Drinking Beer or Making Hay While the Sun Shines?

House passes $636 Billion$ defense bill

The Hill

By Roxana Tiron
Posted: 07/30/09 07:47 PM [ET]
The House on Thursday bucked President Barack Obama’s veto threats and overwhelmingly approved a $636 billion Pentagon spending bill for fiscal 2010.

The bill, passed on a 400-30 vote, does meet Obama’s demand to cap the F-22 fighter jet program, something he personally lobbied for. But the measure still contains funding for two programs that have drawn veto threats from the administration.

In particular, the White House this week threatened to veto the bill over $560 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well as $485 million for new helicopters to fly the president on short trips from the White House. The Obama administration did not request funding for either program.

House Panel Reaches Deal on Health-Care Bill

NY Times

By ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: July 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — The chairman of a pivotal House committee announced Friday that he had reached an agreement with other Democrats that would allow the panel to approve sweeping health legislation later in the day.

The chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said the agreement supplements a deal struck Wednesday with the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats on his panel, the Energy and Commerce Committee.

To avoid cutting subsidies for low-income people, Mr. Waxman said, Democrats would find additional savings elsewhere in the bill.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of California, said the Blue Dog deal would hold down costs. But she said, "It was paid for on the backs of people who cannot afford health insurance," so liberals raised concerns.

President Obama speaks to the Press after visiting the Pentagon/ Talks about Iraq