Word: capitols
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...Many on Capitol Hill insist that scrutiny has not gotten significantly tighter. "The Finance Committee is not doing anything different now from what it has always done under the leadership of either [Chairman Max] Baucus or me," ranking Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa said recently. "We are vetting nominees for the current Administration the same way we vetted nominees for the previous Administration." Finance Committee staffers note, for instance, that Paul O'Neill, who was George W. Bush's first Treasury Secretary, had to pay $92 in back taxes when the Finance Committee noticed that he hadn't reported gifts...
...greenhouse-gas emissions, anteing up for what promises to be long, high-stakes negotiations with the Senate and business groups alarmed at the $1 trillion price tag that some estimate such an effort could entail. The effects of the already intense lobbying were felt across the Capitol, where the Senate the same afternoon passed by an overwhelming margin an amendment resolving that any energy legislation should not increase electricity or gas prices. As it stands now, energy-price hikes are unavoidable under most of the climate-change plans swirling around Congress, including the draft introduced Tuesday by House Committee...
...details up in the air so that productive exchange with lawmakers can occur in the near future. Surely, it will undergo much revision and debate as it works its way through opposition in Congress. Its principles of transparency, disclosure, centralization, and closer oversight, however, must not be lost on Capitol Hill. If executed properly and enacted swiftly, Geithner’s plan should work toward restoring market confidence and the security of American finance...
...Given the GOP opposition, support from a group of moderate Democrats known as the Gang of 16 (led by Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana) is essential. Although most insisted that Obama's presence on Capitol Hill was not a sales job, the luncheon was dominated by talk of his budget. "These initiatives - education, better health care - are not free," said Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, who asked Obama about a provision she strongly opposes that would raise taxes on independent oil and gas producers. "But he was very open to consider some of those changes, which is what...
Though politicians on Capitol Hill have made less of it thus far, the other change that Geithner is seeking is even farther-reaching and arguably more controversial on Wall Street. As banks must do now, big hedge funds, private equity firms, insurance companies and others who play in the financial markets would have to open their books (on a confidential basis) regularly to government overseers. Hand in hand with that requirement would be much tougher limits on how much risk any financial firm could take, so that the days of making huge bets on the markets with relatively little...