Essential Reads
Essential Reads is your one-stop source for the top stories of the day as reported by your favorite Washington Week panelists. It's a simple way to save time and stay informed about the news you need to know. Check it out every day!
Jan 08, 2013
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Obama's Lobby-Busting Second Term
By Beth Reinhard, National JournalEmboldened by reelection and a fiscal-cliff deal, President Obama is picking fights with two of the most powerful special interests in Washington: the pro-gun and pro-Israel lobbies.
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Hints of Syrian Chemical Push Set Off Global Effort to Stop It
By David E. Sanger and Eric ScmittIn the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.
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Jan 07, 2013
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Obama’s Pick for Defense Is an Ally, and a Lightning Rod
By David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, The New York TimesWhen President Obama nominates Chuck Hagel, the maverick Republican and former senator from Nebraska, to be his next secretary of defense, he will be turning to a trusted ally whose willingness to defy party loyalty and conventional wisdom won his admiration both in the Senate and on a 2008 tour of war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Chuck Hagel's Nomination as Defense Secretary to Come Monday
By Christi Parsons and Matea Gold, Los Angeles TimesPresident Obama plans to nominate former Republican senator Chuck Hagel on Monday to serve as secretary of Defense, an administration official said Sunday.
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Are People Being Unfair to the House Republicans?
By Molly Ball, The AtlanticIt's open season on the House Republicans these days, and the incoming fire isn't just coming from the left. Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, blasted House Speaker John Boehner for delaying a vote on Hurricane Sandy relief; the conservative commentator John Podhoretz accused right-wing members of Congress of "literally embracing chaos" with their ill-fated attempt to oust Boehner from the speakership on Thursday.
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The Worst Job in Congress
By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles TimesSpare a little sympathy, if you can, for John A. Boehner of Ohio, speaker of the House of Representatives.
On paper, he's the most powerful Republican in the land. In practice, he's caught between a cliff and a ceiling as the uneasy chairman of an unhappy and fractious caucus.
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Rebound in Construction Hiring Offers Hope for Economy
By Jim Tankersley and By Ylan Q. Mui, The Washington PostAfter five years of hemorrhaging jobs, the construction industry has become one of the bright spots of the labor market — a hopeful sign that one of the most damaged sectors of the economy may finally be starting to heal.
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Jan 04, 2013
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If US Could Only Spend What It Gets In Taxes ...
With Eamon Javers, CNBC
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Cliff? What cliff?
By Greg Ip, EconomistIT HAS been a month of high drama on America's economic policy front as leaders in Washington grappled with the fiscal cliff. But not many people out in the real world seemed to care, and the economy has done just fine. Non-farm employment advanced 155,000, or 0.1%, in December from November, the federal government reported today.
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Boehner Re-Elected as House speaker
By Susan Davis, USA TodayHouse Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was re-elected to a second two-year term to lead a polarized Congress, which convened for the 113th session on Thursday. Debates on deficit reduction, immigration, and gun laws are on the agenda.
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Fiscal-Cliff Law by the Numbers
By David Wessel, Wall Street JournalIt took a while, but the budget bean-counters are beginning to come up with charts and tables to show the impact of the tax law (formally, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012) that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed this week.
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Paul Ryan vs. Marco Rubio: The Politics of the Cliff Vote
By Beth Reinhard, National JournalLumped together as two of the youngest and brightest Republican stars, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida parted ways on the fiscal cliff, with votes that reflect divergent strategies for building their party and political futures.
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This is What Happens When You Cross Chris Christie
By Molly Ball, The AtlanticLate Tuesday night, House Republicans abruptly decided that nearly derailing the bipartisan fiscal-cliff deal was not enough of a public-relations disaster. Surely, they reasoned, there was a way they could look worse in this whole process. And so, at the last minute, they declined to consider the bill passed by the Senate to deliver billions in disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy.
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Taliban Commander Maulvi Nazir Killed in US Drone Attack
With Martha Raddatz, ABC NewsMartha Raddatz reports on the attack on the Pakistan-Afghanistan boarder
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Jan 03, 2013
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4 Lessons for Round 2 of 'Fiscal Cliff' Fight
By Susan Davis, David Jackson, Richard Wolf and Susan Page, USA TodayThis fiscal cliff: averted.
Next fiscal cliff: ahead.
Partisan divisions and brinksmanship politics defined the outgoing Congress right up to the final scramble to avoid the "fiscal cliff." The last-ditch deal dodged income-tax hikes for nearly all Americans and delayed for two months spending cuts for the Pentagon and domestic programs.
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House GOP Under Fire
With Eamon Javers, CNBC
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Lawmakers Gird for Next Fiscal Clash, on the Debt Ceiling
By Jackie Calmes and Michael D. Shear, The New York TimesWith the resolution of the year-end fiscal crisis just hours old, the next political confrontation is already taking shape as this city braces for a fight in February over raising the nation’s borrowing limit. But it is a debate President Obama says he will have nothing more to do with.
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Business Leaders Say ‘Cliff’ Deal Won’t Ease Economic Uncertainty
By Jim Tankersley, The Washington PostA day after Congress managed to avert the fiscal cliff, business leaders warned that the agreement will hurt sales and hiring, won’t unlock investment and leaves the economy riddled with congressionally imposed land mines for months to come.
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Obama Taking Campaign-Style Approach to New Goals
By Alexis Simendinger, Real Clear PoliticsIn the thick of the fiscal cliff impasse Monday, even as a Senate agreement was hours from being a certainty, Republican lawmakers were chagrined to hear President Obama zoom beyond the tax battle to plant some partisan seeds for spring.
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Has the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Fight Changed How Washington Works?
By Karen Tumulty and Peter Wallsten, The Washington PostAs ugly as they were, the “fiscal cliff” negotiations produced something Washington hadn’t seen in a long time: strongly bipartisan votes in the House and the Senate on a big, contentious issue.
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