Senator Sanders

Health Care - Single Payer Doing everything he can to hold together his Senate coalition, Democratic leader Harry Reid will allow a vote Wednesday on a single-payer health care plan put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders. The measure is unlikely to pass, but it will allow another round of debate into an alternative system many other countries have embraced, The New York Daily News reported. LINK

Health Care - Sanders As concessions were made Tuesday to keep a health-care reform bill moving through the Senate, Sanders said he is unsure he will vote for a measure that does not offer a public insurance option. "I am working with the White House and Senate leadership in an effort to make this bill as strong as it possibly can be," Sanders told The Burlington Free Press. LINK

Health Care - Leahy Sen. Patrick Leahy said through a spokesman he will continue to push for having the public option included in the reform legislation, but it was important Congress pass some kind of reform this year, according to The Burlington Free Press. LINK

Health Care - Bennington Bennington County is closer to establishing a community health center now that a federal agency designated three area towns as under-served, an important milestone toward establishing the county's first center, the Bennington Banner reported. LINK

Health Care - Obama President Obama urged Senate Democrats to overcome lingering disputes and pass a health care overhaul. Sen. Joseph Lieberman was warming to the package after Senate leaders jettisoned a plan to extend Medicare coverage to uninsured people as young as 55.  Sen. Sanders pressed the president on the public option, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Health Care -Pharma Wins An impressive ideological coalition from Sen. Sanders to conservative Sen. David Vitter was no match for industry-friendly senators, backed by the Obama administration, who on Tuesday easily voted down legislation to allow Americans to import cheaper medicine from other countries, The Washington Post reported. LINK  

Health Care - Sanders on Lieberman Sen. Joe Lieberman's use of his swing vote to help quash a proposed expansion of Medicare marked the latest act in his deteriorating relationship with the Democratic Party. "I'm not impressed by anyone -- Republicans, Sen. Lieberman or anybody else -- who is impeding the progress of providing comprehensive, cost-effective health care to all Americans," Sen Sanders told The Wall Street Journal. LINK

Health Care - Dean "Can you convince your fellow Vermonter, Bernie Sanders, to vote no?" George Stephanopoulos asked Howard Dean on ABC's Good Morning America. "I think this thing will pass the Senate and go to the House. All along I've, you know, put up with a lot of stuff. What was good about the bill outweighed what was bad the bill. I don't believe that anymore." VIDEO

Health Care - TV "A couple of senators like Sen. Roland Burris or Bernie Sanders said it would be very difficult for them to support a bill if it doesn't contain a public option, but they stopped short of drawing a line in the sand," the CBS Evening News reported.  "People you need to watch are people like Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders," Politico's Jim Vandehei told Bill O'Reilly on Fox. LINK, VIDEO and VIDEO

Health Care - Momentum The newfound momentum is partly due to left-leaning members' apparent willingness to discard the public option. "I think this bill has a lot in it that makes sense - among other things, insurance for 30 million poor Americans, insurance reform, disease prevention, primary health care expansion," Sen. Sanders said in Congressional Quarterly. LINK

Health Care - Cost Containment The arch-conservative Weekly Standard blogged that "Rep. (sic) Sanders gave us a rare moment of honesty about monstrous health care reform legislation from the floor of the House (sic) yesterday" when he discussed the weak cost-containment provisions in the bill. LINK

The Fed Several lawmakers are using the vote on the nomination of Fed chief Ben Bernanke to gain momentum in a battle over a separate measure to subject the Fed to congressional audits. That provision by Sen. Sanders mirrors a bill by Rep. Ron Paul that was incorporated into an overhaul of financial regulation that passed the House last week, The Wall Street Journal reported. LINK

Bernanke Must Go "I cannot vote to confirm Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve and have placed a hold on his nomination in the United States Senate," Sen. Sanders wrote in an op-ed published by the Brattleboro Reformer. LINK  

‘One of the Players' "In the U.S. Senate, one person can jam up the works and Sen. Sanders has demonstrated his ability to do that," NPR's congressional correspondent told Vermont Public Radio's Vermont Edition. "(Sanders) really does seem to be one of the players even though he may not necessarily be one of the people sponsoring the major pieces of legislation going through the Senate right now... I find that he is always worth talking to." AUDIO

Senior Center Fire A late-night fire damaged the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. About 100 people were expected for a holiday luncheon where, thanks to a grant secured by Sen. Sanders, a new van was going to be parked outside with a red bow to surprise the crowd. Fortunately, the vehicle was parked in a city lot overnight and was not damaged by the fire, the Times Argus reported. LINK

International

Climate Talks Near Deal to Save Forests Negotiators have all but completed a sweeping deal that would compensate countries for preserving forests, and in some cases, other natural landscapes like peat soils, swamps and fields that play a crucial role in curbing climate change, The New York Times reported. LINK

National

Bernanke is Times' ‘Person of the Year' In its annual "Person of the Year" issue, Time picked a scholar of the Depression who the magazine said sought to tone down the Fed's profile, ended up becoming one of the most activist chairmen in recent memory, and took aggressive steps to bail out the financial industry and revive the economy. LINK

Upswing Poses Questions for Fed When Federal Reserve policymakers finish their two-day meeting Wednesday afternoon, the big question hanging over them will be what an improving economy means for central bank policy, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Senate Rejects Importation of Prescription Drugs In a victory for President Obama and his allies in the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate today turned aside a bid by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to make it easier to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Western Europe, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK 

House Rushes to Finish Work In a headlong rush to leave town for the year, the House is trying to clear its plate of legislation to finance the military, help the jobless and permit the government to run up more debt, The Associated Press reported. LINK

U.S. Gave up Billions for Citigroup The federal government quietly agreed to forgo billions of dollars in potential tax payments from Citigroup as part of the deal announced this week to wean the company from the massive taxpayer bailout that helped it survive the financial crisis, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Obama Administration to Buy Illinois Prison for Guantanamo Detainees President Obama, determined to change U.S. detention policy and shut the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, pointed Tuesday to a small town in Illinois as a big part of the answer, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Vermont

Energy Efficiency President Obama called Tuesday for new federal incentives to make millions of homes more energy efficient as a way to create jobs, save money for homeowners and reduce pollution. "This is a hat trick," said Rep. Peter Welch, the sponsor of a bill in Congress to create the program Obama envisions, The Associated Press reported. LINK

Slow Income Growth Median income rose slightly in 2008 for Vermont couples filing joint tax returns, The Burlington Free Press reported. Half those families had incomes greater than $68,555, and half less, said Art Woolf and Richard Heaps, the economists who coauthored the tax analysis. The recession held inflation-adjusted median-income growth to $241 last year, their figures show. LINK