House on track to pass budget plan with deep cuts - The Seattle Times

WASHINGTON —

A familiar budget plan to sharply cut safety-net programs for the poor and clamp down on domestic agencies performing the nuts-and-bolts programs of the government is cruising to passage in the tea party-flavored House.

The Republican measure is advancing to the finish line in the House as the Senate starts a lengthy slog toward passage of a rival budget measure. It takes a sharply different view, restoring automatic cuts to agency budgets and increasing taxes by $1 trillion over the coming decade.

The dueling budget plans are anchored on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum in Washington, appealing to core partisans in the warring parties gridlocked over persistent budget deficits. President Barack Obama is exploring the chances of forging a middle path that blends new taxes and modest curbs to government benefits programs.

The sharp contrast over the 2014 budget and beyond came as the House is positioned to clear unfinished budget business - a sweeping, government-wide funding bill to keep Cabinet agencies running through the 2013 budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

The Senate passed the bipartisan 2013 measure by a sweeping 73-26 vote Wednesday after easing cuts that threatened intermittent closures of meat packing plants starting this summer and reviving college tuition grants for active-duty members of the military. The cuts were mandated by automatic spending cuts that took effect at the beginning of the month.

Looking to the future, Democrats and Republicans staked out divergent positions over what to do about spiraling federal health care costs and whether to raise taxes to rein in still-steep government deficits.

The long-term GOP budget plan, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offers slashing cuts to domestic agencies, the Medicaid health care plan for the poor and "Obamacare" subsidies while exempting the Pentagon and Social Security beneficiaries. The measure proposes shifting programs like Medicaid to the states but is sometimes scant on details about the very cuts it promises.

The Ryan measure revives a controversial plan to turn the Medicare programs for the elderly into a voucher-like system - for future beneficiaries born in 1959 or later - into a program in which the government subsidizes the purchase of health insurance instead of directly paying hospital and doctor bills. Critics say the idea would mean ever-spiraling out-of-pocket costs for care, but Ryan insists the plan would inject competition into a broken system.

The cuts to domestic agencies like the FBI, Border Patrol and National Institutes of Health could approach 20 percent when compared with levels agreed to as part of a hard-fought budget deal from the summer of 2011. That could run the already troubled appropriations process - it features 12 spending bills that are supposed to be passed by Congress each year - into the ground.

Fresh from passing the 2013 wrap-up measure, the Senate was turning to a plan by new Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would add nearly $1 trillion in new taxes over the coming decade in an attempt to stabilize the $16 trillion-plus national debt. But Murray's plan would actually increase government spending after the $1.2 trillion cost of repealing the automatic cuts, called a sequester in Washington-speak. That means the net cuts to the deficit would amount to just a few hundred billion dollars in a federal budget estimated at $46 trillion or so over the coming decade.

"We need to tackle our deficit and debt fairly and responsibly," Murray said. "We need to keep the promises we've made as a nation to our seniors, our families and our communities."

At issue is the arcane process by which Congress approves a budget. It involves special legislation, called a budget resolution, that sets nonbinding targets for taxes and spending but relies on follow-up legislation to go into effect.

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ND Senate OKs ban on abortions based on defects - Seattle Post Intelligencer

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota on Friday moved closer to adopting what would be the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, with lawmakers sending the Republican governor measures that could set the state up for a costly legal battle over the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized the procedure.

The North Dakota Senate overwhelmingly approved two anti-abortion bills Friday, one banning abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy and another prohibiting women from having the procedure because a fetus has a genetic defect, such as Down syndrome. North Dakota would be the first state in the U.S. to adopt such laws.

Supporters said their goal is to challenge the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until a fetus is considered viable, usually at 22 to 24 weeks, though anti-abortion activists elsewhere have expressed concern about the strategy.

"It's a good day for babies," said Rep. Bette Grande, a Republican from Fargo who introduced both bills. The state's only abortion clinic is in Fargo, and abortion-rights advocates say the measures are meant to shut it down.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple hasn't said anything to indicate he would veto the measures, and the bills have enough support in each chamber for the Legislature to override him.

Debate Friday was brief, with the Senate taking about an hour to pass both measures. No one spoke against the so-called fetal heartbeat bill, which the Senate took up immediately after passing the genetic abnormalities bill. The votes were largely on party lines, with Republicans supporting the measures and Democrats opposing them.

