History > 2007 > USA > Politics > Congress > Senate (III)

Senate passes gun bill

in response to rampage

Wed Dec 19, 2007
8:21pm EST
Reuters
By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress, prodded by the deadliest shooting rampage in modern American history, passed legislation on Wednesday to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

Without objection, the Senate and House of Representatives approved the measure, which would bolster background checks for gun buyers, and sent it to President George W. Bush to sign.

The measure would be the first major new U.S. gun-control law since 1994. It was drafted after a gunman with a history of mental illness killed himself and 32 others in April at Virginia Tech university.

The product of months of talks, the bill was finally agreed to as lawmakers prepared to wrap up their work for the year and head home for the holidays.

"Together, we have crafted a bill that will prevent gun violence, but maintain the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens" to bear arms, said Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, a chief sponsor of the bill.

McCarthy was elected to Congress in 1996, three years after her husband was killed and son injured when a gunman opened fire on a commuter train.

The 4 million-member National Rifle Association, a powerful U.S. pro-gun lobbying group that has helped stop numerous gun-control bills, backed this one.

"Everybody on both the sides of the issue of firearms' ownership joined together," said Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, a former NRA board member and another chief sponsor of the bill.

"Both sides recognize this as a very sensible and proper way to see to it that the law is enforced and people are protected," Dingell told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Americans are among the world's most heavily armed people, and the country has one of the world's highest murder rates.

There are an estimated 250 million privately owned guns in the United States, which has a population of about 300 million. About 30,000 people a year die from gun wounds.

UPDATING DATABASE

The 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits anyone found by a court to be "a mental defective" from possessing a gun. It also bars felons, fugitives, drug addicts and wife beaters.

But because of state privacy laws and fiscal restraints, most states have failed to fully report such records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Congress has long been reluctant to tackle the politically explosive issue of gun control. But it did so after it was disclosed that the Virginia Tech gunman had once been deemed by a judge to be dangerous and the information never reached a background check system for gun buyers.

The legislation would provide financial incentives for states to provide mental health and criminal records to a database used for federal background checks on gun buyers.

The House initially passed such a bill in June. But the Senate refused to go along with it until changes were made. One would require the government to pay legal fees if a person who claims to have been wrongly listed in the background system wins an appeal.

The bill would also allow those found to no longer be mentally ill and a threat to be removed from the list.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said: "Nothing can bring back the lives tragically lost at Virginia Tech, and no legislation can be a panacea, but the bill we pass today will begin to repair and restore our faith in the NICS system and may help prevent similar tragedies in the future."

(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)

    Senate passes gun bill in response to rampage, R, 19.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1962838820071220

Senate Adds $70 Billion for Wars in Spending Bill

December 19, 2007
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Tuesday night to approve a sweeping year-end budget package after adding $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the objections of Democrats who have been stymied all year in their efforts to change the course of the conflict in Iraq.

By an overwhelming 70-to-25 vote, senators moved to provide the money sought by President Bush after the defeat of two Democratic-led efforts to tie the money to troop withdrawals.

“We have come to a very successful conclusion of this year’s Congress,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who pushed for the added war financing.

The $555 billion budget plan, which finances all federal agencies except the Pentagon, passed 76 to 17 despite some Republican complaints about excessive spending. It goes back to the House for a final vote, expected Wednesday, on the war money.

If the measure clears the House, Mr. Bush has indicated he will sign the spending bill, which will end his standoff with the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Democratic leaders conceded they were not happy with having to accept the war money and hew to the president’s limit on spending. But they noted they were able to steer money to their priorities, win some spending against White House wishes, and complete all the spending bills, which they saw as a victory in itself.

“You usually recognize that you have something that’s O.K. when both negotiators are unhappy with what they’ve gotten,” said Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader.

In addition to the budget bill, lawmakers sought to dispose of a few other issues as the Congressional year drew to a close.

The Senate again refused to pay the $50 billion costs of freezing the alternative minimum income tax for 2007 taxes, providing the House with a take-it-or-leave-it proposition of either joining the Senate or allowing the tax to hit millions of middle-income workers. House Democratic leaders have called for the temporary relief to be offset by closing tax loopholes elsewhere, but Republicans have objected. The House will take up the issue Wednesday.

The Senate approved a plan to temporarily block a planned cut in Medicare payments to doctors and maintain a children’s health insurance program that has been the subject of a policy fight for months. House approval was expected as soon as Wednesday.

Congress sent the president a bill intended to strengthen the federal Freedom of Information Act. The bill would put more teeth in the requirement that agencies respond within 20 days to information requests and directs agencies to establish systems to allow those seeking information to check on their requests via the Internet.

