House will vote on Senate-passed 'cliff' bill

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republicans are dropping their demands for additional spending cuts and will hold a House vote on whether to give final congressional approval to the Senate-approved compromise averting "fiscal cliff" tax increases and spending cuts.

The House vote was expected Tuesday evening.

A decision by the Republican-run House to amend the Senate-passed bill would have complicated prospects for final congressional passage of the measure. Senate Democratic aides have said the Democratic-led Senate, which overwhelmingly approved the compromise early Tuesday, would not return to vote on an amended version of the measure.

The measure would allow tax increases on the highest-earning Americans, but retain decade-old income tax cuts for everyone else.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-01-01-Fiscal%20Cliff-House%20Vote/id-7361453b381a43c888c57ce249d1b839

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Getting the change management right to realise benefits | Project ...

Did you know that successful benefits realisation is directly related to ensuring that people use the outcomes of the projects or programs? To do that we need to ensure that people affected by the project or program know what the change entails, how it links to corporate strategy and are ready for the change.

This is where a change manager can be of great assistance. While the project manager focuses on delivering the capability, managing the budget, time, cost and quality, resources, the change manager can support the project manager in his/her role by managing the people side of the change.

What is the people side of change? The people side of change typically covers those elements that assist in the psychological and behavioural change required to use the capability delivered by the project. It typically includes planned processes that cover communication, stakeholder engagement, learning and organisational development, readiness assessments and impact analysis.

Benefits that are identified in the beginning of a project are, in the majority of cases, linked to people changing their behaviour. An example: in a project that introduces a new software solution to replace a manual record keeping process, the benefits may include time efficiencies that may lead to staff reduction and decreasing rent from freeing office space. The benefit will only be realised as people stop their manual process and move across to the new automated system, so therefore people have to change their behaviour.

Given some jobs are on the line there may be resistance from staff here so, to minimise the chance of a boycott of the new system, a change manager can work with the affected staff to troubleshoot concerns, allay fears where possible through employee support mechanisms, train them in the new system and ensure that the sponsor of the project is visible and talking up why the change is necessary and how it contributes to the goals of the organisation.

Organisations become more benefits-focused in more economically challenging times. In times where the resources for change has been reduced, businesses need to justify more than ever before why one project is more important than another. It is not just the financial cost of the project that is being assessed, but what return we get for the investment. Return on investment will only come if people use the products from the project as per the original specification. A change manager is a key resource to make this possible.

Source: http://projectmanager.com.au/managing/change/getting-change-management-right-realise-benefits/

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Video: Hillary Clinton expected to make "full recovery" (cbsnews)

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Not solved yet: GOP wants more cliff spending cuts

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va. leaves a Republican caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans began deciding their next move Tuesday after the Senate overwhelmingly approved compromise legislation negating a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies. Cantor says he opposed the Senate bill. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va. leaves a Republican caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans began deciding their next move Tuesday after the Senate overwhelmingly approved compromise legislation negating a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts to the Pentagon and other government agencies. Cantor says he opposed the Senate bill. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

House Speaker John Boehner Ohio walks to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, as legislation to negate a fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts moves to the GOP-dominated House following a bipartisan, middle-of-the-night approval in the Senate. Boehner is expected to encounter opposition from conservatives within his own party. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Vice President Joe Biden arrives for a closed-door meeting with House Democrats, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, to discuss the fiscal cliff bill passed by the Senate last night that's waiting for a vote in the Republican-controlled House. At left is Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. Biden who has been shuttling between the White House and Capitol Hill to help negotiate a legislative path to avert the across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts that could damage the economy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., center, flanked by Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-NY, left, and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, to discuss the fiscal cliff bill passed by the Senate last night that's waiting for a vote in the Republican-controlled House. The House Democrats met earlier with Vice President Joe Biden who has been shuttling between the White House and Capitol Hill to help negotiate a legislative path to avert the across-the-board tax increases and sweeping spending cuts that could damage the economy. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio leaves a Republican caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Squarely in the spotlight, House Republicans leaders shopped a Senate-approved "fiscal cliff" compromise to rank-and-file colleagues on New Year's Day and heard concerns that the accord lacked sufficient spending cuts. Vice President Joe Biden tried rallying House Democrats behind the deal in a separate meeting. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Emergency legislation to avoid the economy-threatening fiscal cliff ran into vehement New Year's Day opposition from House Republicans, casting doubt on the divided government's ability to prevent widespread tax increases and painful, across-the-board federal spending cuts.

