Repub Committee Assignments are out for next year

[TayTay]

Hmmm, let's check a select few:

Commerce Democrats

CHAIR: Inouye, Rockefeller, Kerry, Dorgan, Boxer, Nelson (Fl) Cantwell, Lautenberg, Pryor, Carper, McCaskill, Klobuchar

Commerce Republican:

Stevens, McCain, Lott, Hutchison, Snowe, Smith, Ensign, Sununu, Demint, Vitter, and Thune

Finance Democrats

CHAIR: Baucus, Rockefeller, Conrad, Bingaman, Kerry, Lincoln, Wyden, Schumer, Stabenow, Cantwell, Salazar

Finance: Republicans

Grassley, Hatch, Lott, Snowe, Kyl, Thomas, Smith, Bunning, Crapo, and Roberts

Foreign Relations: Democrats

CHAIR: Biden, Dodd, Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, Nelson (Fl) Obama, Menendez, Cardin, Casey, Webb

Foreign Relations: Republicans

Lugar, Hagel, Coleman, Corker, Sununu, Voinovich, Murkowski, Demint, Isakson, and Vitter

Small Business: Democrats

CHAIR: Kerry, Levin, Harkin, Lieberman, Landrieu, Cantwell, Bayh, Pryor, Cardin, Tester

Small Business: Republicans

Snowe, Bond, Coleman, Vitter, Dole, Thune, Corker, Enzi, and Isakson

[TayTay]

1. this and that commentary

Sen. Roberts was the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He wanted off of that one, what with all the oversight committees to come in the new (Democratic) Congress. So they handed him a plum seat on Finance. Sigh!

Look at Foreign Relations. OMG! The 'new guys' are sort of bat-shit crazy. DeMint is a real wingnut, Isakson is a non-entity and Vitter is another wingnut. Sigh! And Coleman will be doing the two-step this year because he is up for re-election in '08. This could be a really interesting committee next year.

[whometense]

2. All I can say is,

NO ALLEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:evilgrin:

[TayTay]

3. Yes! Yes! Yes!

Though DeMint is a first-class idiot. However, the big bag of beef is gone. Gone I tell you. No more Football references in SFRC meetings. Yes! Yes! Yes!

[TayTay]

4. The only other Chairmanship I am sure of is on SFRC

For Sen. Kerry. He will take over the Chairmanship of the SFRC Sub-Committee on East Asian And Pacific Affairs. This is important. The SFRC also has trade deals go through it. There are a lot of issues having to do with China and trade that are in the news. (And which kind of relate to taxes here and small business. Oooh, I love it when things double-back. See Finance Comm and SB Comm.)

Anyway, here is an article posted today at the Council on Foreign Relations. Seems to me that this sub-committee has some work to do!

On Trade, A Superpower Summit

Updated December 15, 2006
Prepared by: Carin Zissis


A high-profile delegation led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, five other cabinet members, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke applied for trade relief in Beijing this week, a stark reminder for Americans of how the world has changed. Along with the Sino-U.S. trade imbalance, talks tackled China’s undervalued currency, intellectual property rights, and American hopes of opening up (China Daily) the Chinese market to foreign investors. The first semiannual Sino-U.S. economic summit was part of the “strategic economic dialogue” launched by Presidents Bush and Hu Jintao in September. Writing in the Washington Post, Paulson called the summit a “pivotal moment for China and for our relationship with that country.” But the trip yielded few signs of concrete progress. China agreed to allow the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq open offices in Beijing, but there was no agreement on letting the yuan appreciate. "We have a point of view that there's more risk in going too slowly than there is in going too fast, and the Chinese see that differently," (Reuters) Paulson said at the summit's close. This CFR.org Backgrounder examines the major issues—trade imbalance, currency concerns, protectionism, and intellectual property—dogging the Sino-U.S. economic relationship.

More at: http://www.cfr.org/publication/12229/on_trade_a_superpower_summit.html?breadcrumb=%2F

http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2005/hrg050607p.html