U.S. Senator
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Senate deal would extend IRS sales tax deduction
WASHINGTON – Taxpayers in Washington could save an average of $500 a year on their federal taxes under a bipartisan deal announced Wednesday by a Senate committee. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote today on a bill that would extend dozens of tax breaks, including the deduction for sales tax for residents of eight states that don’t have an income tax.
Cantwell’s Senate foes facing a tough campaign
For Michael Baumgartner, the challenge he faces in winning Washington’s U.S. Senate seat could be as formidable as the mountains that bisect the state. Democrat Maria Cantwell is a well-funded, two-term incumbent in a state that most national political experts color deep blue. She beat a GOP icon, Slade Gorton, to win the seat in 2000 and dispatched a well-known Republican challenger, Seattle business executive Mike McGavick, in 2006.
Spokane physician proposes changes
WASHINGTON – It’s not uncommon for a medical school student to be told he or she is “too smart” to be a family physician, said Glen R. Stream, a family doctor from Spokane. He wants Congress to help change that. Along with doctors from Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and New Mexico, Stream discussed ways to cut health care spending at a meeting of the Senate Finance Committee this week. The president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, Stream also expressed his specialty’s views on the way Medicare pays doctors.
Doug Clark: Thank you for turning poetic goal into reality
After last year’s edition of Spokane Street Music Week took in a record $8,300 despite grotesque weather conditions, a challenge was raised by some of my closest friends. “Go for $10 grand for the 10th anniversary,” they urged.
Chickpeas and lentils may get farm bill boost
Jim Thompson, of Farmington, Wash., has raised peas and lentils for more than 20 years and has seen an increase in worldwide demand for both in the last decade. “Thanks to that, the price was fairly strong in recent years,” Thompson said recently.
Amid Farm Bill cuts, chickpeas and lentils may get a boost
WASHINGTON - Jim Thompson of Farmington has raised peas and lentils for more than 20 years and has seen an increase in worldwide demand for both in the last decade. “Thanks to that, the price was fairly strong in recent years,” Thompson said recently.
Cantwell asks for investigation into refineries
WASHINGTON - West Coast oil refiners cut gasoline production after a fire earlier this year at a Washington state refinery, creating a supply shortage that’s left West Coast motorists now paying very high prices at a time when the rest of the nation is seeing prices plunge, according to an influential senator and a veteran energy analyst.
Tsunami debris arriving to waves of uncertainty
WASHINGTON – West Coast residents are calling 911 to report tsunami debris they see coming ashore, but the operators don’t know what to say. When Sen. Maria Cantwell asked a top official of the federal agency in charge of handling the debris what they should say, he didn’t know either.
Lawmakers choosing between gimmicks, people
What’s a majority leader to do when she no longer leads a majority? Spokane’s Lisa Brown is heading into the special session of the Legislature without what Democrats have come to take for granted: the most votes. Since three Senate Democrats crossed over to side with the GOP on a budget, Majority Leader Brown and Senate Democrats are bargaining suddenly from a weaker position. She says that budget talks will have to focus on places where Republicans and Democrats can find agreement. She’s not, she says, trying to bring the strays back to the herd.
Senate OKs Rice for federal bench
Spokane-based Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Rice’s appointment as a federal judge was confirmed Tuesday by the U.S. Senate. Rice, who teamed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Harrington in the prosecution of domestic terrorist Kevin W. Harpham last year, replaces U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley in the Eastern District of Washington. Whaley has entered senior status.
House approves land swap for tribe
The U.S. House of Representatives approved by an overwhelming margin a swap of federal land that will allow a small Northwest tribe to move its school and some homes out of a tsunami zone on the Pacific Coast. By a vote of 381 to 7, the House passed a bill directing the U.S. Park Service to make a trade with the Quileute Tribe in La Push, Wash., for about 780 acres in the Olympic National Park, which adjoins the reservation in the Olympic National Forest.
Budget, tax credits lead agendas of region’s lawmakers
WASHINGTON – With just under a month left in 2011, the federal budget and tax breaks top Inland Northwest lawmakers’ year-end to-do lists. Three of 12 appropriations bills are on President Barack Obama’s desk and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., remains optimistic the other nine will join them by year’s end.
Heating assistance at risk in federal bill
On a snowy day when temperatures were expected to dip into the teens, Spokane residents learned the state may lose millions in federal funding for heating assistance to southern states such as Arizona and Florida. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., spoke Saturday to seniors and low-income home heating program advocates in Spokane about a bill that would cut Washington’s heating assistance program.