Congress U S

Excerpts from President Obama's address to Congress: "I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for healthcare reform. And ever since, nearly every president and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.

The cable TV channels fired their screeching engines hours in advance. A "Health Care Make or Break Moment" screamed a CNN headline. Countdown clocks at Fox and MSNBC ticked inexorably toward 00:00, the moment when President Obama would face down a joint session of Congress. This had to be really, really big, I learned all day Wednesday from the excitable people on cable TV -- a speech that likely would determine the fate of healthcare reform and, perhaps, the Obama presidency.

A day after President Obama went to Capitol Hill to renew his call for a sweeping healthcare overhaul, Democrats on Thursday rallied behind him, giving important momentum to the push for legislation this year. Especially important for the White House was the reaction of several conservative Democrats, who will be crucial to passing a bill that can clear the House and Senate. They cheered the president's pledge to ensure that an overhaul would not add to the government's debt. "If the details live up to the quality of the speech, then it's a good plan," said Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat who has been critical of the healthcare bill developed by House leaders.

Trying to dodge a growing conservative firestorm, the House and Senate made clear Thursday that the community-based nonprofit organization ACORN was persona non grata on Capitol Hill. House Republicans took over a debate about a sweeping student loan bill to propose a measure that would bar the Assn. of Community Organizers for Reform Now from receiving federal funds. It passed 345 to 75, with 172 Democrats joining all of the chamber's Republicans in support. In the Senate, an amendment that would prohibit ACORN from receiving funding from an Interior Department spending bill passed by an 85-11 vote.

President Obama's appointment of "czars," or policy coordinators, is drawing new fire from lawmakers in both parties. They complain that Obama's naming of the czars circumvents the Senate's role in confirming important nominations to the president's administration. In a letter to the president this week, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and five other Republican lawmakers accused the administration of encroaching on Congress' authority in establishing what they said were too many far-reaching czars.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that anyone using harsh rhetoric to raise fears about the healthcare overhaul should apologize and get on with writing policy but that there's no reason to single out a Florida Democrat who said Republicans want sick Americans to "die quickly." "If anybody's going to apologize, everybody should apologize," she said when asked Thursday about Rep. Alan Grayson's comments on the House floor this week. Pelosi's response reflects what Democratic aides have said privately since Grayson's remarks sparked an uproar: that Republicans have routinely said with impunity that Democrats want to "pull the plug on Grandma" or create "death panels" to decide who deserves care and who doesn't -- even though no such provisions are in any version of the healthcare legislation.

Lawmakers honored the Dalai Lama with a human rights award Tuesday as President Obama faced criticism for delaying a meeting with the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama and the president will not meet until after Obama visits Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing in November. China reviles the Dalai Lama as a separatist and pressures foreign governments not to meet with him. The administration, which needs Chinese support for crucial foreign policy, economic and environmental goals, wants to establish friendly ties between Hu and Obama.

After months of keeping a low profile on healthcare, there was Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on the Don Imus radio show this week, warning that Democrats better not take his vote for granted. Sen. Roland W. Burris, the scandal-plagued freshman Democrat from Illinois, blasted out a news release declaring that he had "emerged as a key player in the healthcare debate." Even Sen. Ben Nelson, the centrist Democrat from Nebraska who has enjoyed months of White House wooing, made a point of reminding a scrum of reporters in the Capitol that he was still uncommitted.

Congress passed a bill Tuesday that would make widows and widowers of U.S. citizens eligible for green cards even if their spouses died before their applications were approved. The measure, part of the more than $40-billion Homeland Security appropriations bill, ends the "widow penalty," which required couples to be married for two years before the surviving spouse would be eligible to apply for residency. Now, surviving spouses can apply for a green card for themselves and their children regardless of when the U.S. citizen died or how long they were married.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged Congress to take dramatic action to stop climate change, but the political difficulties were evident as Republicans boycotted a Senate committee meeting on a global warming bill. "We cannot afford missing the objectives in climate protection," Merkel said at a joint session of Congress. "The world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans." Just before Merkel's speech, Republicans shunned the meeting of the Environment and Public Works Committee to protest the refusal of Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.