Word: billing
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...District of Columbia has never had its own Senator or Representative, despite a population (nearly 600,000) larger than Wyoming's. That curious disenfranchisement may soon change, however, as a bill advances through Congress that would finally give D.C. a House member. On Feb. 24, the Senate voted to allow debate on the plan, which would expand the House to 437 members, its first enlargement in nearly 100 years. The bill would also grant Utah another vote until the next reapportionment in 2012, maintaining the body's partisan balance as D.C.'s addition would almost certainly be a Democrat...
Amid mounting frustration, the District in 2000 revived a Revolutionary rallying cry, emblazoning the phrase "taxation without representation" on license plates at the suggestion of a fed-up D.C. radio talk-show listener. (They're now the default license option, though neutral plates are issued on request.) Bill Clinton swiftly added the plates to his presidential limousine, though one of George W. Bush's first official acts was to remove them. The protest plates have not returned to President Barack Obama's ride, and some locals are growing impatient. "[It's] just something that the President hasn't gotten...
Backers of the current effort have been heartened by the apparent swell of interest in the idea, especially since a similar measure stalled in the Senate two years ago. And crucially, Obama supports the idea, unlike his predecessor. Yet the bill faces an uphill climb, even if it gets to the President's desk. Long legal challenges are a certainty, and many observers - including the respected Congressional Research Service - think the Supreme Court may consider the law an overreach. "Under that power, they could create 20 seats for military areas. Or they could give 10 seats to Puerto Rico," George...
...another example of Washington hypocrisy, but the Obama Administration insists there is no contradiction between its words and actions. The $410 billion budget in question was passed to keep the government running for the rest of fiscal 2009, since Congress agreed on only three of the 15 appropriations bills last year and the stopgap measure it passed expires on March 6. Despite the fact that congressional Democrats crafted much of the bill after Obama was elected, the White House argues that the pork-laden bill - which increases federal spending across a range of Cabinet departments by 8% - is part...
...sand, and they didn't do it here," says Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "They have got to draw it in 2010 or it's irrelevant, whatever the promises are." (The Democratic leadership estimates that there are only $3.8 billion earmarks in the bill, while Ellis' nonpartisan watchdog group includes Army Corps of Engineers projects to reach a total of $7.7 billion - a figure still under Obama's targeted 1994 figure of $7.8 billion.) (See the full text of Obama's first speech before a joint session of Congress...