Important and difficult policy decisions the president made early on. Josh, plunging oil prices and raising gas prices for infrastructure. In the past, you said is on the table. Is it on the table . We have put forward our very specific or postal for how we believe we can make the investment needed in infrastructure in this company. That is typically what the gas tax revenue is dedicated to. Closingbelieve loopholes and using the revenue for closing the loopholes and infrastructure upgrades. Some have different ideas, including raising the gas tax. That is something we will take a look at, but is not something we have considered from here. Among those, chris mercy chris murphy planned to raise by . 12 per gallon over two years. Are you ruling a gas tax increase out for something specific on infrastructure . Loopholes and using the i do not have anything about the specific topic. As it relates to specific proposals, we will certainly consider proposals put forward bipartisan proposals l
Legislative agenda. The most Diverse Congress industry poised to take power and a wave of new lawmakers is arriving on capitol hill. Republicans called it the ranks. And that spirit, the hill should look at the quirks of the voting members and the new congress. There is a Record Number of female lawmakers, alongside 430 men following the departure of michael grimm. You taught senator tim scott is part of the largest black republican lass in Congress Since the reconstruction era. There will be 46 black lawmakers and the new congress. Hispanic lawmakers will have 33 in the house and 30 senators. That is Peter Sullivan reporting on that. The 114 Congress Gavels in tomorrow at 9 00. Next, we hear from former white house officials and the obama bush, and Clinton Administrations. This would not happen without pat griffin. He has been a background of being an assistant director and assistant to be president under clinton. He organized this and he came up with the idea several months ago and i
It may be at the point where it may be right to do that. Dan . The answer in my mind, i guess there is a distinction with triangulation. I guess the president is throwing his party overboard to work with republicans that rarely works. I would suggest to some degree it is not that complicated a question. If you have a divided government and want to get something done, you have got to work with the other party. I draw the contrast to that. I was stills immediate predecessor. President bush left and president obama came in. I can remember being interviewed between the election and inauguration by somebody asking how his job would be different from mine. For me it was fairly straightforward. We didnt get anything done if it didnt get past by the democratic congress. He was going to have a Majority Party of the same party. My comment at the time was it is going to be quite a bit different because he is going to rely on democrats, that he will be criticized. Yet he will be criticized. You go
These are the goals that the secretary announced. Really focus on the dark circle on the page. The dark circle is the percentage of medicare fee for Service Payments in the alternative payment models. In 2011, they were zero. No medicare payments in the model. In 2014, at the end of 2014, about 20 of the 362 billion of the medicare feeforService Payments, excluding Medicare Advantage. But the numbers are similar. 20 were alternative payment models. The goal is by the end of 2016 30 of the feeforService Payments will be in the new alternative payment models that work and 50 by the end of 2018. So this is the first time in the history of the Medicare Program that we have set Broad National goals, and what is critical to understand is its not just a medicare project. This past wednesday at the white house, you may have seen president obama picked up something called off something called for health care learning Action Network where we have convened a commercial payers medicare organizatio
A senator madam president . The presiding officer the senator from south dakota. Mr. Thune madam president , i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Thune madam president , i come to the floor today to talk about the damage obamacare is doing to the struggling economy. Now after months of unrelenting coverage of obamacares many problems and after fridays release of decembers dismal jobs report, im sure democrats here in the senate would prefer that we talk about almost anything else. After all, when you have held most of the power in washington here for the last five years, you dont want to mention the fact that your main legacy is a sluggish economy and a disastrous train wreck of a health care program. This past friday, we found out that december marked the weakest month of job growth since january of 2011. The economy added just 74,000 jobs in december, less than half of the monthly job growth needed for a real recovery