Posts by Mike Lillis

Credit card holders hit with arbitrary interest rate hikes in recent months might be stuck with the extra burden, despite the high-profile congressional effort this year to protect consumers from such increases.

Horror stories about “Cash for Clunkers” have consumer advocates worried the fallout will continue for months.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) made headlines Tuesday for blasting the co-op insurance model of health care reform as a slippery slope toward government-run health care.
“The president himself said you can imagine a cooperative meeting that definition of a public option,” the Senate’s second-ranking Republican told reporters during a press call.
Yesterday, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the [...]

Senate Democrats negotiating health care reforms with Sen. Charles Grassley are finding out the hard way that, while boasting a reputation for reaching across the aisle, he appears hard set on supporting GOP leadership above bipartisan compromise.

Veering from their historic reproach of government-backed health care, Republicans on Capitol Hill are now embracing Medicare in their bid to kill the Democrats’ reform plans.

The push to slash billions of dollars for private insurers who cover Medicare patients has been met by relative silence, even from the program’s supporters.

The House last Friday provided a generous lifeline to the wildly popular clunkers program — which grants drivers up to $4,500 to scrap their gas guzzlers for more fuel efficient vehicles — and the Senate is poised to pass that bill Thursday. But there’s a glitch. The proposal steals its funding from a Department of Energy program encouraging the development of renewable energy technologies.

In the year’s first high-profile legislative setback for the gun lobby, the Senate on Wednesday shot down legislation to scrap state and local laws dictating who can carry concealed firearms.

Once a central element of the administration’s plan to help underwater homeowners, cramdown is no longer part of the debate.

Federal strategies for tackling climate change are doomed to fail without concerted efforts to keep Americans out of their cars — efforts that will necessarily include a greater emphasis on public transit, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Senate lawmakers Tuesday.