Via a videolink from Geneva, Switzerland, Annan told the Council that the UN may be the “only remaining chance” to stabilize the Middle Eastern country. “There is a profound concern that the country could otherwise descend into full civil war, and the implications of that are quite frightening,” he said. “We cannot allow that to happen.”

There are currently 300 unarmed UN military observers in Syria as part of a UN mission to monitor a ceasefire that Annan has been attempting to broker between the government and rebel forces. Annan said that their presence has a calming effect in the nation but that the “levels of violence and abuses are unacceptable.”

The UN estimates that more than 9,000 Syrians, mostly civilans, have died since the uprising becan in March 2011.

For more information on the six-point peace plan that Annan is attempting to implement in Syria, see our earlier blog post. International Debates covered the beginning of the Syrian uprising in-depth in its September 2011 issue, Syria Crackdown, and we will continue to cover the ongoing conflict and resulting humanitarian crisis in Syria.

The day was the latest milestone in what has been a costly and protracted war marked by surges, setbacks, and some success in stemming the tide of the insurgency and reestablishing Afghan Government control. In June 2011, President Obama announced a gradual drawdown of U.S. troops with the goal of a complete handover to Afghan security forces in July 2014. For background see the May issue of International Debates, “Transition in Afghanistan.”

In the partnership agreement that Obama signed with Karzai, the United States designated Afghanistan as a “major non-NATO ally.” The United States pledged to request from the U.S. Congress annual financial support for Afghan security forces, as well as funds for economic and social assistance. In exchange, Afghanistan promised to strengthen its government accountability and transparency and protect the human rights of all its citizens.

After meeting with Karzai, the President addressed the troops at Bagram Air Force base, saying,  “… because of the sacrifices now of a decade, and a new Greatest Generation, not only were we able to blunt the Taliban momentum, not only were we able to drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but slowly and systematically we have been able to decimate the ranks of al Qaeda, and a year ago we were able to finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice.”

Afterward, in his address to the Nation, the President said that the “tide has turned” in Afghanistan but that there would be “difficult days ahead.” He also spoke of an “enduring partnership” with Afghanistan involving counter-terrorism and continued training, but stressed that the United States would not “build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling its cities and mountains. That will be the job of the Afghan people.”

He ended the speech on a hopeful note, saying, “This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end. With faith in each other and our eyes fixed on the future, let us finish the work at hand and forge a just and lasting peace.”

On his recent visits to universities, President Obama called on Congress to extend the rate cut. Although his presumptive Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, also urged lawmakers to act, the issue has since become a point of contention between the two parties. On April 27, the Republican-led House passed a bill, 215 to 195, that would continue the current interest rate for one year and pay for the extension by eliminating the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a program created under the 2010 health care reform law. The fund provides money for programs to prevent tobacco use, obesity, heart disease, and cancer.

The White House threatened to veto the House-passed bill, issuing a Statement of Administration Policy that read, in part:

“… rather than finding common ground on a way to pay for this critical policy, H.R. 4628 includes an attempt to repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund, created to help prevent disease, detect it early, and manage conditions before they become severe. Women, in particular, will benefit from this Prevention Fund, which would provide for hundreds of thousands of screenings for breast and cervical cancer. This is a politically-motivated proposal and not the serious response that the problem facing America’s college students deserves.”

In testimony before the House Education and the Workforce Committee the day before the vote, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called the prevention fund a “long overdue investment” and said that “failing to invest in long-term strategies that will lower our health care costs will doom future generations to paying higher and higher health bills and getting mediocre results.”

Representative Judy Biggert (IL-R), sponsor of the House-passed bill defended the House action, saying that the prevention program was “nothing more than an open-ended fund that has no clear oversight or purpose.” Representative John Kline (R-MN) agreed, calling it “a slush fund that is provided to the secretary to spend as she sees fit.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimated a savings of $12 billion over 10 years if the fund is repealed. Under the House bill, $6 million would pay for extending the rate cut and the rest would go toward deficit reduction.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV-D) has said that he intends to bring up a bill on May 8 that would pay for the one-year student loan rate cut extension by ending a tax break on S corporations ― companies that pass their income, losses, deductions, and credits through to shareholders for Federal tax purposes. Under the proposal, shareholders who are also employees would be subject to Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes on their dividends and shares of the company’s profits in addition to their wages.

An alternative introduced by House Democrats would pay for the extension by ending tax subsidies to oil and gas companies.

Despite the heated rhetoric, it’s likely that the two chambers will come up with a compromise to prevent what would be a politically damaging outcome for both sides in a presidential election year. In addition, the chairmen of both the House and Senate education committees have signaled that they want to use the expected one-year extension to come up with a long-term solution to the larger issue of student loan debt. For more background on this issue, see the November 2009 issue of Congressional Digest on “Federal Student Loans.”

