Ryan Stokes Budget Battle with New 'Blueprint'

Excerpt from an article in

The Hill.com

Ryan stokes budget battle with new ‘blueprint’ 
By Peter Schroeder

A fresh budget proposal this week from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will usher in another round of fighting over the federal pocketbook.

Ryan is expected to announce his “Blueprint for American Renewal” on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. His budget panel is expected to follow that up with a markup of the package Wednesday.

The Republican proposal will be met with a barrage of Democratic attacks if, as expected, it sets a lower spending cap than agreed to as part of the summer’s debt-limit deal. House GOP leaders are selling a $1.028 trillion spending cap to their members, down from the $1.047 trillion deal hammered out last summer. Some conservatives are pushing for even stricter limits.

In the Senate, lawmakers will continue work on a bill aimed at making it easier for startup companies to raise capital. But some Democrats have aired concerns that the bill does that by rolling back key investor protections, and are pushing to strengthen that aspect of the bill before advancing it.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the European debt crisis will be a hot topic, just days after the International Monetary Fund signed off on its $37 billion contribution to a broad bailout package for Greece. On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit the House Financial Services Committee to discuss the state of international finance, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is devoting a Wednesday morning hearing to Europe’s debt woes.

House Dems demand meeting with Apple over privacy policy for iPhone, iPad apps - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

Two prominent House Democrats demanded a briefing with Apple over its privacy policies for mobile device applications in a letter to CEO Tim Cook on Thursday.

Apple had responded to questions from the two Democrats, Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.) and G.K. Butterfield (N.C.), earlier this month, but the lawmakers were not satisfied.

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House Dems demand meeting with Apple over privacy policy for iPhone, iPad apps - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

Obama Defies Lawmakers with Recess Appointments to Labor Board

The following was gleaned from an article published by The Hill.

Obama defies lawmakers with recess appointments to labor board

January 5, 2012

The Hill

President Obama will recess-appoint his nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), bypassing a likely filibuster from Senate Republicans to keep the controversial agency operating in 2012.

The president will use recess appointments to install Sharon Block, Richard Griffin and Terence Flynn as NLRB members. Block and Griffin are Democrats, while Flynn is a Republican.

The NLRB announcement came a few hours after the president made a public show of another recess appointment, for Richard Cordray, the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans reacted with fury to that appointment, which the White House promptly ignored by making three more. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blasted the president’s decision and said he is stripping the Senate of its oversight powers, since the NLRB nominees had not been vetted in a hearing.

The NLRB appointments are a huge victory for Obama’s union allies, which urged the president to use any means necessary to keep the NLRB functioning. Without additional members, the NLRB would have lacked the three-member quorum needed to issue rules and regulations.

Unions had been frustrated by the president’s moves on trade and regulations in 2011, and the NLRB appointments could help wipe the slate clean ahead of the 2012 campaign.

But the move also puts Obama at odds with business, which has clashed repeatedly with the NLRB in recent months. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, denounced the recess appointments as political favoritism and said they will “further poison the well” at the labor board. 

The president is wading into uncharted waters with the appointments, made while the Senate is holding pro forma sessions. Dave Hirschmann, a top official with the Chamber, said a court battle over the constitutionality of Obama’s action is a near certainty.

The GOP’s blockade of NLRB nominees would have prevented it from issuing rules and regulations, since it needs at least three members to form a quorum. The recess appointment of Craig Becker expired Tuesday, leaving the NLRB with only two members.

With Block, Flynn and Griffin now members of the NLRB, the labor board is up to its full roster of five members.

Republicans tried to prevent recess appointments by keeping the Senate in pro forma session over the holiday break, but the White House said that maneuver is meaningless.

Lawyers for several business groups immediately began to explore their legal options to challenge the recess appointments.