"I do not support the bill. We are looking, though, for the best path forward," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., declared after a closed-door meeting of his party's rank and file.

While Speaker John Boehner took no public position, an attempt to add spending cuts was all but certain before the leadership called for a final House vote on the measure that cleared the Senate hours earlier in a pre-dawn vote of 89-8.

Any change in the legislation would require the Senate to re-pass the measure before it could go to President Barack Obama for his signature, and his aides met at the White House to review the bill's prospects.

There was no immediate response to the House Republicans from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., or from Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader who negotiated the final bill with Vice President Joe Biden.

It wasn't the first time that the tea party-infused House Republican majority has rebelled against the party establishment since the GOP took control of the chamber 24 months ago. But with the two-year term set to end Thursday at noon, it was likely the last. And as was true in earlier cases of a threatened default and government shutdown, the brinkmanship came on a matter of economic urgency, leaving the party open to a public backlash if tax increases do take effect on tens of millions.

Economists have warned that without action by Congress, the tax increases and spending cuts that technically took effect with the turn of the new year at midnight could send the economy into recession.

The Senate-passed bill was designed to prevent that while providing for tax increases at upper incomes, as Obama campaigned for in his successful bid for a second term.

It would also prevent an expiration of extended unemployment benefits for an estimated two million jobless, block a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients, stop a $900 pay increase for lawmakers from taking effect in March and head off a threatened spike in milk prices.

At the same time, it would stop $24 billion in spending cuts set to take effect over the next two months, although only about half of that total would be offset with spending reductions elsewhere in the budget.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the measure would add nearly $4 trillion over a decade to federal deficits, a calculation that assumed taxes would otherwise have risen on taxpayers at all income levels. There was little or no evident concern among Republicans on that point, presumably because of their belief that tax cuts pay for themselves by expanding economic growth and do not cause deficits to rise.

The relative paucity of spending cuts was a sticking point with many House Republicans. Among other items, the extension of unemployment benefits costs $30 billion, and is not offset by savings elsewhere.

"I personally hate it," said Rep. John Campbell of California. "The speaker the day after the election said we would give on taxes and we have. But we wanted spending cuts. This bill has spending increases. Are you kidding me? So we get tax increases and spending increases? Come on."

Others said unhappiness over spending outweighed fears that the financial markets will plunge on Wednesday if the fiscal cliff hasn't been averted.

"There's a concern about the markets, but there's a bigger concern, which is getting this right, which is something we haven't been very good at over the past two years," said Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio.

House Democrats met privately with Biden for their review of the measure, and the party's leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, said afterward that Boehner should permit a vote.

"That is what we expect. That is what the American people deserve," she said.

For all the struggle involved in the legislation, even its passage would merely clear the way for another round of controversy almost as soon as the new Congress convenes.

With the Treasury expected to need an expansion in borrowing authority by early spring, and funding authority for most government programs set to expire in late March, Republicans have made it clear they intend to use those events as leverage with the administration to win savings from Medicare and other government benefit programs.

McConnell said as much moments before the 2 a.m. Tuesday vote in the Senate ? two hours after the advertised "cliff" deadline.

"We've taken care of the revenue side of this debate. Now it's time to get serious about reducing Washington's out-of-control spending," he said. "That's a debate the American people want. It's the debate we'll have next. And it's a debate Republicans are ready for."

The 89-8 vote in the Senate was unexpectedly lopsided.

Despite grumbling from liberals that Obama had given way too much in the bargaining, only two Democrats opposed the measure.

Among the Republican supporters were Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, an ardent opponent of tax increases, as well as Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, elected to his seat two years ago with tea party support.

It marked the first time in two decades that Republicans willingly supported higher taxes, in this case on incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. Taxes also would rise on estates greater than $5 million in size, and on capital gains and dividend income made by the wealthy.

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Larry Margasak and Julie Pace contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-01-01-Fiscal%20Cliff/id-f82dd30aa0d741c2aa5e31502fbb0224

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Why I Miss Pork-Barrel Politics

Did John Boehner's Plan B fail because he couldn't pass out a little pork?

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

It feels like a lifetime ago, but within the past decade one of the main problems hovering over the U.S. Congress was corruption. Sometimes it was gross corruption like when the FBI found almost $100,000 in bribes stashed in the freezer of then-Rep. William Jefferson or the millions in cash accrued by ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham as bribes. But the rot sometimes went deeper. Tom Delay was convicted of money laundering not for personal gain but as part of a machine-building effort to help Republicans gain control of the Texas legislature. DeLay was also dinged for offering inappropriate inducements to secure votes from House Republicans for the Bush administration?s 2003 Medicare bill. And while the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens was ultimately overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, the sense that his career was fundamentally dedicated to pork-barrel politics is hard to escape.

