December 2, 2012

Senator Sanders 

Farm Bill The Vermont congressional delegation is pushing for a last-minute deal to pass a farm bill that protects dairy farmers from plunging milk prices, but they are running out of time. "We're going to do everything we can, but nobody can predict whether we'll succeed or not," Sen. Bernie Sanders told the Burlington Free Press. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said on Friday that he still does not believe there are enough votes to pass a new five-year farm bill before Congress adjourns. The Senate passed its own bipartisan version of the bill in June. LINK

Budget Talks Sen. Sanders "has been especially strong in defense of Social Security and the need to defend programs that middle- and lower-class people depend on. [Rep. Peter] Welch has shown himself to be an effective practical legislator, so if a reasonable compromise emerges, he may serve a role in bringing along reluctant Democrats," the Times Argus and Rutland Herald said in an editorial. LINK

Military Honors At an event in Burlington honoring the armed services, Sens. Sanders and Patrick Leahy addressed the crowd saying Vermont soldiers do the state and the nation proud, WCAX-TV reported. VIDEO

Immigration Reform "If Congress is going to take up comprehensive immigration reform again, the best place to begin is where it left off - the compromise negotiated between Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl and Ted Kennedy back in 2007. One of the political myths surrounding this issue is that only Republicans killed comprehensive immigration reform. That's not true. Fifteen Senate Democrats and independent Bernie Sanders voted to kill Kyl-Kennedy," Robert Robb said in an Arizona Republic article. LINK

World

Taliban Fighters Attack U.S.-Afghan Base Taliban insurgents, including several suicide bombers, attacked a joint U.S.-Afghan military airfield in the eastern city of Jalalabad early Sunday morning, triggering an hours-long battle that left most of the attackers dead in a failed attempt to breach the base's fortifications, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK

National

Geithner: Social Security Off Table for Now With just a few weeks remaining before the crucial "fiscal cliff" deadline, the White House's chief negotiator, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, said today that Social Security was off the table, National Journal reported. "We're prepared to, in a separate process, look at how to strengthen Social Security," he said on ABC's This Week. "But not as part of a process to reduce the other deficits the country faces." LINK

Vermont

Health Care Gov. Peter Shumlin says state health care subsidies for working-class Vermonters might be more generous than they need to be, and that some residents here could soon be facing higher insurance premiums and deductibles. Administration officials and lawmakers will spend much of the next year fine-tuning the "health benefits exchange," a hallmark of the federal Affordable Care Act projected to lower insurance costs for tens of thousands of Vermonters, the Vermont Press Bureau reported. LINK

Christmas Trees The U.S. Forest Service is offering $5 tree permits for people who would like to cut their Christmas trees in the Green Mountain National Forest. The Forest Service's Vermont office says that in recent years the Green Mountain National Forest program has continued to grow in popularity. The permits can be purchased at Forest Service offices in Rutland, Middlebury, Manchester Center or Rochester, AP reported. LINK