Postmaster Patrick Donahue had proposed a series of cost-cutting measures, including eliminating Saturday and overnight delivery and closing up to 3,700 local post offices, mostly in small towns, and replacing them with automated centers operating out of local businesses. (See the February 2012 issue of Congressional Digest, “Saving the U.S. Postal Service.”) Donahue said that he had to cut $22 million in operating costs by 2016 in order to salvage the agency, but agreed to a five-month delay in implementing any closures to give lawmakers time to pass comprehensive Postal Service reform.

The Senate bill, which passed by a rare bipartisan vote of 62 to 37, would maintain Saturday delivery for the next two years and impose strict rules on how the USPS shuts down its post offices and processing centers. It would also require the USPS to continue providing local overnight first-class delivery. The measure would change the way the service pays into a retiree health benefit fund, saving more than $5 billion a year, according to USPS estimates, and return to the service $11 billion in excess payments it has made into Federal retirement accounts. That money would be used to create financial incentives for about 100,000 employees to retire or accept a buyout.

The House has yet to take up Postal Service reform, and the bill it passes is expected to be substantially different from the Senate version. Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair Darrell Issa (CA-R) has introduced a bill to require create a postal commission to oversee the shutdown of $3 billion worth of post offices and mail processing centers over the next several years. It would establish another oversight body that would take control over the USPS if the agency defaults and operates with more than a $2 million deficit for an extended period.

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a sponsor of the Senate measure, praised its passage, saying, “This great American institution, which still delivers over 560 million pieces of mail every day and helps to support 8 million jobs throughout our economy, cannot to spiral downward into bankruptcy.”

Representative Issa disagreed, saying, “While the Postal Service is actually trying to shutter some facilities it does not need, the Senate bill forces the Postal Service to keep over 100 excess postal facilities open at a cost of $900 million per year. Worst of all, the Senate bill does not stop the financial collapse of USPS, but only delays it for two years, at best, when reforms will only be more painful. The Senate’s approach is wholly unacceptable.”

Thus, the future of the USPS remains uncertain. Once the House passes its bill, the two chambers will have to negotiate a compromise, so it is likely that the bill that reaches the President’s desk will be quite different from the one backed by the Senate.

The first case dealt with how much of the reform law should survive if the Court strikes down the mandate that most Americans must buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Lawyers for the opponents of the law argued that the entire Act must be thrown out. The Obama Administration position is that the prohibition against insurers discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions, as well as insurance rate controls, would be invalidated. A Court-appointed lawyer argued a third position, that the mandate could be severed without affecting the rest of the law.

If the Court does indeed strike down the mandate and decides that at least some of the law should survive, it will be faced with the difficult task of untangling an extremely complicated piece legislation. Congress originally included the mandate in order to defray costs associated with such benefits as covering pre-existing conditions and extending parents’ health care coverage to children up to age 26. Requiring insurance companies to continue to meet these requirements would place a significant financial burden on them. In addition, there are other provisions of the law that are completely independent of the insurance mandate, such as funds for maternal care programs, research grants, and support for hospitals and clinics — many of which are already in the process of being implemented. The Court would be presented with the daunting task of determining what should and should not be eliminated — something several of the justices seemed reluctant to undertake.

The second half of the oral arguments was over the constitutionality of a provision of the law expanding the Medicaid program, which is run jointly with states to provide health care to the poor. At issue is whether Congress has exceeded its power by requiring states to go along with expansion of the program to cover people with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line or face the loss of all Federal Medicaid funds. Although the Federal government will pay for 100 percent of the expansion for the first two years, by 2020 its share would drop to 90 percent.

Such requirements by the Federal government are far from unusual. For instance, Congress often has made the receipt of highway money, educational funds, and unemployment insurance contingent on States’ meeting a variety of requirements. If the Court ruled in favor of the challengers in this case, it could represent significant shift of power from the Federal government to the States.

A transcript of the severability case is available here and an audio recording is here. For the Medicaid case, a transcript is here and an audio recording is here. Supreme Court Debates will cover the health care court challenges in depth in next the May issue.

The court has posted a typed transcript and an audio recording of today’s session.

At the center of Monday’s discussion was a 19th century law called the Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits challenges to tax laws until they take effect. The question presented was whether the penalties imposed on individuals who fail to obtain health insurance should be considered a tax and, if so, whether a challenge to the individual mandate must wait until the penalties go into effect in 2014.

That’s what the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided when it dismissed challenges to health care reform in its jurisdiction last year. And although neither the Obama Administration nor those challenging the law agreed with the circuit court’s decision, the Supreme Court decided to add the case to its docket and bring in an outside lawyer to argue in favor of a delay.

