If Congress doesn't act, the handwriting is on the wall for 5 million Americans now receiving unemployment benefits. That's how many now depend on benefits extended beyond the 26 weeks that states provide. The federal extensions of up to 73 weeks expire Nov. 30.
Every time a renewal of the extensions comes up, it...
A nice, short history lesson from Sen. Sherrod Brown:
or more than a century — in churches and temples, in union halls and neighborhood centers, in the streets and at the ballot box — progressives have moved the country forward. Progressives brought us minimum wage and Social Security in the 1930s, civil...
Yesterday the Senate Budget Committee had what could be considered a test vote on breaking up big banks. It was a Sanders amendment to the budget resolution, which received signficant, and surprising, support.
The legislative language was complex, but the vote was understood as a simple question: Should big banks be broken...
The NY Times is reporting today that Republicans are likely to come on board financial reform, and thus far Dems haven't had to give much for that.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday reported progress in negotiating changes to the wider bill. But they did not point to any specific concessions they had won,...
The passage of Lincoln's derivatives bill, with the surprise support of Grassley, and counterintuitively watered down by a handful of Dem amendments, gets the Senate closer to a done deal.
Lincoln's language on derivatives still has to be merged with the Dodd bill, and could be changed by Dodd before it's...
At yesterday's Progressive Media Summit with members of the Senate Democratic caucus, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Sherrod Brown, and Bernie Sanders fielded some tough questions and mutual frustration from said progressive media members over the reform process.
First, in answer to a somewhat convoluted question from Ed Schultz about why the House wasn't just...
Delaware's Ted Kaufman s the 34th Senator to voice support for passing the public option through reconciliation (see the entire list of supporters).
"I'm for a public option, if there's some way that it can get done," he said. "If it qualified under reconciliation, then I would," he said, when asked...
A handful of freshman Senate Dems are working hard at making their mark this session. Meteor Blades wrote earlier today about how Jon Tester and Jeff Merkley are taking the lead in fighting back against anti-reform efforts in financial regulation. Now it's Merkley and two other freshmen, along with Sherrod Brown, pushing for...