In response to this wave of sleaze, the new Democratic majority elected in 2006 imposed some tough new ethics rules. When Republicans retook the House in 2010, they aimed to symbolize a clean break with DeLay-era practices by adopting a blanket ban on earmarks. And by and large it worked. Nothing?s perfect, but today?s Congress is remarkably free of corruption?whether of the formally illegal kind or just unseemly horse trading.

And that is precisely the problem. It turns out that a Congress full of highly principled men and women, fired-up by genuine idealism about America?s future, is a place where nothing gets done.

That?s not to say we should pine for a return to bribery and graft, but watching the prolonged fiscal cliff deadlock (and other Obama-era legislative battles) it was hard not to miss a little old-fashioned earmarking and pork.

Consider John Boehner?s embarrassing failure to line up sufficient House Republican support for his own Plan B legislation on the fiscal cliff. Coalition fragmentation has always been a problem for American legislative leaders, but defections normally arise from the center. Legislators holding at-risk seats sometimes feel they can?t do what the leadership wants, and wise leaders don?t expect vulnerable members to vote for everything. DeLay had a term for it: ?catch and release??only making the absolutely bare minimum of members with moderate seats take tough votes, and making sure no member who might be vulnerable in his next election needed to vote for too many leadership initiatives. But a member whose seat isn?t at risk has traditionally needed to vote with the leadership lest leaders retaliate by curtailing pet projects. Take away these pet projects, and a vital tool of legislative discipline goes missing.

Conversely, the ability to dispense a little legislative schwag is a key presidential weapon for getting things done.

One of the earliest magazine articles of my career was a hit piece on Democratic Sen. Max Baucus and his unseemly willingness to back key Bush administration initiatives such as the 2003 Medicare bill. My more mature perspective is that, alongside the bill?s main provisions, Baucus struck a pretty solid bargain for the people of Montana?securing billions in extra spending on rural hospitals as the price of his support. Flash forward to 2009, and I thought the Obama administration would pull something similar to get key Republican senators to back his health care overhaul. Surely the votes of Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe could be bought for the price of comprehensive coverage for injuries related to lobster fishing, and the location of some major new facility in Portland or Bangor. It didn?t work out that way. Instead, centrist Democrats who secured some sweetheart deals for their own states found themselves castigated for their ?Cornhusker Kickback? and ?Louisiana Purchase.?

So you get the Congress we have today: One in which leaders can neither discipline their rowdy base nor court vulnerable members with blandishments. It?s common to blame gerrymandering for this mess, but while that certainly plays a role, the Senate is hardly much better than the House in this regard. Gridlock shakes out as a pretty natural consequence of an American constitutional order that was deliberately designed to be cumbersome.

The judicious application of lard emerged over the years as a time-honored means of greasing the wheels of government. As movie-goers everywhere learned this winter, random patronage jobs played a key role in even something as high-minded as the passage of the 13^th Amendment. The old saw is that you don?t want to see the ugly process by which either legislation or sausage gets made. But sausage is delicious. And legislation, while not as tasty, is necessary. One virtue of a parliamentary system is that it can give us cleaner bills without so much muss and fuss. But within the system of government we have, the old days of back-scratching and sweetheart arrangements look a good deal better than almost no sausage at all.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=20166f9dde07cb6ff3c18f507cc12c7e

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US, Europe hope the new year brings better times

NEW YORK (AP) ? From teeming Times Square to a once-isolated Asian country celebrating its first public New Year's Eve countdown in decades, the world looked to the start of 2013 with hope for renewal after a year of economic turmoil, searing violence and natural disasters.

Fireworks, concerts and celebrations unfolded around the globe to ring in the new year and, for some, to wring out the old.

"With all the sadness in the country, we're looking for some good changes in 2013," Laura Concannon, of Hingham, Mass., said as she, her husband, Kevin, and his parents took in the scene in bustling Times Square on Monday.

A blocks-long line of bundled-up revelers with New Year's hats and sunglasses boasting "2013" formed hours before the first ball drop in decades without Dick Clark, who died in April and was to be honored with a tribute concert and his name printed on pieces of confetti.

Security in Times Square was tight, with a mass of uniformed police and plainclothes officers assigned to blend into the crowd. With police Commissioner Raymond Kelly proclaiming that Times Square would be the "safest place in the world on New Year's Eve," officers used barriers to prevent overcrowding and checkpoints to inspect vehicles, enforce a ban on alcohol and check handbags.