It’s difficult to divine how the Court will act solely on what takes place during oral arguments, but it seems most of the justices were inclined to decide on the merits of the case now and not opt for a two-year postponement. Although all the justices expressed interest in determining how the individual mandate fines operated and whether they were, in fact a tax or a penalty, there seemed to be little support for a delay even if the fines were held to be a tax — that, in fact, the Anti-Injunction Act, while preventing most tax-related lawsuits did not prevent them all and was not applicable in this case.

The Court has provided same-day transcripts and audio recordings of Monday’s oral arguments.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear two hours of arguments that go to the heart of the challenge to health care reform: whether the individual mandate to purchase insurance is constitutional. Congressionaldigest.com will continue to blog on the challenges to health care reform this week, and the topic will be the subject of the May 2012 issue of Supreme Court Debates.

Annan, who is currently serving as the joint special envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian Crisis, first presented his proposal during a visit to Damascus, Syria, earlier in March. It is comprised of six points:

• Syria commits to working with Annan to address the legitimate “aspirations and concerns” of the Syrian people.
• Syria stops fighting and immediate stops troop movements and the use of heavy weapons in populated areas.
• Syria implements a daily two hour humanitarian pause to allow aid deliveries and access to the wounded.
• Syria increases the “pace and scale” of release of “arbitrarily detained persons” and provides information on where detainees are being held.
• Syria ensures the freedom of movement of journalists throughout its territory.
• Syria respects its citizens’ freedom of association and their right to demonstrate peacefully.

The UN Security Council resolution is nonbinding, but supporters hope that it will increase the pressure on the Syrian government to back away from its violent attempts to suppress the rebellion in its borders, which the UN estimates has claimed the lives of more than 8,000 people, mostly civilians.

In a statement, current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moom expressed support for the Security Council’s actions: “The Secretary-General is encouraged by the clear and unified message of the Council, backing Mr. Annan’s efforts to bring an immediate end to all violence and human rights violations, secure humanitarian access, and facilitate a comprehensive political dialogue between the Syrian Government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition.”

The Security Council in February attempted to pass a resolution that would have have imposed further sanctions on Syria and called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, but the measure was blocked by permanent council members Russia and China, who feared the language could be used as justification for foreign military intervention in Syria.

International Debates covered the beginning of the Syrian uprising in-depth in its September 2011 issue, Syria Crackdown, and we will continue to cover the ongoing conflict and resulting humanitarian crisis in Syria.

On February 15, at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar noted that the President has requested $45 million for a research and development initiative by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency “aimed at understanding and minimizing potential environmental, health, and safety impacts of sale gas development and production through hydraulic fracturing.”

Secretary Salazar also defended Interior Department rules, soon to be proposed, that would toughen regulation of fracking on public lands by requiring disclosure of chemicals used in fracking fluid. At a speech in Cleveland the day before, the Secretary said that without full disclosure, “the failure of giving the American people confidence that hydraulic fracturing will in fact work will end up being the Achilles heel of the energy promise of America.”

At a February 16 hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Energy Secretary Steven Chu highlighted the $12 million Energy Department portion of the R&D initiative contained in the Administration’s budget request, which he said would be used to “understand and minimize the potential environmental health and safety impacts of natural gas development through hydraulic fracturing.”

During the hearing, Senator Lisa Murkowski (AK-R) questioned the need for the request, saying that hydraulic fracturing had already been the subject of sufficient study. The Secretary responded that the initiative is needed to help facilitate improvements in drilling technology and practice “wherever possible, so that we can actually extract this resource in an environmentally responsible way.”

H.R. 3521, the Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act, introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (WI-R) and the panel’s top Democrat, Representative Chris Van Hollen (MD-D), passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 254 to 173.

The Obama Administration, which had requested the authority, endorsed the bill in a February 6 Statement of Administration Policy, saying that it would eliminate unnecessary spending and discourage waste.

The final version passed by the House included a manager’s amendment, offered by the two sponsors, that would give the President 10 days after signing an appropriations bill to submit proposed rescissions to Congress. The House and Senate would then have three days to bring the measure to the floor for an up-or-down vote.

Following the bill’s passage, Chairman Ryan issued a statement saying that “Washington spends too much money that we don’t have on programs that can’t be justified. This bipartisan reform will help lawmakers to a better job of prioritizing hardworking taxpayers’ dollars.”

In a floor statement opposing the bill, Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (KY-R) said that the line-item veto would weaken Congress’s constitutionally bestowed power of the purse, “shifting budgetary authority to the Executive Branch and giving the President a power that our Founding Fathers did not see fit to give him.”

Congress, in fact, gave President Bill Clinton line-item veto authority when it passed the Line Item Veto Act of 1966, but the Supreme Court later ruled the Act unconstitutional. Supporters of the new bill maintain that it has been written to meet constitutional standards.

H.R. 3521 now goes to the Senate, where the outcome is uncertain because of likely opposition by Appropriations Committee members.