Stephen Dinan

House breaks old taboos in cutting spree; Murtha’s project taken off dole

In the first freewheeling spending debate the House has held in years, Democrats and Republicans teamed up to take on entrenched defense interests and to rewrite a GOP 2011 spending bill to cut about $800 million from NASA and from homeland security research and development, and send the savings to fund local police and firefighters.

February 16, 2011

GOP bill zeroes out programs, puts curbs on Obama initiatives

The $60 billion in spending cuts House Republicans sent to their chamber floor Tuesday are more than just budget trims — they mark the beginning of the party's effort to tweak the way the Obama administration has operated during its first two years.

February 15, 2011

Federal deficit on track for a record this fiscal year

President Obama's budget, released Monday, was conceived as a blueprint for future spending, but it also paints the bleakest picture yet of the current fiscal year, which is on track for a record federal deficit and will see the government's overall debt surpass the size of the total U.S. economy.

February 14, 2011

Obama says Egypt must reach ‘genuine democracy’

Calling the upheaval in Cairo a chance "to witness history taking place," President Obama on Friday said Egypt now has an obligation to follow through to full democracy now that President Hosni Mubarak has ceded power and fled the city.

February 11, 2011

Book: Lincoln sought to deport freed slaves

The Great Emancipator was almost the Great Colonizer: Newly released documents show that to a greater degree than historians had previously known, President Lincoln laid the groundwork to ship freed slaves overseas to help prevent racial strife in the U.S.

February 9, 2011

Earmarks end for one year, but perk still potent on Hill

Capitol Hill insiders say at least 75 percent of lawmakers privately still think earmarking is a correct and proper use of congressional authority. Yet last week, one of the Senate's champion earmarkers, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, hammered home the nail that officially ended the practice — at least for the time being.

February 9, 2011

Katrina, Bridge to Nowhere spurred ‘storm’ that doomed earmarks

It may have looked like boom times for earmarkers in 2006, when they carved out a record $29 billion in projects — but little did lawmakers realize that a perfect storm of events the year before had set the clock ticking on pork.

February 9, 2011

CPAC fissure over gays deepens; GOProud called incompatible

Deepening a rift ahead of the largest annual gathering of conservative activists in Washington this week, some of the movement's top leaders have circulated a private memo urging that conservatism's founding principles be recast to exclude gay rights groups from the Reagan coalition of economic, defense and social conservatives.

February 8, 2011

Reagan’s own philosophy puts his boyhood home in limbo

Nearly a decade after Congress told the National Park Service to try to buy Ronald Reagan's boyhood home, the plan remains in limbo — the victim of a budget dispute and of the former president's own limited-government philosophy.

February 3, 2011

Republicans find places to cut $43 billion

The Republicans who control of the purse strings in the House announced plans Thursday to cut basic domestic spending by at least $43 billion this year through reductions to most federal departments — though they still fell short of the GOP's pledge just months ago to return to pre-stimulus levels.

February 3, 2011

Debate one-sided as Senators all praise Reagan

Sen. Joe Lieberman still remembers the trepidation he felt in January 1989 when he was to deliver the Democrats' radio response — the one to follow then-President Reagan's final weekly radio address before leaving office.

February 3, 2011

Ronald Reagan’s enduring legacy

From the granite facade of Mount Rushmore to road signs and school buildings in communities across the country, the push is going strong to enshrine Ronald Reagan's legacy in stone and steel — a fitting tribute, admirers say, to the man who ended communism in Europe and turned the political debate from Roosevelt's New Deal to supply-side economics or, more simply, Reaganism.

February 3, 2011

Keeping Carter’s home neat costs U.S. a tidy sum

The tennis court at former President Jimmy Carter's private home is swept twice a day, his pool is cleaned daily and his grass cut, his flower beds weeded and his windows washed on a regular basis — all at taxpayers' expense.

February 1, 2011

Senate Democrats ban earmarks

Signaling defeat, at least for the moment, Senate Democrats said Tuesday they won't allow any earmarks in spending bills this year.

February 1, 2011

Judge rules against health law, cites Obama’s words

In ruling against President Obama's health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama's own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

January 31, 2011

Judge strikes down health care law

Quoting James Madison and Thomas Jefferson as authorities, a federal judge in Florida ruled Monday that Congress breached the Constitution when it passed the health care law, dealing the broadest rejection yet to President Obama's signature initiative.

January 31, 2011

House votes for repeal of public-paid campaigns

Saying it has become an obsolete waste of money, the House on Wednesday voted to end the taxpayer-funded presidential campaign finance system that has fallen out of favor over the past decade as candidates have chosen to ignore it.

January 26, 2011

CBO: Federal deficit to hit $1.5T this year

Last month's bipartisan tax cuts and spending deal has deepened the federal deficit dramatically this year, putting the government on track for a nearly $1.5 trillion shortfall — the largest in history — the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

January 26, 2011

Obama: Restrain budget, but invest in infrastructure

Picking a fight with his own party, President Obama on Tuesday called for ending earmark spending and proposed a five-year partial budget freeze in his first State of the Union address before a Congress packed with newly ascendant Republicans eager to cut even more deeply.

January 25, 2011

Lawmakers cross aisle to sit with adversaries during Obama speech

Congress on Tuesday replaced the usual State of the Union partisan see-saw with the political version of Whack-a-Mole - scattered lawmakers standing and applauding amid their unmoved colleagues.

January 25, 2011