by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important, most interesting, or both Washington-related stories.
Congress averted a tax hike on 21 million middle-class taxpayers who had faced being hit by the controversial alternative minimum tax by passing a one-year fix.
The Environmental Protection Agency said California and 16 other states can’t enforce their own automobile carbon dioxide emissions standards, saying they were pre-empted by federal rules and made irrelevant by the enactment of new energy legislation.
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The first Democratic-controlled Congress in a dozen years had some major achievements, including a landmark energy bill and a minimum-wage increase during its first year. But because it failed to significantly rein in President Bush on the Iraq War, the issue which brought the Democrats to power, and was blocked by the president in other ways, there’s a lot of unhappiness among Democrats and voters.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that the Republican race for president is as unsettled as ever, with Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney essentially tied, a blow to the former New York City mayor who once held a large lead. Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton maintains her large lead in national polls though she’s in tight three-way races in Iowa and New Hampshire with Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards.
The fertility rate in the U.S. reached its highest level since 1971, reaching the for the first time in decades what is called the replacement rate, the level needed for a generation to replace itself.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey greatly limited the number of White House officials who can directly contact his agency, changing a policy that had existed under his predecessors and which had created suspicions that his agency was making some enforcement decisions for political reasons.