President Obama's nominee to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau got a hearing on Tuesday, but that may be all he gets.
Despite intense pressure from banks, the Senate failed Wednesday to delay rules capping fees that banks charge retailers to process debit card transactions by consumers.
Confrontation. Gridlock. A nation divided. Conventional wisdom tells us to expect a contentious stalemate in the wake of the 2010 midterm elections. But walk up the steps to the Senate Dirksen Office Building, hang a right, and you'll hear a different message: "I'm going to find Democrats who'll come along," declares Tennessee Republican Bob Corker. The Chattanooga real estate mogul-turned-senator is hoping to cajole folks from across the aisle to embrace his plan to reduce federal spending from 24% to 18% of gross domestic product -- in line with federal revenue.
The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can't begin flexing its rule-writing muscle, cracking down on things such as tough-to-understand mortgages, until it gets a Senate-confirmed director.
"This committee doesn't function well on a partisan basis, and in the 22 months that I've been chairman of it we've never acted that way." That was Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd speaking in December of 2008, when American voters had the audacity to believe a new President's promise to rise above the short-sightedness of partisan Washington and unite most Americans around solving big problems.
President Barack Obama's dismissal of the top commander in Afghanistan was "extremely unfortunate" but "necessary," according to Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A top Senate Republican accused President Barack Obama of engaging in hypocritical political posturing Tuesday after a closed door meeting between the president and Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Last January a freshman senator with a reputation as a thoughtful workhorse assured me that reforming Wall Street would be a bright patch of needed bipartisanship.
The head of a key banking panel is expected Monday to release a draft bill of sweeping regulatory changes aimed at warding off future collapses in the financial system.
Senate Democrats on banking panel plan to release and start working on a financial overhaul bill next week, without Republican support.
A second Senate effort to come up with financial reform legislation could run aground unless a deal on protecting consumers is reached.
Sen. Bob Corker says his daughter is fine but "really sore" after being pulled from her car and thrown to the ground in a carjacking in the nation's capital.
Brian Todd reports on the carjacking of a Senator's daughter, and how the vehicle was tracked by OnStar.
Adm. Michael Mullen, the highest-ranking man in the U.S. military, said the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, as fresh indications emerge that President Obama soon could be asked to commit more American troops.
As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's reputation rose from the ash heap on Wall Street yesterday, he also made headway with harsh critics in his other important audience - Congress. "This could be the beginning of a very constructive improvement in capital flows," Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson told Fortune.
President-elect Barack Obama won a significant political victory Thursday, just days before his inauguration, as the Senate voted to release the second half of the $700 billion bailout package.
The future of the U.S. auto industry was in doubt Friday morning after a proposal for $14 billion in federal loans died in a late night Senate vote.
The Senate moved closer Thursday night to voting on an amended proposal to bail out the U.S. auto industry with $14 billion in loans, after Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid praised a compromise proposed by a Republican critic of the industry.
A late meeting Tuesday of congressional Democrats and the White House concerning assistance to U.S. automakers broke up with some progress but no deal, two senior aides to Senate Democrats told CNN.
The White House and congressional Democratic negotiators have reached a conceptual agreement on a proposed $15 billion automakers bailout package, according to senior administration officials and a Senate Democratic aide.
Russian troops remaining in Georgian territory are effectively preventing Georgians from returning to their homes
President Bush may want to end the ban on offshore drilling, but you wouldn't know it from his administration's failure to obey a key directive in the 2005 Energy Act.
With a week to go before voters cast their midterm election ballots, four key Senate races remain statistical dead heats, and Republican Sen. Mike DeWine faces uphill sledding in his re-election battle in Ohio, according to new CNN polls released Tuesday.
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