Says Congress needs to ‘stop this middle-class tax hike.’

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Obama: Pass Payroll Tax Cut

Financial regulators have built an elaborate computer apparatus to scan stock markets for signs of insider trading, but the radar isn’t pointed at Congress. Instead, it is designed to detect more conventional forms of insider trading — a corporate lawyer acting on advance word of a merger or an accountant leaking details about a company’s earnings. A senator who calls his broker after receiving a closed-door briefing might not even raise a blip. Read full article > >

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For SEC, investigating insider trading in Congress presents complications

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee over possible violations of insider-trading laws, according to individuals familiar with the case. Read full article > >

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Rep. Spencer Bachus faces insider-trading investigation

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is testifying before the Senate Budget Committee Tuesday morning about the state of the U.S. economy and the nation’s fiscal health. Bernanke is expected to warn lawmakers against impeding near-term economic growth in the name of cutting a long-term budget deficit. And he is expected to defend the Fed’s policy of keeping interest rates near zero to stimulate the economy — all in line with Bernanke’s testimony last week before the House Budget Committee. Read full article > >

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Bernanke expected to warn lawmakers against hampering growth

Annie Leibovitz photographs the 1 percent, the rich, beautiful and famous, conspiring with the apparatus of celebrity and capitalism to make the lives of successful people feel even more glamorous and alluring. The Library of Congress has officially declared her a “Living Legend,” and despite a few financial problems awhile back — a massive home-renovation project in Greenwich Village contributed to the setback — she has joined the same rarefied ranks of privilege that she has so diligently served throughout her career. Read full article > >

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Annie Leibovitz’s personal ‘Pilgrimage’ feels commercial

Congressional ethics investigators concluded there “is substantial reason to believe” that Florida’s Rep. Vern Buchanan, one of the top Republicans in the House, violated ethics laws by failing to report his position with a half-dozen firms, according to records released Monday. Read full article > >

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Congressional investigators find ‘reason to believe’ Buchanan broke ethics laws

Democrats have been saying for a long time that the House could be in play in 2012, and now some Republicans are starting to join them. “For Democrats to take 25 seats, they will need a wave,” former congressman Tom Davis wrote in an op-ed in The Hill recently. “Continued polarization and obstruction could create such a wave.” Read full article > >

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Democrats’ chances of retaking the House improve

H ere’s something for critics of the country’s defense budget to ponder: After I was confirmed as secretary of the Navy in May 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked me and the other service secretaries to work with Congress to gain approval for a pending supplemental appropriation to the defense budget. This was not a war supplemental; it was still four months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Pentagon was simply running out of money. Read full article > >

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Military preparedness does not come cheap

H ere’s something for critics of the country’s defense budget to ponder: After I was confirmed as secretary of the Navy in May 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked me and the other service secretaries to work with Congress to gain approval for a pending supplemental appropriation to the defense budget. This was not a war supplemental; it was still four months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Pentagon was simply running out of money. Read full article > >

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Military preparedness does not come cheap

THERE IS a certain belt-and-suspenders quality to the ban on insider trading by members of Congress that was just passed by the Senate . Current law may prohibit such practices. But to the extent that there is ambiguity, it is important, for purposes of both potential prosecution and public perception, to make clear that such activity is indeed illegal. If anything, the measure does not go far enough. Read full article > >

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Editorial Board: The Senate tightens up on insider trading

In a sign of just how unpopular Congress has become, rank-and-file senators hijacked this week’s debate over a narrow conflict-of-interest bill and turned it into the chamber’s most sweeping ethics debate in a generation. Read full article > >

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Minor Senate bill sparks major debate on ethics

House lawmakers voted Wednesday night to freeze their pay and the salaries of congressional staffers and civilian federal employees, scoring a symbolic victory for congressional Republicans who have targeted government compensation as an example of excessive federal spending. Read full article > >

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House approves measure to freeze federal salaries

DEBT PROJECTIONS RELEASED Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office illustrate three fiscal paths: dangerous, dumb and smart. Dangerous is the path we seem to be headed for: leaving in place all or most of the Bush tax cuts; patching the alternative minimum tax and averting cuts in Medicare reimbursements for physicians; and suspending the automatic spending reductions triggered by the failure of the debt reduction supercommittee. Under this path, by 2022 public debt would be nearly 100 percent of the gross domestic product, a level not seen since just after World War II. Read full article > >

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Editorial Board: The dangerous fiscal path that looms

Unless Congress passes new legislation changing the course on spending or taxation — changes that are a distinct possibility — projected deficits would “drop markedly,” a report says.

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Under Status Quo, Deficit Would Decline, Budget Office Says 

In an effort to regain public trust, the Senate voted Monday to take up a bill that would prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks and other securities on the basis of confidential information they receive as lawmakers.

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Democratic Senators to Push ‘Buffett Rule’