The war debate, which captured the divisions that have defined Congress all year, was part of a choreographed exercise intended to meet Mr. Bush’s demand for more war financing while sparing antiwar Democrats from having to back the money to secure approval of the budget bill.

Two withdrawal plans were defeated. One requiring that most troops be redeployed in nine months was rejected, 71 to 24. A second, less-binding plan calling for the transition of combat troops to more limited missions by the end of next year was defeated, 50 to 45; it required 60 votes for approval.

Mr. Bush had previously threatened to veto the overall spending measure if it did not include what he considered enough money for Iraq and Afghanistan, a result that could have caused a shutdown of federal agencies or forced federal agencies to operate at this year’s spending level.

Mr. McConnell called for the $70 billion to be devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that troops were making progress there and that any uncertainty about the financing needed to be eliminated.

“Even those of us who have disagreed on this war have always agreed on one thing: troops in the field will not be left without the resources they need,” he said.

But Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said the Iraqi government has not been taking advantage of a lessening of violence to reach a political settlement. He said it was time for the United States to begin an orderly withdrawal immediately of the 160,000 troops expected to remain in Iraq into next year.

“What are we supposed to tell them and their families?” Mr. Feingold asked. “To wait another year until a new administration and a new Congress starts listening to the American people and brings this tragedy to a close?”

The overall spending bill encountered opposition from conservative Senate Republicans who were unhappy with the more than 8,000 home-state projects inserted into the legislation by lawmakers and the rush to passage.

“As we approach the end of the year, Congress once again finds itself on a last-minute spending spree, approving billions of dollars of new spending with few questions asked, no amendments allowed and little debate, discussion or inspection permitted,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma.

But his colleagues defended the bill and said it fell within the spending limits set by the president and had been stripped of many of the Democratic policy provisions on abortion, construction wages and domestic partnerships opposed by the administration. They said approving the bills was superior to what occurred last year, when the Republican-led spending process collapsed.

“Last year, we had a large appropriations train wreck,” said Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the senior Republican on the spending committee. “But we’ve brought together a bill this year, despite new rules, hard negotiations and renegotiations.”

If Congress does not act on the health care bill approved by the Senate, Medicare payments to doctors would be cut 10 percent on Jan. 1. Instead, under the deal reached Tuesday, payments to doctors will be increased by one-half of 1 percent from January through June 2008. Lawmakers said they would revisit the issue next spring.

Dr. Edward L. Langston, chairman of the American Medical Association, said, “We are disappointed that the Senate could only agree on a six-month action because it creates great uncertainty for Medicare patients and physicians.”

Mr. Bush has twice vetoed bills to expand the child health program. With no agreement in sight, Congressional leaders decided to continue current policy through March 2009. Without such action, 21 states would have exhausted their allotments of federal money next year.

The public records bill sent to the White House would create clearer penalties for agencies that fail to meet deadlines and set stricter requirements for reporting to the Justice Department and Congress cases in which federal agencies are found to have acted “arbitrarily or capriciously” in rejecting requests.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, a leading sponsor of the bill, said it would provide much-needed improvements.

David M. Herszenhorn and Robert Pear contributed reporting.

    Senate Adds $70 Billion for Wars in Spending Bill, NYT, 19.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/washington/19spend.html?hp

Senate Votes to Help Strapped Homeowners

December 15, 2007
Filed at 3:26 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate moved against the worsening mortgage crisis Friday, voting to make it easier for thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into federally insured loans.

The legislation, approved 93-1, would allow the Federal Housing Administration to back refinanced loans for borrowers who are delinquent on payments because their mortgages are resetting to sharply higher rates from low initial ''teaser'' levels.

The bill also tries to make FHA loans more attractive than risky subprime loans by accepting lower down payments and expanding the eligibility for counseling for homeowners having difficult with their mortgage payments.

An estimated 2 million to 2.5 million adjustable-rate mortgages are scheduled to reset in the next year, jumping to much steeper rates that could cost borrowers their homes. The wave could crest during the presidential and congressional election campaigns next year, and politicians have been wrestling with what the government's response should be.

The Senate's proposed changes are especially important now, given the credit crisis that has made it much more difficult and more expensive for people to refinance or get financing to buy a home. Private lenders have been reluctant to make new loans.

Allowing the federal government to insure more and bigger loans should help provide some relief and ease the credit crunch.

The Senate's plan would give homeowners ''the option of refinancing to an FHA-backed loan with the peace of mind that comes with it,'' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ''And for future homebuyers, a fully backed FHA loan with honest, upfront terms, will help prevent crises like we now face.''

