Economy & Budget

Club for Growth President Pat Toomey said today that the GOP should be embarrassed by House Republicans' votes for the farm bill.

100 Republicans voted for the bill, which Toomey says is full of "egregious" spending measures. The bill passed with a large enough majority to override a veto; the White House has repeatedly threatened to veto the bill over its tax provisions.

House Republicans today unveiled their "American Families Agenda," a range of proposals including 47 bills that, Republicans say, would update laws to reflect the needs of modern families.

The agenda's premise is that American families have changed since the 1950s: more single parents and working mothers have meant a new set of needs for families -- needs laws should address.

The agenda includes bills to increase domestic energy production, train underprivileged women under the Small Business Administration, allow workers to trade overtime for time off, provide tax credits for health insurance, and increase penalties on sex offenders.

House Republican Conference Vice Chair Kay Granger (Texas), who spearheaded the agenda, says it will assure five solutions for families: healthcare and retirement security, access to education, protection for children from predators, support for military families, and more time and money (including lower energy costs, assistance for small businesses, and facilitation of taking time off work).

Granger unveiled the agenda at a press conference this afternoon with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.), House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.), and other Republican House members.

See Granger's release here.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), siding with President Bush and presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), says he'll vote against the farm bill.

In a press briefing this morning, Boehner cited higher loan limits and target prices, as well as a $200 million payment to Plum Creek Timber, as reasons he would vote against the bill.

The following is a transcript from the briefing:

QUESTION: Mr. Boehner, the conference report for the farm bill was expected to come up next week. And it's got a lot of criticism from the White House. What are your thoughts on that conference report [OFF-MIC] Republican leadership counsel its members on how to vote?

BOEHNER: I've been monitoring the progress of the farm bill talks. And this continued to get worse this week, rather than get better. And I voted against the 2002 farm bill, been a long-time member of the Ag Committee. But I don't think that this farm bill represents our best effort. And, frankly, I think we can do better. So I don't expect that I'll be voting for the farm bill. And beyond that, no decisions have been made about how to proceed.

QUESTION: What are the things you [OFF-MIC]

BOEHNER: I think, in a time of high commodity prices, to be raising loan limits and target prices just really flies in the face of reality. Secondly, when you look at some of the issues that, frankly, don't belong in there, you know, this $200 million payment to Plum Creek Timber as part of a Nature Conservancy buyout strikes me as an egregious earmark. And some of the heady provisions are causing concern. Beyond that, I don't know what other bombshells might be in this bill. We haven't seen it yet.

UPDATED 5:57 p.m.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) are seeking to mandate a periodic report on the prevalence of runaway and homeless youth.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would submit the report to Congress every five years. The report would include population estimates for homeless and runaway individuals aged 13 to 25, and HHS would analyze the demographic's obstacles to finding housing and healthcare, interviewing sample groups as part of its research.

Yarmuth and the senators have included the mandate in bills to reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA). The first report would come no less than two years after Congress passes the legislation.

According to Leahy spokeswoman Erica Chabot, a 2002 appropriations bill mandated that HHS develop methods for testing incidents of youth homelessness, but a study was never conducted.

Farm bill conferees have postponed a meeting on a tentative spending agreement reached Friday, according to staffers for two conference committee members. The meeting, which was scheduled for 6 p.m. today, had been postponed until tomorrow morning, with the time yet to be determined.

Staffers for conferees said the meeting was postponed due to members' conflicting travel schedules.

Principal members of the farm bill's conference committee reached a tentative agreement Friday on a spending framework for the bill--a framework they had been working on since February. Those members are expected to present that tentative agreement to the full conference committee tomorrow.

That agreement outlined $10 billion in added farm bill spending, along with some guidelines for allocation. After the full conference committee reaches an agreement on that framework, the debate will turn to more specific allocation of funds.

Friday's agreement was reached by Reps. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), as well as Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)--all chairmen and ranking members of committees related to the farm bill.

As the House and Senate continue to negotiate over the farm bill, the Senate conferees presented their House counterparts with a new offer today for a framework outlining the bill's $10 billion in new spending and offsets to make that spending deficit neutral.

House conferees said they would take the proposal under advisement, neither accepting nor rejecting the proposal as Ways & Means Committee members were not present.

House Agriculture Committee GOP spokeswoman Alise Kowalski told The Hill that conferees are aiming to agree on a spending framework by next week, but that a one-week timeframe has been in effect for the past month.

President Bush today signed an extension of the previous farm bill that will push back its expiration to next Friday. Kowalski said this was the third extension Bush has signed.

Details of the Senate's offer can be found here.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is circulating a letter sent by the speaker of the Colombian House of Representatives to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In it, Colombian Speaker Oscar Palacio criticizes Pelosi for her opposition to the U.S-Colombia free trade agreement President Bush sent to Congress April 7.

In the letter, Colombian Speaker Oscar Palacio says the U.S. House's decision to shelve the agreement "affords colonial treatment to us that is unbefitting one of the United States' staunchest allies." The House voted April 10 to circumvent the fast-track law applying to trade deals and shelve the agreement, despite President Bush's attempt to force a vote.

Palacio also says arguments based on violence against Colombian union members are "erroneous." U.S. labor unions have used violence against union members as a cornerstone of their opposition to the deal. The LA Times outlined violence against Colombian unionists in March.

"Under the framework of the Democratic Security Policy, Colombia has made great efforts to prevent crimes of that nature from occurring," Palacio says.

See the text of the letter, as provided by USTR, below. Read more...

House Democrats opposing President Bush's Colombia Free Trade Agreement criticized the deal today after Bush sent it to Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement that they could not support the deal. Bush's "unprecedented decision to send a free trade agreement to Congress without following established protocols," they said, was "counter-productive."

Members of the House Trade Working Group offered even sharper criticism. Rep. Mike Michaud, the group's co-founder, said the deal was "dead on arrival."

"If the Bush Administration really believes this agreement is vital to national security interests, it would not send it to a certain defeat," Michaud said in a statement. "They would work with Democrats to stop labor leader assassinations and address forced displacement and murder of Afro-Colombians."

Assassinations of labor leaders by the Colombian military have formed the cornerstone of U.S. labor unions' opposition to the deal.

It seems the fiscally conservative House Blue Dog coalition is putting some pressure on the House and Senate Budget committees to resist patching the alternative minimum tax unless it is paid for with tax increases or spending cuts.

The Hill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he will hold a procedural vote tomorrow on a package of housing measures known as the Foreclosure Prevention Act.

The legislation would expand housing regulations and provide funds to combat foreclosures. It includes emergency funds for redeveloping foreclosed and abandoned homes, protections for debtors, and federal funds for loan counseling. Read more...