Barack Obama, Senate | featured news

Tax cuts that President George W. Bush signed in 2001 and 2003 are playing a major role in the election of 2012. They surface again today as the Democratic-run Senate holds a symbolic debate over President Obama's proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts only for middle-class Americans, not for the wealthy.

Rep. Barney Frank , D-Mass., said he advised President Obama against taking up health care reform following a special election in 2010 that changed Democrats' fortunes in the Senate, saying that he should have instead turned his focus to financial reform.

An attempt to roll back oil company tax breaks was blocked in the Senate, despite a Rose Garden push by President Obama, who said the big five oil companies are doing “just fine” as consumers struggle with painfully high gas prices at the pump.

Despite support from virtually all Republicans, the Senate blocked an attempt to deny President Obama an increase in the debt ceiling, ensuring that the administration has the funds to pay the nation’s bills through the November election.

First Read: The Senate failed to muster the necessary votes to confirm Richard Cordray, President Obama's nominee to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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Senate Republicans on Tuesday filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocking the nominee President Obama chose last year to serve on one of the nation's most powerful courts.

Rod Blagojevich was clearly the ringleader of the schemes for which he was convicted, a federal judge said Tuesday at the sentencing hearing for the ousted Illinois governor on corruption charges that include trying to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama's former Senate seat....

A united Senate emphatically approved legislation Thursday intended to help unemployed veterans and companies doing business with the government, endorsing a measure that includes the first small slice of President Barack Obama's jobs plan that is likely to become law....

Senate Democrats proposed Friday tax incentives for businesses hiring veterans as well as job training for all service members leaving the military. The measure was unveiled as the next piece in President Obama's jobs bill and as a remedy to unemployment among veterans.

Republicans in the Senate Thursday dealt President Barack Obama the third in a string of defeats on his stimulus-style jobs agenda, blocking a $60 billion measure for building and repairing infrastructure like roads and rail lines.