Today's Hill Action:
THE SENATE:
The Senate will meet at 10:00 a.m. for a pro forma session.
SENATE COMMITTEES:
Senate Joint Economic Committee (12:45 p.m.): Hearings to examine the employment situation for July 2011. SD-106.
THE HOUSE:
No meeting scheduled for today.
HOUSE COMMITTEES:
No meetings scheduled for today.
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| FAA shutdown to end with deal, Harry Reid says
House and Senate leaders on Thursday brokered a "bipartisan compromise" over Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, ending - if only temporarily - a two-week standoff that had sidelined 74,000 federal employees and airport construction workers and cost the government tens of millions of dollars in uncollected airline ticket surcharges.
"This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement announcing the deal. "But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that."
Under the arrangement, the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday will pass by unanimous consent a bill the Republican-led House passed in July that temporarily allows the FAA to conduct its business and slashes $16 million from the budget for subsidies paid to rural airports.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood would then use his authority to grant waivers to any community that requested one, provided they make a convincing case for why they should continue to receive the money, a Transportation Department aide said.
The subsidy cuts had been approved by the House but had become a sticking point for Senate Democrats, who saw them as a Republican tactic in service of a larger goal: forcing Democrats to accept anti-union language that had been included in a long-term FAA reauthorization bill the House had approved weeks ago. The language strips away a National Mediation Board ruling that makes it easier to organize airline industry employees.
"This is a tremendous victory for American workers everywhere," LaHood said in a statement. "From construction workers to our FAA employees, they will have the security of knowing they are going to go back to work and get a paycheck - and that's what we've been fighting for. We have the best aviation system in the world and we intend to keep it that way."
Both chambers left this week for their August break, prompting LaHood to repeatedly call for Congress to return from vacation and act on the FAA bill.
Because the Senate is in pro forma session, just two lawmakers are needed - one presiding over the chamber and the other on the floor requesting unanimous consent - to pass the legislation.
After it clears the Senate, the bill would be sent to President Barack Obama for his expected signature.
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Eric Cantor: President Obama 'in over his head'
President Barack Obama is "in over his head" when it comes to tackling the country's economic troubles, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Wednesday.
The president has not run a business or created jobs and has proven himself ill-suited to put the economy back on track, the Virginia Republican said in a midday interview on The Wall Street Journal's website with opinion columnist Peggy Noonan and editor James Freeman.
"I think, frankly, he's in over his head as to what to do about this economy," Cantor said.
At one point during negotiations on a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Cantor said the president chose to play politics rather than working on the substance of the deal. Obama seemed "agitated" by Republicans' opposition to any measures that might be perceived as tax increases - something the president wanted in a deal - and, at one point, said, "Eric, don't call my bluff," Cantor recalled.
Though Republicans were reluctant to support a bill to raise the debt ceiling that didn't also include plans to vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, the "prevailing sentiment" among members of the GOP was that "we didn't want to go past Aug. 2 because of the unknown" without raising the debt ceiling.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will be responsible for choosing the three House Republicans to join the committee that will propose ways to reduce the deficit, and Cantor said he is getting "a lot of calls and emails from members who want to serve" on the panel, including some who voted against the deal.
The committee's "focus needs to stay on spending," Cantor said, and not on ways to raise revenues. "Frankly, in the Biden talks, we identified between $2 [trillion] and $2.3 trillion in cuts that we can pick up right off the table and put to work" in the committee.
Doing that, he said, would require Democrats agreeing not to push tax hikes or other ways to raise revenues and "against this economic news ... we ought not be raising taxes."
Cantor was caught off guard during the interview as he was asked if he had birthday wishes to send to the president, whose 50th birthday is Thursday but is celebrating with two fundraisers in Chicago on Wednesday night. "I didn't know it's his birthday, so I just would like to wish him a Happy Birthday," he said.
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Rep. David Wu notified Oregon's governor and Speaker John Boehner(R-Ohio) on Wednesday evening that his resignation would be effective at 11:59 that night.
"Serving as a U.S. Congressman has been the greatest honor of my life. There is no other job where you get up each day and ask, 'How can I try to make the world a better place today?'" the Oregon Democrat said in a statement after informing the governor and Speaker.
Wu concluded, "However great the honor and engaging the work, there comes a time to hand on the privilege of elected office - and that time has come."
Wu announced last week that he would resign following the conclusion of the debt ceiling crisis. He faced increasing pressure to leave the House after allegations of an "unwanted sexual encounter" with an 18-year-old woman surfaced in a July 22 Oregonian newspaper report.
His letter to Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) makes his resignation official.
Kitzhaber said last week that he would schedule the special election to replace Wu to occur more than 80 days after he receives the resignation letter, which is sufficient time for primaries to be held under state law. That would mean the primaries would be held in mid-October at the soonest.
Candidates are already moving into position in the traditionally Democratic 1st district. State Sen. Suzanne Bonamici (D) is expected to run, and state Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian (D) and state Rep. Brad Witt (D) were already challenging Wu before the events of the past two weeks.
Rob Cornilles, Wu's Republican challenger last year, will formally announce Thursday that he is running in the special election.
Wu's resignation brings the number of House vacancies to three. Special elections are scheduled for Sept. 13 to fill the seats of former Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who is now a Senator.
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