Budget

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office today released its latest estimate on the number of jobs saved by the 2009 Recovery Act, even as emboldened Republicans are vowing to rescind unspent stimulus money.

The CBO estimates between July and September, the stimulus increased employment by between 1.4 million and 3.6 million jobs. It is also estimating the unemployment rate decreased during the third quarter of 0.8 percent to 2 percent due to the stimulus act.

These are slightly better numbers than the CBO reported in August when it found that in the second quarter, the act increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

The new director of the Office of Management and Budget has pledged to take a bipartisan approach to tackling budget deficits.

“I look forward to working — as I have throughout my career — collaboratively across partisan and ideological divides with all those committed to taking constructive steps to rejuvenating our nation’s economy and its fiscal standing,” Jack Lew wrote Tuesday in his first blog posting on the OMB website.

Lew emphasized the need to spur job growth in the short term while tackling budget deficits in later years.

“Now, we must put our nation back on a sustainable fiscal course in the medium-term and shore up our fiscal position for decades to come while spurring job creation and boosting the competitiveness of the U.S. in the global economy,” he wrote.

The Senate on Friday afternoon approved $1.15 billion to fund a long-awaited legal settlement between the Department of Agriculture and black farmers who claimed government discrimination.

The upper chamber also approved $3.4 billion to settle complaints that the Department of the Interior mismanaged Native American money accounts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) touted one of the first legislative accomplishments of the lame-duck session.

“Black farmers and Native American trust account holders have had to wait a long time for justice, but now it will finally be served,” Reid said in a statement. “I am heartened that Democrats and Republicans were able to come together to deliver the settlement that these men and women deserve for the discrimination and mismanagement they faced in the past. 

“This issue has been of great importance to me, and I am pleased these long-suffering Americans can now receive the closure that they deserve,” Reid added.

The 1999 settlement between the Agriculture Department and black farmers is one of the biggest in civil rights settlements in history.

Black farmers accused the government in a lawsuit of denying them loans in favor of whites.

The Senate approved the measure Friday afternoon by unanimous consent. It includes an extension of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

Republicans agreed to pass the measure after Democrats found offsets to pay for it.

A Senate Democratic aide said the cost of the measure will be covered by surplus funds in the Women, Infants and Children nutritional assistance program, reducing overpayment of unemployment benefits and extension of customs user fees.

The House must approve the bill before it goes to President Obama for a signature. The House, which Democrats will control for a few more weeks, is expected to pass it easily.

President Obama's fiscal commission leaders took on their critics Friday morning, saying lawmakers will be "severely penalized" if they avoid tough budgetary decisions like the ones laid out in their report. 

Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff for President Clinton, and former Sen. Alan Simpson, co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said their preliminary report makes needed changes to entitlements, including raising the retirement age, cuts on spending — including defense — and overhauls the tax code and eliminates deductions, including one for mortgage-interest. 

A final report is expected Dec. 1. 

"You know what we're not going to do, we aren't going to do a whitewash," Bowles said. "We aren't going to make it softer than it is today, it's going to be a tough report."

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) announced Friday he would look to remain chairman of the Senate Budget Committee in the next Congress.

Conrad said he'd chosen to keep his top spot on the budget panel and he had opted against seeking the chairmanship of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

"After many conversations with constituents, ag leaders and Senate colleagues, it is clear that the people of North Dakota are best served with me remaining the chairman of the Budget Committee,” Conrad said in a statement. 

“As chairman of the Budget Committee and a senior member of the Agriculture Committee, the people of North Dakota will be best represented in negotiations on the next farm bill, legislation to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and renewed efforts to put our nation’s fiscal house in order," he added.

Conrad's position puts him in a key position in the Senate to shape some of the biggest legislative battles expected over the next two years. The North Dakota Democrat is a relatively centrist figure on budgetary issues and has shown willingness to consider the kinds of cuts called for by the co-chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission.

Republicans who are set to take control of the House in January have made clear they intend to seek spending cuts and possible entitlement reforms as a way to slash the deficit. Conrad's chairmanship of the Senate's budget panel would make him the key point of contact between Senate Democrats and the House GOP in the looming budget battles.

By voice vote Thursday night, the Senate confirmed Jacob Lew to head the Office of Management and Budget.

Speaker of the House-elect John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he hasn't started conversations yet with newly elected Republicans on the already prickly issue of raising the debt limit. 

The vote on whether to raise the debt ceiling could put Republican freshmen into the uncomfortable position of going against their campaign messages to tackle the federal government's debt by reduce spending. 

"Yeah, I've made it pretty clear to them that as we get into next year, it's pretty clear that Congress is going to have to deal with this," Boehner told reporters Thursday. 

"We're going to have to deal with it as adults. Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations, and we have obligations on our part."

Doctors would see a 23 percent cut in their Medicare payments under the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula on Dec. 1 if the House doesn't act.

Republican leader's decision means Democrats may have to settle for passing a stopgap spending measure to keep the government funded.

Medicare payments to physicians will be cut by 23 percent come Dec. 1 if Congress doesn't act before then.