Battles over ’07 federal budget resume
By JOHN MURPHY
The 110th Congress convened January 4, with Democrats controlling both chambers.
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was elected speaker of the House of Representatives and
Harry Reid (D-NV) was elected Senate majority leader.
Pelosi announced plans to dedicate the first 100 hours of legislative business
in the House to passing high-profile bills, including an increase in the minimum
wage and an end to the bar on Medicare negotiating for lower drug prices.
PEF has urged New York’s congressional representatives to support both of these
bills, and the House passed the minimum-wage bill in mid-January.
The House has changed its rules to make the legislative process more
transparent, reduce the influence of special interests, give lawmakers more time
to read legislation before voting on it, and require disclosure of individual
funding requests for special projects.
It has returned to pay-as-you-go budgeting that requires both increases in
entitlement spending and in tax cuts be paid for by cuts in other spending or
increasing taxes.
The U.S. Department of Labor published proposed revisions to the federal
regulations governing the U.S. Employment Service and the Workforce Investment
Act that would end the longstanding federal/state job-matching system.
They would eliminate the federal requirement for Wagner-Peyser employment
service staff to be state civil service workers and require that all employment
service functions be provided in local one-stop offices that could be run by
private contractors.
PEF and its affiliates are actively opposing these draft regulations, which have
not taken effect yet.
The Communicator Feb. 2007
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