Senator Sanders

Sanders at Center of Budget Battles Sen. Bernie Sanders is optimistic that the lawmakers named to a committee responsible for crafting a fiscal 2014 budget agreement stand some chance of success. The Vermont independent, one of the negotiators on that conference committee, believes Americans’ low opinion of Congress — particularly of Republicans — will motivate the panel to address unemployment and mounting deficits in a way that’s fair to working families. “There is that pressure on everybody’s shoulders, regardless of your politics, and I hope that moves us in a fruitful direction,” he told the Burlington Free Press. LINK

Conrad Calls Sanders the ‘Conscience of the Senate’ Agreements like the one the conference committee is working to achieve typically are crafted by the chairpersons, but there’s plenty of opportunity for Sanders to pitch his priorities, former Sen. Kent Conrad, a former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told the Burlington Free Press. “Sen. Sanders is in many ways the conscience of the Senate when it comes to those who have been left out and left behind,” Conrad said. “He cares deeply about those who benefit from Medicare and Social Security and will do his utmost to protect them.” LINK

Sanders: Obama ‘Dead Wrong’ on Social Security President Obama has offered to compromise with Republicans on changes to Social Security in hopes of corralling Republican support for his budget. "The president is dead wrong on this issue," Sen. Bernie Sanders told The Boston Globe. Sanders has been promoting a bill to raise Social Security withholding taxes significantly on those earning more than $250,000 a year, who currently do not pay Social Security taxes on the majority of their earnings. Sanders and his staff are fond of pointing out where they got the idea: Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. LINK

The Right Way to Make a Budget “It is time to develop a federal budget that is moral and makes good economic sense,” Sen. Sanders wrote in an op-ed published Monday by the Los Angeles Times. “It is time to develop a budget that invests in our future by creating jobs, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and expanding educational opportunities. It is time for those who have so much to help with deficit reduction. It is time that we listen to what the American people want.” LINK

Don’t Cut Social Security The Koch brothers, Pete Peterson and other billionaires are spending huge amounts of money trying to cut Social Security and other vitally important federal programs … As a member of a Senate and House committee that meets for the first time on Wednesday to begin work on a new long-term budget, my job is to represent the needs of ordinary Americans, not powerful special interests,” Sen. Sanders wrote in a column published Monday by the Bennington Banner. 

Budget Conference “Liberals like Sen. Sanders are being shortsighted by insisting that entitlement changes are off the table. Entitlements are the drivers of long-term debt; delaying action, the Congressional Budget Office says, “would increase the size of the policy adjustments needed,” Al Hunt of Bloomberg News wrote in a column posted online by The New York Times. LINK, LINK

Sanders in the South Sen. Sanders on his first Southern speaking tour posed a question that may seem simple but continually vexes and frustrates politicians, pundits, political scientists and columnists: "Why do white working-class people vote against their own interests?" he asked about 150 people at the annual meeting of the Progressive Network,” according to a Sunday column in The (Florence, S.C.) Morning News. LINK

Sanders for President? Sen. Sanders “kinda sorta claims he has no interest in running for president. But it was interesting that his campaign staffer, Ben Eisenberg, emailed reporters a link to an In These Times story Thursday in which his boss says, ‘I haven't ruled it out,’” Seven Days blogged. LINK

World

Obama Unaware as U.S. Spied on World Leaders: Officials Claim The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 34 other world leaders after an internal Obama administration review this summer revealed to the White House the existence of the operation, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal. The account suggests President Barack Obama was unaware for nearly five years that his own spies were bugging the phones of world leaders. Officials said the NSA has so many eavesdropping operations under way that it wouldn't have been practical to brief him on all of them. LINK

National

Health Cite Woes The economists and policy wonks behind the Affordable Care Act worry that the technical problems bedeviling the federal portal could become much more than an inconvenience. If applicants put off or give up on buying coverage, rising prices and even a destabilized insurance market could result. The enrollment of younger people, who tend to have very low anticipated medical costs, are supposed to help pay for the medical costs of older or sicker enrollees. Without them, so-called risk pools might become too risky, forcing insurers to raise premiums, The New York Times reported. LINK

Vermont

Leahy Preparing Surveillance Bill Sen. Patrick Leahy said he's close to introducing legislation aimed at curbing electronic surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies and has been lining up bipartisan support for the measure. Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin is preparing companion legislation in the House. Leahy is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has been delving into electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency, AP reported. LINK

Nutrition Programs Face Cuts Less assistance for some of Vermont’s most vulnerable people. That’s the reality approaching at the end of the month when cuts to stimulus funding will take a chunk of funding out of the program 3SquaresVT, known formerly known as food stamps. “We will experience an annual reduction of $10.5 million in 3Squares benefits for Vermonters,” Dave Yacovone, commissioner for the Department of Children and Families, told Vermont Public Radio. LINK

Pope Acquaintance to Speak at St. Mike’s St. Michael’s College will host an Argentine-born Jesuit priest and professor at Boston College who is described as well-acquainted with the Catholic Church’s newest pope. Professor Gustavo Morello is delivering a talk on ‘‘Argentinean Catholicism and Pope Francis. Who is he and where did he come from?’’ It’s set for 7 p.m. Thursday. On Friday, Morello speaks on ‘‘Secularization and the Transformation of Latin American Catholicism.’’ That talk is set for noon at St. Edmund’s Hall, AP reported. LINK