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- BIDEN TALKS CONTINUE. Deficit-reduction negotiations led by Vice President Joe Biden resume Tuesday afternoon and are expected to focus on an estimated $150 billion in potential cuts that both parties see as areas of potential agreement, according to Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., a participant in the talks. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday that Republicans would not accept an increase on tax rates, which appeared to signal openness to reducing the deficit by scaling back tax deductions. But in a news conference on Monday, Kyl ruled out that course, saying he was not open to considering tax code changes in the Biden talks.
- JOINT SESSION. There may be some tension in his relationship with President Obama, but Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive a warm welcome when he delivers an address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. Netanyahu could use his time on the Hill to make his case against Obama’s plan to use Israel’s 1967 borders—with mutually agreed-upon land swaps—as the basis for negotiations with Palestinians. Netanyahu has called those borders “indefensible.” Republicans have said the proposal could hurt the stalled negotiations, and even some Democrats have voiced concerns.
- ELECTION DAY. Voters head to the polls in upstate New York today in a special election to pick their next member of Congress. The last reliable poll in the race showed Democrat Kathy Hochul leading Republican Jane Corwin by 4 points, with a third-party candidate who calls himself a tea partier snagging a significant share of both bases. Keep an eye on Erie County, House Race Hotline editor Jessica Taylor says; if Hochul can pull a big margin out of her home base, she's likely to upset conventional wisdom and steal a Republican-held seat. Corwin needs a big result out of her home in Monroe County, in the Rochester suburbs.
- PUB TO PALACE. Having explored his Irish roots, President Obama has moved on to London, where he’s staying at Buckingham Palace, site of a glittery state dinner Tuesday night. Philip Barton, the second-ranking diplomat at the British Embassy in Washington, said the day will offer something for “those of you who got up in your pajamas” to watch the royal wedding. “Soldiers on horses and cannons going off and all of that,” he promised. “But,” he quickly added, “there is also going to be a significant amount of substance” when Obama is not supping with the queen.
- THE DEBT LIMIT WILL BE RAISED. That's the unanimous (though perhaps unsurprising) conclusion of National Journal's Economic Insiders, a group of economic policy experts. The majority of the roughly three dozen respondents concurred on another point too: Like a college term paper, it will only be done at the last possible minute. Three-quarters of the Insiders put the date at within a week of the Treasury Department's current August 2 deadline for default.
- WARREN AMBITION. House Republicans intend to put Elizabeth Warren, the unofficial head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on the hot seat in yet another hearing questioning the agency's power Tuesday. Warren's attitude is "bring it on." In her prepared testimony, she says criticisms that there are no constraints on the agency are false. "I have been told that if you say anything in Washington often enough, it is eventually treated as fact -- regardless of whether it is true or false," she wrote. "While making baseless claims might be shrewd tactics for those who want to undermine the bureau's work, they are flatly wrong."
- MAJORITY FOR REFORM. Public opinion on the year-old health care law could finally be shifting in President Obama’s favor. An Associated Press/GfK Poll shows that 54 percent of Americans generally approve of the way Obama is handling health care. That compares to 46 percent who generally disapprove, according to the telephone survey of 1,001 adults (the margin of error is +/- 4.2 percentage points). Overall, 60 percent said they approve of how the president is handling his job, compared to 39 percent who do not.
- WINDING DOWN. With a little over a month to go before he leaves the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will make one of his last policy speeches on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. The event is titled “America in the World” and will likely focus on the challenges the military faces now and in the future. During a commencement address at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday, Gates called hard power the “ultimate guarantee against the success of aggressors, dictators, and terrorists.”
- 9. KEYSTONE OIL. If America doesn’t import Canada’s vast reserves of oil sands through a controversial pipeline project pending before the Obama administration, the oil would likely go to serve Asia’s exploding energy market, according to a new congressional report, testimony at a House hearing Monday, and a top Canadian official. The findings could blunt the argument put forth by environmentalists that President Obama should not approve the project because of the environmental and climate-change concerns associated with Canada’s oil sands, a dirtier type of oil the pipeline would transport.
- GET OUT! With the House set to consider the Defense authorization bill this week, Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, say they will offer an amendment designed to end the war in Afghanistan. Its language would require the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops, authorizing the continued presence of only those forces directly involved in counterterrorism. The secretary of Defense would be required to submit a withdrawal plan to Congress within 60 days of enactment.
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