Benjamin Cardin

Cardin On Debt Ceiling Deal: Disappointed On Revenues, But 'Priorities Have Been Protected'

Ryan J. Reilly | July 31, 2011, 8:56PM

Sen. Ben Card (D-MD)

TPM caught up with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) just after Senate leaders announced a deal to raise the debt ceiling limit.

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Medicare

Senate Dems Call On GOP To Abandon Ryan Medicare Plan

Susan Crabtree | June 6, 2011, 1:28PM

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

With Republicans on the ropes when it comes to defending their proposal to privatize Medicare, a group of Senate Democrats is hoping to deliver a body blow to GOP plans to push for the proposal in talks about reducing the nation's spiraling debt.

Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) on Monday called for Republicans to take Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) plan for Medicare off the table in ongoing bipartisan deficit-reduction talks.

"We owe it to our children and our grandchildren to pay down the debt but not at the expense of our seniors' healthcare," Brown told reporters on a conference call. "Ending Medicare as we know it should not be part of our debt-reduction negotiations."

Ryan's Medicare proposal has sparked a backlash with the public and has been roundly panned in national polls. Some Republicans are already distancing themselves from the plan, but GOP leaders and most of the party's presidential contenders remaining strongly committed to it.

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Abortion

Key Dem Senators Say Stupak Abortion Amendment Goes Too Far

Brian Beutler | November 10, 2009, 12:54PM

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)

A number of high-profile senators have come forward today to say that a controversial amendment to House health care legislation that would limit a woman's right to purchase insurance that covers abortions goes too far and should not be a part of the Senate.

At a Capitol Hill event this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid implied that the Stupak amendment exceeds the strictures of the years-old Hyde amendment which prohibits federal funds from financing abortions. "I expect that the bill that will be brought to the floor will ensure..no federal contribution to abortion, and that [the] rights of providers, health care facilities like Catholic hospitals, are protected," Reid said. "The one thing that we're certain to do is to maintain what we have had in the past. I had the good fortune, as did Senator Durbin to serve with Henry Hyde, the Hyde amendment has been a pretty good way to go through this last couple of decades."

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was more explicit. At a health care event this morning, Cardin said, "The right policy is to avoid coming down on one side or the other on the abortion issue and to handle health care reform as a separate issue."

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