Government Oversight

Senate Republicans remained on the offensive Thursday morning as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lit into Democrats for failing to present a spending plan for the remaining seven months of the fiscal year.

McConnell accused Democrats of trying to maintain reckless spending measures determined by a continuing resolution last year.

“Recklessness is the reason we have seen a national uprising against their policies,” said McConnell of Democrats. “They want to lock in place the out-of-control spending measures of last year.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) tore into the federal government’s practice of diverting tens of millions of dollars annually from patent fees to other purposes as “immoral” and offered an amendment to right the wrong.

“It’s immoral to take money from a specific purpose and not apply it to the purpose it was intended under the statute,” said Coburn.

Coburn said it was this diverting that has clogged up the system leaving 713,000 patents untouched. He said the fee money was intended to be used to process patents. Coburn said it currently takes 26 months before a patent officer even touches a patent after it has been filed.

“If we want to stay on top of innovation we cannot allow that process to continue,” said Coburn. “Now we are actually going to spend the patent money on patents.”

Coburn touted his amendment as the perfect antidote to the current system. 

“This is a moral response to an immoral thing we have been doing,” said Coburn.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) insisted Tuesday that Democrats are taking action to avoid a government shutdown.

“We are working to see if we can find a way to fund the government for the foreseeable future,” said Reid, making his first address to the Senate since a 10-day recess.

Reid noted that work on the spending bill must be completed this week, before the current stopgap measure expires on Friday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) used his first floor speech since the Presidents Day recess to call on Democrats to join Republicans in cutting spending.

"Between maintaining the status quo on spending or cutting spending, the choice could not be more clear," said McConnell Monday on the floor of the Senate.

House Republicans have passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the 2011 fiscal year, which cuts $61 billion in spending. It now rests in the Senate. House Republicans are also putting together a stopgap measure that would fund the government for the next two weeks in order to prevent a government shutdown, should the measure fail to pass the upper chamber. The short-term measure cuts $4 billion in spending. 

McConnell proceeded to repeat a common refrain among Republicans, calling overspending and the deficit the "top threat to our economy."

"Washington's inability to live within our means is the greatest single threat to our future," said McConnell. "Democrats in Congress need to rethink the approach they have been taking up to now. Stop spending money we don't have." 

McConnell endorsed House Republicans' stopgap measure, and targeted President Obama's 2012 budget proposal for freezing the budget rather than making deep cuts.

"At no point in this projection does the government spend less than it brings in," said McConnell. "It doesn't even try. They want to spend hundreds of billions more than we bring in. And on, and on, and on."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also came to the floor, but limited his words to setting the Senate floor schedule for the rest of Monday.

The Senate remains in a period of morning business until 3.30 p.m.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), the sixth-ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said the Obama administration's decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act is a "dereliction of duty," and indicated that congressional oversight may be coming.

"It is beyond disappointment," Lungren said on the House floor Monday. "I believe it is a dereliction of duty. To somehow now find that there is no constitutional basis for defending that law is incredible, and I think regrettable, and I think we ought to look into it."

The Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the government from recognizing same-sex marriages, and was signed into law by former President Clinton. The Obama administration last week said it believes the law is unconstitutional, and Republicans said the decision smacked of politics.

On Monday Lungren echoed that charge, and said it is the Attorney General's job to defend all laws, regardless of their personal views, just as he did as California's Attorney General.

"Having served in that office in California, I can tell you I defended laws that I disagreed with," he said. "I defended laws that I had voted against, and I thought it was my solemn obligation to uphold the Constitution and the laws duly enacted in my state, just as I believe the Attorney General of the United States has that obligation on the federal level."

Senate Democrat says analysis from Goldman Sachs "puts a dagger" through Republican claims of boosting the economy with cuts.

The unanimous vote is a reaction to widespread traveler complaints about the controversial machines.

The aviation bill's floor manager is 'frustrated' by an argument over a slots amendment.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee and floor manager for the Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill, said Monday that he is fed up with a spat over adding long-distance flight slots at an airport near Washington, D.C.

The disagreement is arresting progress on the bill, and senators have little chance of settling their argument anyway, Rockefeller said.

"I am a little bit losing my patience on slots," Rockefeller said. "We are frustrated because progress is made and unmade, people agree and they don't agree."

The House overwhelmingly approved a resolution Friday intended to eliminate burdensome regulations in a 391-28 vote.

The former Speaker chided the GOP for getting little done as the House began debate on burdensome regulations.