Stephen Dinan

77,000 federal workers paid more than governors

More than 77,000 federal government employees throughout the country — including computer operators, more than 5,000 air traffic controllers, 22 librarians and one interior designer — earned more than the governors of the states in which they work.

May 31, 2011

House rejects ‘clean’ debt-ceiling hike, 318-97

The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected President Obama's request for a "clean" bill to raise the government's borrowing limit, signaling that any increase will instead have to be coupled with some sort of spending cuts.

May 31, 2011

War dead from 1804 could be repatriated

More than two centuries after they died off the coast of present-day Libya, the remains of the first 13 Navy commandos in U.S. history — in the words of one supporter, the "earliest Navy SEALs" — are one step closer to coming home after the U.S. House voted last week to insist the Pentagon get them back.

May 29, 2011

Coburn: $3 billion wasted by NSF

The Senate's top waste watcher, in a new report Thursday, said taxpayer money has gone to funding jello wrestling in the Antarctic, to testing the exercise ability of shrimp on a treadmill and to a laundry-folding robot - all funded by the National Science Foundation.

May 26, 2011

Supreme Court OKs Arizona’s business immigration law

In a weighty case with far-reaching implications, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an Arizona law that requires all businesses to check to make sure new workers are in the country legally — and in the process signaled the states can have a greater say on immigration issues.

May 26, 2011

Tax dollars fund shrimp on treadmills, Jell-O wrestling in Antarctica

The Senate's top waste watcher, in a new report Thursday, said taxpayer money has gone to funding jello wrestling in the Antarctic, to testing the exercise ability of shrimp on a treadmill and to a laundry-folding robot - all funded by the National Science Foundation.

May 26, 2011

N.Y. vote has GOP rethinking Medicare

A day after watching Democrats use Republicans' Medicare plan to score an upset victory in a special congressional election in New York, the GOP regrouped, retooled its message and saw most of its troops rally behind the plan in a key test Senate vote.

May 25, 2011

Stimulus price tag once again lurches higher

Congress's chief scorekeeper said Wednesday that the price tag on President Obama's stimulus law has risen once again, this time to $830 billion — or more than $40 billion more than first projected.

May 25, 2011

Stimulus recipients found to be tax cheats

One construction company that won multiple awards of money under President Obama's 2009 stimulus program was delinquent on its federal tax bill to the tune of $700,000, even as a company executive was blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars at casinos.

May 24, 2011

IRS staff committed tax credit fraud

More than 100 employees of the Internal Revenue Service cheated the government by fraudulently claiming a first-time homebuyer tax credit included in the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages, according to federal investigators.

May 23, 2011

Senator holds up Salazar’s pay raise over oil drilling

Thanks to a constitutional quirk, Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar makes less than most of his colleagues in President Obama's Cabinet, and a Republican senator says he'll keep it that way, blocking a nearly $20,000 raise for the high-level appointee until the administration approves more deep-water oil drilling.

May 22, 2011

Interior Secretary Salazar’s pay hike spurs Senate fight

Thanks to a constitutional quirk, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar makes less than most of his colleagues in President Obama's Cabinet, and a Republican senator says he'll keep it that way, blocking a nearly $20,000 raise for the high-level appointee, until the administration approves more deep-water oil drilling.

May 20, 2011

GOP’s drilling bill is defeated easily

Republicans' oil drilling bill fell flat in the Senate on Wednesday, unable to garner even the support of all members of the GOP and underscoring the gridlock that prevails in Congress on energy issues.

May 18, 2011

Senator questions benefits to ‘adult baby’

A key senator has asked the Social Security Administration to investigate how people who live their lives role-playing as "adult babies" are able to get taxpayer-funded disability payments — after one of them was featured on a recent reality TV episode wearing diapers, feeding from a bottle and using an adult-sized crib he built.

May 17, 2011

Mothers crying over raw milk

Four weeks after the government moved to shut down Amish farmer Dan Allgyer for selling fresh, unpasteurized milk across state lines, angry moms who made up much of his customer base rallied on the Capitol's grounds Monday to demand that Congress rein in the food police.

May 16, 2011

Federal government hits $14T debt limit

The federal government officially bumped up against its borrowing limit Monday, an unhappy milestone that signals the beginning of a two-month sprint during which Congress and the White House will try to agree on whether to raise the debt ceiling while imposing spending restraints.

May 16, 2011

Social Security deficits now ‘permanent’

Social Security will run a permanent yearly deficit when looking at the program's tax revenues compared to what it must pay out in benefits, the program's trustees said Friday in a report that found both the outlook for Social Security and Medicare, the two major federal social safety-net programs, have worsened over the last year.

May 13, 2011

Senators scold oil executives on Hill

With gas prices once again flirting with $4 a gallon nationally, Democratic senators called CEOs from the country's five major oil companies to Congress on Thursday for what has become a regular scolding over their high profits, and said the time has come to end tax breaks the industry enjoys.

May 12, 2011

Mexican flag casts giant shadow on Obama at border

It's usually a reliable rule of thumb that everything is bigger in Texas, and in the U.S. in general - everything, that is, except for flags.

May 10, 2011

Obama says border is secure enough to begin legalization

Facing a political gridlock that has doomed immigration legislation for years, President Obama, making his first visit to the border since taking office, turned to activists and immigrant-rights supporters across the country Tuesday and said it's now up to them to force Congress to act.

May 10, 2011