Opponents, who have promised legal challenges to both measures if they become law, urged Dalrymple to veto the bills. North Dakota is one of several states with Republican-controlled Legislatures and GOP governors that is looking at abortion restrictions. But the state is better positioned than most for a long court fight: It has budget surplus nearing $2 billion thanks to new-found oil wealth.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the measures "extreme," saying they would make North Dakota "the first state in the nation to ban most abortions."

"In America, no woman, no matter where she lives, should be denied the ability to make this deeply personal decision," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said in a statement.

Arkansas passed a 12-week ban earlier this month that prohibits most abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected using an abdominal ultrasound. That ban is scheduled to take effect 90 days after the Arkansas Legislature adjourns.

A fetal heartbeat can generally be detected earlier in a pregnancy using a vaginal ultrasound, but Arkansas lawmakers balked at requiring women seeking abortions to have the more invasive imaging technique.

North Dakota's measure doesn't specify how a fetal heartbeat would be detected. Doctors performing an abortion after a heartbeat is detected could face a felony charge punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Women having an abortion would not face charges.

While some abortion opponents welcomed Arkansas' new law as a bold challenge to Roe v. Wade, others favor more incremental strategies, fearing such bans could lead to emphatic rejections in court.

A similar fetal heartbeat bill was debated by Ohio lawmakers last year before being blocked by the Senate president. The measure, which could be revived this year, fractured Ohio's anti-abortion movement in a debate over its tactical effectiveness.

Grande told lawmakers that fears about a legal challenge shouldn't prevent them from approving the North Dakota measure.

"Whether this is challenged in court is entirely up to the abortion industry," Grande told lawmakers this week. "Given the lucrative nature of abortion, it is likely that any statute that reduces the number of customers will be challenged by the industry."

During the Senate debate, one senator who had spoken out against the genetic abnormalities bill left the chamber in protest. The move forced the Senate to briefly halt debate, because the chambers rules require senators to be formally excused. The Senate was able to move forward with proceedings on the bill by passing a motion to excuse the senator.

"It was absolutely a silent protest," Sen. Connie Triplett told The Associated Press after the vote. "North Dakota will have a harder time recruiting and retaining doctors because doctors will not want to be arrested for advising women on abortion issues."

Sen. Margaret Sitte, a Republican from Bismarck, said the genetic abnormality bill is meant to ban the destruction of life based on "an arbitrary society standard of being good enough." Some test results pointing to abnormalities are incorrect, she said, and doctors can perform surgeries even before a baby is born to correct some genetic conditions.

Sitte's voice cracked as she described developmentally challenged children she knows. "Their hugs are tighter, their laughter louder and their empathy more sincere" than so-called "normal people," she said.

The genetic abnormalities bill also bans abortion based on gender selection. Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma already have such laws, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions across the U.S.

The Senate approved the genetic abnormalities bill 27-15; the House vote was 64-27. The Senate approved the fetal heartbeat bill 26-17; the House vote was 63-28.

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Follow James MacPherson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/macphersonja .

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Obama: 100 US military personnel deployed to Niger - Seattle Post Intelligencer

WASHINGTON (AP) — About 100 American troops have been deployed to the African nation of Niger, where a U.S. defense official said they would be setting up a drone base for surveillance missions.

President Barack Obama announced the deployment Friday in a letter to Congress, saying that the forces "will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region."

French troops have been fighting Islamic militants in Mali, which neighbors Niger. The drone base will allow the U.S. to give France more intelligence on the militants. Over time, it could extend the reach not only of American intelligence-gathering but also U.S. special operations missions to strengthen Niger's own security forces.

The defense official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the project.

The drones at the Niger base will be unarmed and used for surveillance, not airstrikes.

Obama said in his letter to Congress that the U.S. forces has been deployed with the consent of Niger's government. The forces were also deployed with weapons "for their own force protection and security," the president said.

Last month, the U.S. and Niger signed a status-of-forces agreement spelling out legal protections and obligations of American forces that might operate in Niger in the future.

Africa is increasingly a focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, even as al-Qaida remains a threat in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Last month's terrorist attack on a natural gas complex in Algeria, in which at least 37 hostages and 29 militants were killed, illustrated the threat posed by extremists who have asserted power propelled by long-simmering ethnic tensions in Mali and the revolution in Libya.

A number of al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist groups operate in Mali and elsewhere in the Sahara, including a group known as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, which originated in Algeria and is active in northern Mali.

In January, French forces intervened to stop the extremists' move toward Mali's capital, and Washington has grown more involved by providing a variety of military support to French troops.

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