“Kent Conrad” on The Daily Caller

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is vowing to bring the immigration-related “DREAM Act” to the Senate floor and some Senate Republicans are sounding the alarm bells, highlighting that it would offer amnesty to an estimated 2.1 million illegal aliens. (more)

Nearly every major media outlet is reporting that if the president’s fiscal commission gets agreement among 14 of its 18 members, it will force a vote in Congress.  They are wrong. (more)

The Democrats are in trouble in the United States Senate come November. (more)

The results of this year’s Senate elections are not even in the books, but senators and political analysts are already looking ahead to 2012, when the Senate math adds up to a daunting prospect for Democrats. (more)

Under constituents’ heat to deal with corruption exemplified by the multiple-count indictment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), Illinois legislators on Oct. 15 approved placing a recall of governors law on the November 2 ballot. (more)

Senate Democrats who blocked an immigration bill in 2007 say they are undecided on how to vote on the measure this week. (more)

Would you vote to cut taxes only for the middle class, if that were your only choice? (more)

The liberal tax revolt, as the Wall Street Journal is calling it, is a very important topic — especially for investors and small-business entrepreneurs. And for new jobs. (more)

Ben Bernanke threw a curveball in his midterm report to Congress this week. The Fed view of the economy has been downgraded since it last reported in February. Although the official Fed forecast for 2010-11 is still 3 to 4 percent real growth, Bernanke sounded particularly gloomy when he characterized the economy as “unusually uncertain.” And he indicated that the majority view of the Fed Board of Governors and Reserve Bank presidents is that the risks to growth are “weighted to the downside.” (more)

Two more Senate Democrats called for extending tax cuts for all earners—including those with the highest incomes—in what appears to be a breakdown of the party’s consensus on the how to handle the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts. (more)

Senate Finance Committee leaders Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are the hardest working members of Congress, according to the people who work with them on Capitol Hill — their fellow lawmakers, aides and other officials. (more)

If you were tasked with creating a new government health program, what would you use as a model? Would you try to emulate a profitable, sustainable business from the private sector, or would you shoot for the huge budget shortfalls and customer service record of the U.S. Postal Service? (more)

Concerns among Republicans and Democrats about adding to the deficit are weighing down a nearly $200 billion spending bill to the point that its passage appears in serious jeopardy. (more)

There is an “emerging consensus” that we are headed for a value-added tax (VAT) in the United States. But the more optimistic among the experts and pundits believe it won’t come until after the 2012 election and then only if President Obama is reelected. There is no doubt that something will have to be done about the financial crisis and the federal debt—even if ObamaCare is repealed—and many believe the “hidden” VAT is the politically viable solution. Many openly say that the VAT, with its costs hidden in the price of commercial products, is the only way to get the money to pay for ObamaCare. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies in the Senate promise to cut the deficit by almost two-thirds over the next five years, but their budget plan could threaten about 30 million people with tax increases averaging $3,700 in 2012 and after because of the alternative minimum tax. (more)

One week from Tuesday, 18 men and women will begin an attempt to fix, in eight months, what is possibly the country’s greatest problem: the federal budget deficit, national debt and runaway entitlement spending. (more)

The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday disputed rumors that have surfaced this week that the Democratic-controlled Congress will not produce a budget this year. (more)

As I’m writing this, House Democratic leadership is feverishly trying to scrape together the last few votes to pass a massive government takeover of healthcare. It seems that every hour there is a new report about who is changing their vote from “yes” to “no” or “no” to “yes.” (more)

Congressional Democrats have swapped out roughly 153 pages of the health care bill over the past week in an 11th-hour attempt to get their pork problem under control, the AP reports. (more)

Are Democrats marching toward a health-care bill behind the scenes, or are they slipping backwards? (more)