Modernizing the FHA is Congress' first attempt at stand-alone legislation to ease the subprime mortgage mess. The House passed a bill similar to the Senate's back in September, but a final measure probably won't be ready for President Bush's signature until next year.

Meanwhile, the White House last week announced it had negotiated an agreement with mortgage companies to freeze interest rates for certain subprime mortgages for five years.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the Senate bill ''would give FHA some of the additional flexibility it needs to provide more families with a safe, affordable mortgage financing option.'' She said, however, that the president still has some concerns about the bill.

The Senate bill raises the maximum mortgage the FHA can insure in high-cost areas like California and the Northeast from $362,790 to $417,000 -- the same level as loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The House would raise the maximum mortgage to $729,750 in high-cost areas, with the higher limit a point of contention between the House, Senate and the White House.

The Senate bill would also lower the FHA down payment requirement from 3 percent to 1.5 percent, depending on an assortment of factors, and make it easier for FHA loans to be used to buy condos.

''It is good before the Christmas season we have made a down payment on the solution to this problem,'' said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla.

The legislation will help the FHA ''be a source of salvation for those families who were tricked into unaffordable loans,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

The only senator to vote against the bill was Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

''With the mortgage market already in turmoil as a result of too many mortgages being made available to those who cannot afford them, now is not the time to relax standards even further and make taxpayers liable if borrowers default,'' Kyl spokesman Ryan Patmintra said.

Many homeowners have been looking for help from the government this year. Of the nearly 3 million subprime adjustable-rate loans surveyed by the Mortgage Bankers Association in the third quarter, a record 18.81 percent of them were past due. A record 4.72 percent of the loans entered into the foreclosure process during that period.

Modernizing the FHA ''will have an immediate impact helping some distressed borrowers who are having trouble paying their current mortgages avoid foreclosure,'' said David G. Kittle, the association's chairman-elect.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate's changes would result in an 8 percent increase in FHA loans -- $4 billion annually in additional loan guarantees -- over the next five years.

The agency, which has provided mortgage insurance since 1934, currently insures 3.7 million mortgages.

The FHA has been pushing Congress for years for the ability to guarantee more loans, saying the size of mortgages the government agency can back is often too small to attract borrowers in expensive areas. As a result, FHA's share of the single-family mortgage market has dropped to about 4 percent, down from 19 percent more than 10 years ago.

But most of the increase would not come from people in high-cost areas, the CBO said, but in the less expensive housing markets, where maximum mortgages would be going up from $200,160 to $271,050.

The Senate also passed legislation that would allow homeowners to receive mortgage forgiveness from their lender tax free. That's when a lender allows a homeowner not to pay a portion of their mortgage.

The IRS currently taxes any loan forgiveness as income. The tax forgiveness is available on mortgage indebtedness of up to $1 million.

------

On the Net:

The bill number is S.2338.

For bill text: http://thomas.loc.gov

Federal Housing Administration: http://www.fha.gov/

Senate: http://www.senate.gov 

    Senate Votes to Help Strapped Homeowners, NYT, 15.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Mortgage-Crisis.html

Congress Turns Back Bush’s Veto

in a Test of Power

November 9, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — The Senate dealt President Bush the first veto override of his presidency on Thursday, with a resounding bipartisan vote to adopt a $23.2 billion water resources bill that authorizes popular projects across the country.

The vote of 79 to 14 sent a clear signal that the Democrats in control of Congress plan to test the power of the White House on other fronts, and it gave Republicans a chance to show distance from an unpopular president heading into a tough election year.

“We have said today, as a Congress to this president, you can’t just keep rolling over us like this,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who led the charge on the water bill as chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

“You can’t make everything a fight because we’ll see it through,” Ms. Boxer added. “And that’s a big deal. It isn’t easy for members of the other side to stand up to a president in their own party. I know. I know what that’s like. It’s hard.”

Thirty-four of the Senate’s 49 Republicans voted to override.

If the Democrats have their way, Republicans will most likely find themselves in similarly difficult positions in the next few weeks as Congress looks to go toe to toe with the administration on a series of budget bills, most of which Mr. Bush has threatened to veto.

Lawmakers will also face decisions on a White House request for more money for the Iraq war; a continuing battle over children’s health insurance; the farm bill, which Mr. Bush has said he will veto; and a proposed change to the alternative minimum tax.

On the Iraq war, the Democrats prepared to offer the administration $50 billion but with strings attached, including a goal to withdraw troops by December 2008. Republicans quickly accused them of threatening to cut off money needed to support American troops.

