Senator Sanders

Health Care “Throughout this debate, one Senator who has been willing to tell it like it is, with the people's interest at heart, is Bernie Sanders. This week he will publish The Health Care Crisis: Letters from Vermont and America--a collection of healthcare stories sent to him from across the nation… These stories remind us of the powerful, personal experiences that too often get lost in the abstract and arcane arguments over healthcare reform,” Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote for The Nation. LINK  

Letters from Vermont “I sent an e-mail to my Senate mailing list…requesting personal stories describing the problems people are having with their health care coverage,” Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote on The Huffington Post, BuzzFlash.com, and OpEdNews.com. “I collected some of the more than 4,000 letters in a booklet, ‘The Health Care Crisis: Letters from Vermont and America.’" LINK, LINK, LINK

Supermajority Senate Democrats spent their first full day holding 60 votes still scrambling to choke off potential filibusters. Democrats are grappling with internal divisions on key issues such as health care, climate change and union organizing. Sen. Sanders told The Washington Post, "I would like to see Republicans coming on board, but you can't compromise on a strong bill to get Republicans on board for a weaker one." LINK

Health Care Tax Momentum for overhauling health care slowed in the Senate as disagreements hardened over how to finance President Barack Obama’s $1 trillion plan to extend coverage to 46 million uninsured Americans…Bernie Sanders said he wouldn’t support additional taxes. “I am not going to agree to any taxes on the American people to fund this,” Sanders told Bloomberg news. LINK

Gut-Check Time Sen. Sanders noted that senators in the Democratic caucus should feel free to vote for or against any bill, but being a member of the caucus should, at a minimum, mean opposition to Republican obstructionism. “It seems so obvious. To be a member of the Senate Democratic caucus means you'll support letting senators vote on bills. It's just common sense,” according to Washington Monthly. LINK

Senators Buck Obama Two senators on Tuesday disagreed with President Obama's backchannel complaints that progressive advocacy groups ought to stop targeting Democrats on health care. Sen. Sanders told The Huffington Post, "The Constitution provides the right of the people to get actively involved in the political process and express their point of view." Senator Ron Wyden, a target of the ads, said "folks are using that wonderful First Amendment." LINK

Fed Secrecy Sen. Jim DeMint tried to tack a Federal Reserve audit requirement onto a legislative appropriations bill, but Sen. Ben Nelson blocked the amendment, The Huffington Post reported. Separate bills to increase Fed transparency by Rep. Ron Paul and Sanders continue to draw support. Several House members signed on to Paul's bill, bringing the tally to 245. Three Republican Senate Banking Committee members - Crapo of Idaho, DeMint of South Carolina and Vitter of Louisiana - signed on to Sanders' bill, the American Banker reported.

Federal Judge Sen. Patrick Leahy recommended that President Obama nominate Christina Reiss of Essex Junction to serve as a federal judge in Vermont. She was chosen from eight candidates recommended by a nominating committee made up of Vermont Bar Association members and people chosen by Leahy and Sen. Sanders, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Sanders’ Move “A quick correction to last week’s column: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ move across North Avenue did not change his rep in Montpelier. Rep. Mark Larson has been Sanders’ rep since he was first elected in 2001. ‘While I hope my representation in Montpelier might make some consider a move,’ Larson told Seven Days, ‘in this case Bernie and Jane need not change their Rolodex when it comes to wanting things done in the Statehouse.’” LINK

International

Global Warming The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change. As President Obama arrived for three days of talks with other leaders of the Group of 8 nations, negotiators for 17 leading polluters abandoned targets in a draft agreement for the meetings here, The New York Times reported. LINK

National

Baucus Presses for Deal Senate Finance Chairman Baucus continued working with Republicans on a bipartisan health care bill Wednesday, despite an urgent warning from Senate Democratic leaders that the potential cost of wooing GOP votes could have a devastating effect on Democratic support for the measure. Majority Leader Harry Reid told Baucus on Tuesday that any health care reform plan should include a White House-backed, government-run insurance option and that he should abandon a proposal to tax health benefits as a means to finance it, Roll Call reported. LINK

Senate Health Tax The effort by Baucus to develop compromise health care legislation has come under sharp assault by fellow Democrats who have urged him to abandon a plan to help pay for the bill by taxing some employer-provided health benefits, The New York Times reported. Several senators up for re-election in 2010, including the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, have said they oppose it. LINK

House Health Tax House Democrats at work on health legislation are narrowing in on an income tax surcharge on the highest-paid wage earners to help pay the cost of subsidizing insurance for the 50 million who lack it. Pushing to complete a comprehensive health care bill by Friday and bring it up for committee votes next week, House Democrats abandoned earlier money-raising proposals, including a payroll tax, AP reported. LINK

U.S. Hospitals Too many people die needlessly at U.S. hospitals, according to a sweeping new Medicare analysis showing wide variation in death rates between the best hospitals and the worst. The analysis examined death rates for heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia at more than 4,600 hospitals. USA Today said patients have higher death rates at hospitals in the nation's poorest and smallest counties. Death rates at Vermont hospitals from heart attacks ranged from 16 percent at Copley Hospital to 18 percent at North Country Hospital. LINK and CHART

White House Ponders Bernanke's Future As the White House begins to ponder whether to reappoint or replace Ben Bernanke when his term expires in January, the Federal Reserve chairman's standing on Wall Street is on the rise while attacks on him from Congress mount. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected to play a key role in advising President Barack Obama on whether to reappoint Mr. Bernanke, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

House Intel Chairman Says CIA Lied The chairman of the House intelligence committee has accused the CIA of lying to the panel in a classified matter, the second time in less than two months that a top House Democrat has charged the spy agency of intentionally misleading Congress. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, in a letter sent Tuesday to House leadership, said that CIA officials "affirmatively lied" to the intelligence committee when recently notifying the panel about a classified matter, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Oracle of Omaha "Our first stimulus bill ... was sort of like taking half a tablet of Viagra,” Warren Buffett told ABC News, adding that “a second one may well be called for." The CEO of Berkshire Hathaway also criticized the government's public-private investment plan, through which private investors are supposed to buy so-called toxic assets off the balance sheets of ailing banks that received billions in government aid. "I do not like the idea of any kind of a plan involving the government where Wall Street makes a lot of money…Wall Street owes the American people one at this point," he said. LINK

Vermont

UVM When the University of Vermont’s largest entering class arrives next month, out-of-staters will outnumber Vermonters among first-year students by about 3-to-1. Vermont’s percentage of UVM undergraduates has declined markedly over the last several decades. In the fall of 1989, according to UVM data, Vermonters comprised a slight majority: 50.2 percent. In the fall of 2008, the Vermont share was 34 percent, The Burlington Free Press reported. LINK

Small Business Rep. Peter Welch is opposing changes in a Small Business Innovation Research program. He voted against reauthorization of the program in the House on Wednesday, arguing that the changes will give larger businesses access to the money and hurt small Vermont enterprises. His efforts to amend the bill failed, however, and the altered program passed 386 to 41, according to The Burlington Free Press. LINK

Milk Prices Vermont Agriculture Secretary Roger Allbee says he hopes the administration of President Barack Obama will adopt policies to help struggling Northeast dairy farmers. Allbee met earlier this week with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Allbee says Northeast dairy farmers are being paid less for their milk than what it costs to produce it, The Associated Press reported. LINK