Senator Sanders

Budget Conference Members of the newly empaneled budget conference committee are expected to hold their first public meeting next Wednesday. Ahead of the negotiations, Republicans have said they believe there is room to negotiate because Democrats want to undo or replace some or all of sequestration and the Republicans want curbs on entitlement programs. Sens. Bernard Sanders and Tom Harkin have argued in the past against the idea of cutting entitlements, Congressional Quarterly reported. LINK

Budget Conference Sen. Bernie Sanders was appointed to a Senate and House budget conference to create a long-term fiscal plan for the nation, The Vermont Standard reported. "In my view, it is imperative that this new budget helps us create the millions of jobs we desperately need and does not balance the budget on the backs of working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor," Sanders said. LINK

Budget Conference Eliminating tax incentives enjoyed by oil and gas companies has been a centerpiece of Democratic fiscal policy proposals for years, and it is likely to resurface on a budget conference committee that includes some of the upper chamber's most ardent liberals, such as Sens. Sanders and Sheldon Whitehouse, who have pushed such policies in the past, Environment & Energy Daily reported.

Older Americans A Senate committee is scheduled to mark up legislation next week to reauthorize programs that provide services for seniors, but a key Republican has yet to endorse the proposal. The Older Americans Act reauthorization bill was introduced by Sen. Sanders with the top Democrat and Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee as co-sponsors. Notably absent from that list is Richard Burr, the top Republican on Sanders’ subcommittee on aging, Congressional Quarterly reported. LINK

Jobs The government’s report on September employment came out Tuesday, delayed by the shutdown. “The furious debate over the budget did not concern our ongoing unemployment tragedy. The meme on the right is that millions are “takers” who won’t work. Yet three people are chasing every job opening. Corporations are sitting on record cash and profits, but they are not hiring at the rates of previous post-World War II recessions. The meme on the left…does it matter? America has little of a true elected left aside from Bernie Sanders,” Jon Talton blogged for The Seattle Times. LINK

Health Care “The great civil rights issue of our time and that is the need for every man, woman and child to have health care is a right and not a privilege,” Sen. Sanders said at a rally outside the Capitol. The excerpt was shown by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to argue. “Here comes socialism … Obamacare is just part of a vision for the forced sharing of American assets.” VIDEO

World

Syria Peace Conference The United States, Arab and European countries on Tuesday expressed support for the convention of a peace conference in November to begin negotiations on a settlement to end the bloody civil war in Syria, The New York Times reported. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowleged that the organized Syrian opposition has not yet promised to attend talks. LINK

China Choking on Smog Thick smog enveloped cities in northeast China on Tuesday, closing schools and airports, snarling traffic and reducing visibility to a few yards, in a dramatic sign of the country’s worsening air quality. China’s breakneck dash for economic growth has badly damaged the environment, and the rapid deterioration in the country’s air and water quality has increasingly become a source of public unrest, The Washington Post reported. LINK

National

Fixing Obamacare The Obama administration on Tuesday turned to Jeffrey Zients to help fix the widespread problems plaguing its online health-insurance marketplace, tapping a trusted adviser and crisis manager. The move—the first shakeup of top personnel since the troubled rollout Oct. 1 of the federal government's HealthCare.gov website—comes a day after President Barack Obama acknowledged the site's poor functioning and said "nobody's madder than me" about it, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

Tea Party’s Big Money Donors Big businesses, financial firms and banks donated heavily to Tea Party candidates who brought the nation dangerously close to defaulting on its debts, according to The Washington Post. One leading GOP fundraiser said the episode is unlikely to motivate major corporate donors to abandon their overall support for the party.  LINK

Sen. Lee Faces Backlash When Mike Lee toppled longtime Republican Sen. Robert Bennett here in 2010, it was the tea party’s first big triumph. But now, after a 16-day government shutdown, it’s Lee who faces a revolt within his own party. Lee’s approval ratings in Utah have cratered, and prominent Republicans and local business executives are openly discussing the possibility of mounting a primary challenge against him, The Washington Post reported. LINK

CEO Pay Rises, Breaks Records For the first time ever, the 10 top-paid chief executives in the United States received more than $100 million in payment last year, according to a leading annual survey cited by The Guardian. The report shows that CEO pay continued its rise as the gap between executive and worker pay widened.LINK

Oil Heir Opposes Wind William I. Koch, a billionaire industrialist who made his fortune in fossil fuels and whose better-known brothers underwrite conservative political causes, has donated about $5 million to a group fighting for more than a decade to stop development of a wind farm, called Cape Wind, in Nantucket Sound, The New York Times reported. LINK

Poll: Americans Support Marijuana Legalization For the first time since Gallup started asking the question in 1969, a 58 percent majority of Americans favor legalizing marijuana. Two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 29 support legalization of the drug. LINK

Capitol Dome to Get Face-Lift Weather and plain old age have left the Capitol dome with more than 1,000 cracks and deficiencies like stains and rust, the architect of the Capitol said in a statement on Tuesday. Scaffolding will go up next month as crews begin a $60 million effort over several years to restore the Capitol to its “original, inspiring splendor,” the Office of the Architect of the Capitol said in The New York Times. LINK

Vermont

Fire Erupts at Church St. Congregational Church A massive fire erupted early Wednesday morning at the College Street Congregational Church in Burlington. Flames poured from the steeple as people nearby could hear the sounds of crashing slate, the Burlington Free Press reported.

Vermont Health Connect Roughly 80,000 people have visited the Vermont Health Connect.  website since October 1 and over 7,000 accounts have been opened. In addition, 950 people have selected the plan that they want - but there’s a problem – the website is unable to process their payment electronically. Kevin Goddard of Blue Cross is concerned that the computer system that links the state website with Blue Cross has not been thoroughly tested, Vermont Public Radio reported. LINK

Barrett to Run Green Mountain Care The Green Mountain Care board of directors has chosen Susan Barrett of Norwich to be its new executive director. Barrett, an attorney, is currently director of public policy in Vermont for the Bi-State Primary Care Association, AP reported. LINK

Utility Wins Solar Award Vermont's Green Mountain Power was awarded the 2013 investor-owned utility of the year award on Tuesday for its efforts to expand the use of solar power, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Norwich Biomass Plant Opening Norwich University is getting ready to celebrate the opening of its $6.2 million biomass heating plant. The celebration to be held Friday will include limited guest tours and a ribbon cutting, the Times Argus reported. LINK

Number of Heroin Prosecutions Up United States Attorney Tristam Coffin said Tuesday that heroin trafficking prosecutions in Vermont have been on the rise in 2013, the Burlington Free Press reported. LINK