Syracuse University student Taylor Nanz, 18, said she and a friend had been standing in Times Square since 1:20 p.m. Monday. They hadn't moved from their spot because "if you leave, you lose your place," she said, shivering behind an iron barricade with a clear view of One Times Square, the building where the crystal ball hovered.

"It's the first time ? and the last time," she said.

Elsewhere hours earlier, lavish fireworks displays lit up skylines in Sydney, Hong Kong and Shanghai. In the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, multicolored fireworks danced early Tuesday up and down the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. In Russia, spectators filled Moscow's iconic Red Square as fireworks exploded near the Kremlin.

Organizers said about 90,000 people gathered in a large field Yangon, Myanmar, for their first chance to do what much of the world does every Dec. 31 ? watch a countdown. The reformist government that took office in 2011 in the country, long under military rule, threw its first public New Year's celebration in decades.

"We feel like we are in a different world," said Yu Thawda, a university student who went with three of her friends.

Parts of Europe held scaled-back festivities and street parties, the mood a bit restrained ? if hopeful ? for a 2013 that is projected to be a sixth straight year of recession amid Greece's worst economic crisis since World War II. About 22,000 revelers in the Madrid square celebrated the arrival of the new year under umbrellas as rain fell steadily.

London, the often soggy British capital, was dry and clear, though, as the familiar chimes of the clock inside the Big Ben tower counted down the final seconds of 2012 and a dazzling display of fireworks lit the skies above Parliament Square. People cheered as the landmarks were bathed in the light of the display, which included streamers shot out of the London Eye wheel and blazing rockets launched from the banks of the River Thames.

There were impromptu fireworks displays throughout much of London as people remembered a year that saw Olympics glory, the queen's diamond jubilee and the announcement that Prince William and the former Kate Middleton are expecting their first child ? welcome news that offset some of the economic gloom.

To the north in Scotland, 85,000 people gathered near the base of Edinburgh Castle for the wild Hogmaney celebration, helped by five soundstages featuring a number of top bands.

Elsewhere, the atmosphere of celebration was muted with concern.

Hotels, clubs and other sites in New Delhi, the Indian capital, canceled festivities after the death of a rape victim on Saturday touched off days of mourning and reflection about women's safety. In the Philippines, where many are recovering from devastation from a recent typhoon, a health official danced to South Korean rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style" video in an effort to stop revelers from setting off huge illegal firecrackers, which maim and injure hundreds of Filipinos each year.

And even in Times Square, some revelers checked their cellphones to keep up with news of lawmakers' efforts to skirt the fiscal cliff combination of expiring tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts that threatened to reverberate globally. And the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., and Superstorm Sandy mingled into the memories of 2012.

"This has been a very eventful year, on many levels," Denise Norris said as she and her husband, the Rev. Urie Norris, surveyed the crowd seeking to jam Times Square for a countdown show with Ryan Seacrest as host and musical acts including Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepsen, Neon Trees, Flo Rida and Pitbull.

About a block away, Army Sgt. Clint Evanoff waited in a black suit, red vest and red tie to get into Times Square with a couple of his friends from his unit at Fort Drum, N.Y. Evanoff, 20, is scheduled to leave for Afghanistan, his first deployment, in about two weeks.

Looking ahead to the new year, "I'm just hoping to make it back," he said.

Elsewhere, too, hopes for 2013 were a mix of personal and political. In Boston, communications writer and editor Colin O'Brien, 25, said he was optimistic that the nation had realized it was time to make tough decisions about its finances and policy and that there might be "more common ground than people are willing to admit or accept." In Harrisburg, Pa., warehouse worker Adam Gassner, 43, had more internal goals: "hoping to continue to get myself back on my feet."

___

Associated Press writers Colleen Long in New York; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pa.; Jay Lindsay in Boston; Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar; Rod McGuirk in Sydney; Silvia Hui in London; Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-europe-hope-brings-better-times-230903344.html

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BlackBerry Z10 with AT&T-compatible LTE uncovered ahead of January unveiling

During an oddly jokey statement at the White House as the fiscal deadline bore down Monday afternoon, President Obama said, "I'm going to be president for the next four years. I?hope." He was warning Republicans that, yes, they'd have to deal with him for a while. But it was, to be sure, a strange moment. Could he actually have been joking about assassination? About impeachment? The?apocalypse? Or has everyone just had enough of these negotiations??

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-z10-t-compatible-lte-uncovered-ahead-january-191000005.html

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