“This bill is déjà vu all over again,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip in the House. “The last time Democrats tried to tie funding for our troops to a date for surrender, they failed. And that was before the marked turnaround we’ve witnessed on the ground over the past several months.”

Meanwhile, the House on Thursday approved a $471 billion military spending bill, which omitted the president’s request for $196 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, except for $12 billion specifically for vehicles that would protect soldiers from roadside bombs.

The bill would provide a 9 percent budget increase, or $40 billion, for the Pentagon. If the Senate, as expected, also approves, it could be the first spending bill this year signed by Mr. Bush.

But with the override on the water bill providing a huge morale boost for the Democrats, they began to draw some of the battle lines more clearly, accusing Mr. Bush of being too focused on the Iraq war and portraying themselves as more committed to domestic needs.

“The Congress disagrees with the president on priorities,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland. “This override is a clear indication that the Congress, by an overwhelming vote, believes that we need to invest in our own country, here, that we have to invest for our future.”

The water bill authorizes popular projects in states across the country, including hurricane recovery efforts in Louisiana, environmental restoration in the Florida Everglades and flood control in California. But it does not actually appropriate money for the projects, which must be done in spending bills.

And it is on the spending front that the clash between Congressional Democrats and the White House will continue through the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the Senate approved a $151 billion spending bill for labor, health and education, a measure that Mr. Bush has said he will veto, after Senate Republicans succeeded in separating it from a $64 billion spending bill for military construction and veterans affairs that the president would probably sign.

The House approved the labor and health spending bill Thursday night, sending it to the White House for a near-certain veto. In both chambers, however, the Democrats were unable to muster the two-thirds majority needed for an override on the bill .

Mr. Bush did not publicly respond to the override of the water bill, but after a tour of a new treatment center for wounded veterans at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he chastised Democratic leaders for linking the spending bill for veterans affairs to the larger labor-health bill.

“Now look, there’s obviously some disagreements between me and the Congress,” Mr. Bush said. “But there’s no disagreement over the amount of money we’re going to spend for veterans. And they need to get the bill — to do their job. They need to get the bill to the desk of the president as a stand-alone piece of legislation, so the veterans of this country understand that we’re going to support them.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in praising the Senate’s override on the water bill, accused the administration of mishandling the federal budget.

“Our commitment to real fiscal responsibility — no new deficit spending — contrasts sharply with the trillions of dollars in record deficits accumulated by the Bush administration,” said Ms. Pelosi, a California Democrat. “We are hopeful that the president will reconsider his chronic use of the veto to block the priorities of the American people, from water resources to ending the war in Iraq to providing health care for 10 million children.”

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said the administration was not surprised by the override.

“We understand that members of Congress are going to support the projects in their districts,” he said. “But budgeting is about making choices and defining priorities — it doesn’t mean you can have everything. This bill doesn’t make the difficult choices; it says we can fund every idea out there. That’s not a responsible way to budget.”

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from San Antonio, and Carl Hulse from Washington.

    Congress Turns Back Bush’s Veto in a Test of Power, NYT, 9.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/us/09spend.html

In First Bush Veto Override,

Senate Enacts Water Bill

November 8, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a popular $23 billion water projects measure affecting locales across the country, thereby handing President Bush his first defeat in a veto showdown with Congress.

The vote was 79 to 14, far more than the two-thirds needed to override the veto that President Bush cast last Friday. Only 12 Republicans voted against the measure, and just two Democrats, Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

On Tuesday, the House voted by 361 to 54 in favor of the bill, also well over the two-thirds barrier to nullify the veto.

Enactment of the water projects measure had been widely expected, despite the veto, given the importance of the bill to individual districts and, of course, the lawmakers that represent them. The measure embraces huge endeavors like restoration of the Florida Everglades and relief to hurricane-stricken communities along the Gulf Coast and smaller ones like sewage-treatment plants, dams and beach protection that are important to smaller constituencies.

The bill authorizes the projects but does not appropriate the money for them. Appropriation of funds will have to be taken care of in subsequent legislation.

The veto of the water bill was the fifth cast by Mr. Bush, and the first to be overridden by Congress. The president and some Republicans had complained that the bill was wasteful. Some critics said the measure did not do enough to reform the Army Corps of Engineers, which would handle much of the work, and was larded with political pork.

But, as the comments of lawmakers made clear today, pork is in the eye of the beholder.

The bill “is one of the few areas where we actually do something constructive,” Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip, told The Associated Press. He said the bill contains “good, deserved, justified projects.”

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, also argued in favor of overriding the veto. “This bill is enormously important, and it has been a long time coming,” Mr. Vitter said.

