Archive for the ‘National Issues’ Category

House Republicans are taking their push to cut federal spending to a new level: On Wednesday, they'll unveil a project that lets the public rank its priorities for showdowns over "wasteful or unnecessary spending." Full story

A commission run jointly by Texas and Vermont, with a membership made up mostly of Gov. Rick Perry's appointees, could decide this summer to make Texas the potential resting place for radioactive waste from 36 states. Full story

Gov. Rick Perry's disdain for the nation's capital apparently wasn't enough to keep him away from Saturday night's ultimate inside-the-Beltway event: the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Full story

Texas Gov. Rick Perry today expressed optimism after meetings in Washington that Obama administration officials would increase federal commitments to secure the violence-plagued border with Mexico. Full story

Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison pressed for more federal action Wednesday in securing the Mexican border and preventing violence from spilling over into the United States. Full story

President Barack Obama called Texas Sen. John Cornyn on Thursday to discuss the impending Supreme Court nomination. Full story

With signs, American flags and yellow "Don't Tread on Me" banners by the hundreds, Tea Party activists packed QuikTrip Park for a tax day rally Thursday night. Full story

Gov. Rick Perry tamped out rumors today that he would call a special legislative session to consider whether Texas should seek to exempt itself from federal health care law. Full story

By: Todd J. Gillman, The Dallas Morning News As the dust settles on the health care fight, the question facing both the White House and its adversaries is: What next? For ... Full story

Associated Press on Dallas Morning News Former first lady Barbara Bush is still in a Houston hospital after a series of routine tests over the weekend. Family ... Full story

By: Grant Gross, IDG News Service on PC World Republican members of a U.S. House of Representatives committee objected Thursday to parts of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's new national broadband plan,saying it leaves broadband carriers open to new regulation. Republicans, and one senior Democrat, on the House Energy and Commerce Committee ... Full story

By: The Monitor Texas Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison each proposed amendments to the health care bill that were shot down by the Democratic majority. In a statement, Cornyn said his measure ... Full story

After months of attacking U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday that she's fighting "the good fight" against the Obama administration and should stay in the Senate. "I think it would be in Texas' best interest for the senator to stay there, to continue to fight the good fight and, you know, finish her term out, frankly," Perry said in an interview with ... Full story

Everyone in Washington wants fiscal restraint these days – except when it comes to their priorities. Case in point: NASA. Texas lawmakers in both parties are girding for battle with the Obama administration over the future of human spaceflight. Many of the same lawmakers routinely accuse the president of sending deficits into the stratosphere. "It's a matter of priorities," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "We can find ... Full story

A week after a Texas agency reported health care reform legislation would cost the state's Medicaid program an extra $20 billion over the next 10 years, a non-partisan foundation says inaction will exact a greater price. In a study being issued today, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation projects that by 2019, Texas' ranks of uninsured, public program spending and individual and employee health care ... Full story

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senator John D. ( Jay ) Rockefeller IV, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and Ranking Member, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, issued the following statement today after introducing legislation that would extend the Public Safety Interoperable Communications ( PSIC ) grant program.  The PSIC grant program provides funding for state projects that arm public safety personnel with interoperable communications equipment ... Full story

WASHINGTON – The health care bill being considered by senators this week would add nearly 2.5 million Texans to the state’s public insurance programs, costing state taxpayers as much as $20.4 billion over 10 years, according to a preliminary analysis of the legislation by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The analysis, requested by Sen. John ... Full story

By W. Gardner Selby The White House has evidently shut down an e-mail box it recently established for visitors to forward information they consider fishy regarding plans to overhaul the delivery of health insurance. That’s a score for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who (as I noted here) speculated the request for fishy notes was leading President Obama’s staff members to compile an electronic enemies list — ... Full story

It turns out that the concerted Republican opposition to the appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court has less to do with ideology than it does with the 2010 election. The first thing to understand is that Judge Sotomayor's appointment is a mere formality. By a 13-6 vote Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary committee to recommend her appointment and enough votes in the Senate to approve her nomination next week. Just one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joined Democrats to support her. Full story

WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. John Cornyn announced Friday he will vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court, even though the decision could carry political risks among his Latino constituents. The former Texas Supreme Court judge and state attorney general said the “stakes are simply too high” to confirm a jurist to a lifetime appointment who might address looming legal issues “from a liberal, activist perspective.” Full story