in favor of the bill to the Democratic members of Congress. "I am not bound to win," he began, quoting Abraham Lincoln, "but I am bound to be true." The next 45 minutes provided a rare, true, almost private glimpse of American politics. Some said they had never seen the President so passionate - although Obama's version of passion is much calmer than most. He did many of the things expected in a pep talk. He made the substantive case for the bill. He jabbed the hyperbolic...
...Clinton Administration's proposal. It became the basis for the universal health plan passed in Massachusetts by Governor Mitt Romney. Massachusetts, in turn, became the basis for the federal plans offered in the 2008 campaign by Hillary Clinton and later adopted by President Obama. The plan passed by Congress and signed by the President on March 23 was, then, a mongrel; its roots were in the Republican plan of 1993 and in Massachusetts. (See how to navigate the Medicare maze during retirement...
...bill offers is the “Doc Fix” provision. Under current law, Medicare payments to doctors are scheduled to be cut by 21 percent in April, and then continue to decline for the rest of the decade. While this cut is typically reversed by Congress before it occurs, the oft-quoted CBO analysis of the Democratic health care legislation assumes that the cut will proceed and adds the savings to the reform’s tally. Without the “Doc Fix,” the CBO concludes that the bill adds to the deficit over...
...more than 75 pens (video footage can be found here, although camera cutaways make it hard to keep track) and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen also received pens for their aid in shuttling the bill through Congress. And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill - which allowed Presidents to veto individual sections of legislation rather than the entire thing - to those most likely to appreciate the bill's impact: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George...
...rides on that being true, and a key test is upcoming. In mid-April, Geithner has to decide whether to formally brand China a currency manipulator, something the U.S. has thus far refrained from doing. If he does, Beijing will be furious. And if he doesn't, the U.S. Congress, already threatening new tariffs against Chinese imports, will be furious. One hopeful sign: a U.S. Treasury team was recently in Beijing, no doubt talking about exactly this subject. Politics is rearing its head on both sides of the Pacific these days. And it may take an optimist on the scale...