Mr. Lott and Mr. Vitter side with President Bush far more often than they oppose him. But both senators represent areas that were hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, and their votes to override Mr. Bush’s veto underscored the adage that politics is basically local, or at least regional.

Then, too, the bill was the first water-projects measure in several years, so there was plenty of pent-up demand for money in locales from coast to coast.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said the veto override “sends an unmistakable message that Democrats both will continue to strengthen our environment and economy and will refuse to allow President Bush to block America’s real priorities for partisan reasons.”

“The Water Resources Development Act provides authority for essential new navigation projects and funds programs to combat flood and coastal-storm damage, restore ecosystems, and projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region,” Mr. Reid said.

Mr. Bush previously vetoed a stem cell-research bill (twice), an Iraq spending bill that set guidelines for withdrawing troops and, most recently, a children’s health insurance bill.

Senator Feingold said he was disappointed at the lost opportunity to fix “this flawed, bloated bill.” He noted that there is already a huge backlog of projects that have been authorized but for which money has not yet been appropriated.

The Associated General Contractors of America lobbied hard for passage of the bill. “This week’s veto override means that this nation will finally have the opportunity for new investments in improved flood control, increasing navigation capacity and ecosystem restoration,” Stephen E. Sandherr, the organization’s chief executive, said after the Senate vote.

    In First Bush Veto Override, Senate Enacts Water Bill, NYT, 8.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08cnd-spend.html

Expecting Presidential Veto,

Senate Passes Child Health Measure

November 2, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — Talks seeking a bipartisan compromise on health insurance for low-income children were cut short on Thursday, and the Senate then swiftly passed a bill to provide coverage for 10 million youngsters, fully expecting President Bush to veto it.

The 64-to-30 vote, coming one week after the House approved the same bill, moves the legislation to Mr. Bush’s desk. The bill differs slightly from one vetoed on Oct. 3, but it faces the same fate.

On Thursday, Senate Republican leaders objected to Democratic requests to allow more time for the bipartisan negotiations seeking a compromise. The purpose of the talks was to win over enough House Republicans to override the veto promised by the president.

In an interview, Representative Judy Biggert, Republican of Illinois, said, “The talks were making really good progress.” But, she said, “everything changed” after the top two Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trent Lott of Mississippi, “objected to postponing a Senate vote” on the bill.

Seventeen Republican senators voted for the bill, but Mr. McConnell and Mr. Lott voted against it. Mr. Lott said the bill did not focus enough on “poor kids.”

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said, “Republicans have now twice asked for more time on the children’s health bill and have twice objected when we granted their request.”

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, said that opponents of the child health program “have succeeded in stopping us today.” But he said he hoped that “we will reach an agreement soon.”

Mr. McConnell said he too was optimistic that “we will be able to get this worked out,” if more Republicans were included in the negotiations.

Mr. Reid said Congress should not rush forward and try to override the veto this time. “We should let things simmer for a while,” to give supporters of the bill more time to strike a deal, he said.

If no agreement is reached, Congressional Democrats said, they might continue the State Children’s Health Insurance Program in its current form until September or October. Then they would hold another vote on the issue, to embarrass Republicans just before the 2008 presidential and Congressional elections when health care in general and the future of the child health program are expected to loom as major issues.

But health officials in some states, including California and New Jersey, said they could run out of money before then. Liberal groups and labor unions said Thursday that they would run $700,000 worth of new television commercials attacking Republicans who voted against the child health bill.

One advertisement, produced by Americans United for Change, asks: “What if your daughter didn’t have health coverage, senator? What if you had to work two jobs to make ends meet, but still couldn’t afford insurance? Would you still back George Bush’s vetoes?”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said the White House seemed to be “moving the goal posts,” raising new objections as soon as Congress tried to address each of the president’s concerns.

Some Republicans were concerned about the overall cost of the legislation. Others complained that the bill would allow coverage of adults, illegal immigrants and high-income families in some states.

The new legislation, like the original bill, would preserve coverage for 6.6 million children and add nearly 4 million to the rolls. The bill would add $35 billion to the program, providing a total of $60 billion over five years. The additional money would come from higher tobacco taxes, including a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax, to $1 a pack.

President Bush objects to the proposed increase in tobacco taxes, but Congress is not considering any other way to pay for the bill.

The tax increase is not an issue in the negotiations and has apparently been accepted by House Republicans participating in the bipartisan talks. “Nobody is talking about taking cigarette taxes off the table,” Mr. Baucus said.

Indeed, Democrats boast that the bill will not add a dollar to the deficit because the cost would be completely covered by tobacco taxes.

Expecting Presidential Veto, Senate Passes Child Health Measure, NYT, 2.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/washington/02health.html