Senator Sanders 

Budget Panel Begins Work Congressional budget negotiators from both chambers met for the first time on Wednesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders said jobs and the economy should be the group's top priorities, Time magazine reported online. The committee, Sanders added, should "not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country—the elderly, the children, the sick, working families." LINK

Hands Off Social Security Sen. Sanders told lawmakers at Wednesday's budget meeting that cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid should be off the table, Congressional Quarterly and The Hill reported. He pointed out strong opposition to cuts and said the committee should "listen to the American people," WCAX-TV reported. LINK, LINK, VIDEO

Don’t Cut Benefits “At a time when almost all new income created is going to the top 1 percent and when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, we must not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in our country: working families, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor. We must not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid,” Sen. Sanders wrote in USA Today. LINK, LINK

Save Social Security Sen. Sanders answered common questions about Social Security in a blog item on Talking Points Memo. “Social Security has been the most successful and reliable federal program in modern American history,” Sanders wrote. “For 78 years, Social Security has succeeded in keeping millions of senior citizens, widows, and the disabled out of poverty,” Sanders wrote in a column published Wednesday by The Caledonian-Record. LINK

Obama Coalition Cracking Just two weeks after President Obama saw his Democratic Party put up an unyielding front against Republicans, his coalition is showing signs of stress. With Congress renewing budget talks Wednesday, Sen. Sanders has been the most outspoken, saying he fears a budget deal will contain a proposal in Obama's budget to reduce cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other benefit programs, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Listen to the People “Congress must listen better. Some Republicans learned a hard lesson when the American people said it was wrong to shut down the government because some extreme right-wing members of Congress did not like the Affordable Care Act. Poll after poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly do not want to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Other polls make it clear that Americans believe that the wealthiest among us and large corporations must pay their fair share in taxes,” Sen. Sanders wrote in a column published Wednesday by The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune and Bergen (N.J.) Record. LINK 

Earth to Sen. Graham Broad ideological differences between members of the conference committee were highlighted during the first meeting in back-to-back remarks by Sens. Sanders and Lindsey Graham, The Wall Street Journal, Politico and Bloomberg Businessweek reported. “I like Sen. Sanders but I disagree with virtually everything he said,” Graham said. “It’s like we’re on different political planets.” LINK, LINK, LINK,

Squeaky Wheel The Wall Street Journal posted short profiles of several conference committee members. “If liberals want a squeaky wheel on the conference committee, Mr. Sanders can play that role. He could provide cover for Democrats if they don’t want to negotiate, but he won’t look the other way if he feels like Democrats are giving anything away to the GOP.” LINK

Defense Spending Sen. Sanders on Wednesday criticized bloated defense spending, according to Defense News. "We’re not fighting the Soviet Union, we’re fighting al-Qaida," Sanders said. Sanders asserted that the nation spends as much as the rest of the world on defense, adding, "Does anyone here really think we can't cut the Defense Department?” he asked in an article in The (Spokane, Wash.) Spokesman-Review. LINK, LINK

Food Stamps Cut Coming Friday A temporary boost in food-stamp benefits expires Friday. Ahead of negotiations this week over legislation to extend the nutrition program, a group of 20 Senators including Sanders sent a letter to their colleagues negotiating the farm bill urging them to prevent "harmful cuts" and avoid erecting new barriers to participation, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

Lawmakers Push Advanced VA Funding On the heels of the shutdown, there was a new bipartisan push Wednesday to fund the 14 percent of the Department of Veterans Affairs that was not covered under law, The Hill reported. “As we saw earlier this month in the event of a prolonged shutdown, VA would not have been able to issue disability compensation, pension payments or education benefits,” said Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Sanders. “That outcome would have been reprehensible.” LINK

VA Opposes Shutdown Protection The Veterans Affairs Department is opposing the proposal to protect all veterans programs from harm during future government shutdowns, the Air Force Times reported. Chairman Sanders said Wednesday that his committee expects to pass more expansive legislation in November than a bipartisan bill passed by the House committee in August. LINK

Veterans’ Cemeteries Sen. Dan Coats testified Wednesday before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on his legislation to grant federal officials the authority to remove from national cemeteries the remains of military veterans who committed capital crimes. It stems from a murder committed in 2012 in Indianapolis by an Army veteran who was buried with military honors. Chairman Sanders said the panel “will certainly take a very hard look” at the bill, The (Ft. Wayne, Ind.) Journal Gazette and WISH-TV in Indianapolis reported. LINK, VIDEO

F-35s Another contentious meeting was held Monday at the Burlington City Hall on the Air Force's proposal to base a squadron of next-generation fighter jets at the Burlington International Airport, according to Seven Days. Both anti-F-35 resolutions debated Monday night were defeated. Sen. Leahy, Sen. Sanders, and Rep. Welch did not attend meetings on the issue. LINK

World

Syria Talks May Stall Syrian peace talks scheduled for November are likely to be delayed, according to officials who spoke with Reuters. Disagreements over which groups will be represented at the negotiating table are setting back diplomatic talks. LINK

National

Sebelius Is Sorry In the highest profile hearing yet over the botched rollout of the HealthCare.gov website, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius apologized Wednesday for the frustration that millions of Americans have experienced while trying to shop for insurance, The New York Times reported. She admitted she was “as frustrated as anyone with the flawed launch of HealthCare.gov,” while defending the problem-plagued rollout of President Obama’s health care law and trying to explain the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of individual insurance policies. LINK

NSA Infiltrates Data Centers The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that by tapping those links, the NSA has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander on Wednesday denied the report, according to Bloomberg. LINK LINK

1.5% Social Security COLA One of Least Ever Social Security benefits will rise 1.5 percent in January, giving millions of retired and disabled workers an average raise of $19 a month to keep up with the cost of living. The annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, is based on a government measure of inflation that was released Wednesday, AP reported. The increase for next year is among the smallest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. “Yea. Whoop-de-do,” said Lance Colvin, a retired office worker in Kirkland, Wash. LINK

Benefits Adjustment for Veterans Congress is working on legislation to provide a matching cost-of-living adjustment given to retirees for veterans' disability, dependency and indemnity compensation, Military Times reported. This year's increase was 1.5 percent. The Senate passed legislation Monday to bring the adjustments to veterans and the House is expected to vote on a similar bill. LINK

Fed Maintains Stimulus The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday its plans to maintain its stimulus campaign amid a weak slow-growth economy, The New York Times reported. LINK

More Voters Turn on Obama For the first time since he emerged as a national political candidate, more Americans now view President Obama negatively than positively. His job approval rating sank to an all-time low in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. His job approval fell to 42 percent with 51 percent of respondents disapproving of his performance as president. LINK 

Vermont

Surveillance in Vermont Author and national security expert William Arkin said Wednesday at a conference hosted by the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union that the reach of government surveillance programs is increasing in the state, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Police Collect 3,000 Pounds of Pills State police collected more than 3,000 pounds of unwanted prescription pills during Drug Take Back Day in Vermont, The Associated Press reported. Law enforcement officials say medications must be disposed of properly, not thrown away. LINK

Red Sox Win World Series The Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 to win the series in six games. LINK