Senate

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said despite early hopes of striking a "grand bargain" on debt reduction, he has now concluded it is impossible to find a real solution while President Obama remains in the White House. 

“After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is unattainable," McConnell said.

"Our hopes for a grand bargain eventually ran into the bitter reality that this administration is just not interested in a meaningful and lasting solution to our mounting debt," he said. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is preparing for a vote on a spending bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Citing a good conversation with his Republican counterpart Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Reid called H.R. 2055, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs (VA) and Related Agencies appropriations bill, to the floor and announced he would file a procedural motion to force a vote.

The bill increases funding for the VA by 5.8 percent and cuts military construction spending by $2.6 billion to reflect anticipated base closures and realignments.

The House, in June, approved the same bill in a 411-5 vote. Only five Republicans voted against the measure.

The Senate voted 69-27 on Monday to advance Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) millionaire tax resolution towards a final vote in the upper chamber. 

Reid’s measure does not carry the force of law and merely calls for higher taxes on people earning $1 million or more in a year. 

Following the vote, Reid deployed a procedural tactic know as "filling-the-tree" that prevents Republicans from tacking amendments onto the resolution that could hijack its underlying intent. 

In what has become a recurring theme for Republicans in recent weeks, Sen. Mike Enzi (Wyo.) took to the floor on Monday afternoon to lecture the Democratic majority on the legislative schedule the upper chamber is pursuing.

In particular, Enzi took issue with last week's session in which Democrats cancelled the Senate’s July 4 recess to work on the deficit talks but held only two light votes. The first was essentially an attendance vote and the second was to move forward a resolution that would express the opinion of the Senate that millionaires ought to pay more in taxes. 

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on Monday presented a sweeping plan that he says will reduce the nation's deficit by about $4 trillion over the next decade through a balanced combination of deep cuts in spending and tax hikes.

"All of us understand we have a debt threat looming over this country that is as significant as anything we have faced in years," said Conrad shortly after he introduced S. 1340. "We cannot stay on this course. It is critically important that we change direction."

It's the chairman's first public presentation of the proposal, which was hashed out behind the scenes for months. Republicans had been hammering Democrats for not releasing a budget plan.

Sen. McConnell said Casey Anthony's surprising acquittal proves it will be difficult to convict accused terrorists in civilian courts.

Democrat says pressure from the financial world will force Republicans to accept tax increases in a debt-ceiling deal.

The Senate meets at 2 p.m., and at 5:30 p.m. is expected to hold a cloture vote on S. 1323, a sense of the Senate bill expressing support for raising taxes on people who earn $1 million or more a year.

The vote comes just hours after the White House and House Republicans announced that they remain deeply split over whether taxes should be a part of any debt-ceiling solution. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Sunday said Republicans can't support a Democratic proposal to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion deal because that plan involves at least $1 trillion in tax increases.

Senate committees next week will delve into a wide array of issues that range from examining the Environmental Protection Agency's part in  protecting the nation's drinking water sources to weighing in on the U.S.'s role in the turbulent political and military environment in Sudan. 

A list of featured committee hearings to be held next week follows: Read more...

The GOP resolution says the debt limit was established by Congress in 1982 and tries to end 14th Amendment option.