Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Thomas Carper (D-DE) have joined efforts in yet another bipartisan pairing, this time to enable enhanced rescission authority for the President in order to restrain spending. Last week we saw senators reach across the aisle to propose reforms for biennial budgeting and discretionary spending caps.

Budget Season Ramping Up – Football season may have ended last night, but budget season is just heating up. Lawmakers have introduced a plethora of bills in order to show voters that they are serious about addressing our fiscal problems. Expect that trend to continue, but pressure will increase for real action.

The debate over a Constitutional balanced-budget amendment has been going on in Washington for quite some time. However, the current fiscal environment and several proposals in both chambers of Congress this early in the new session mean that the idea could garner lots of attention, and votes, this year.

It's an interesting time in the fiscal policy world right now. A lot of uncertainty is up in the air about what will happen with our deficits and debt. Last week, a lot of bad news came in.

Another bipartisan group of Senators is introducing legislation to promote fiscal reform. Recently we saw Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) work together in support of biennial budgeting.

Late last week, Senators Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) introduced legislation to revamp our budgeting process from an annual to a biennial process. Sen. Isakson has introduced this legislation each year since 2005, when he first came to the Senate, and Sen. Shaheen managed biennial budgets during her time as governor of New Hampshire, which has long utilized biennial budgets. The bipartisan bill (S.

Game On – The Super Bowl in Texas won’t be until Sunday, but Washington had its own big game last week as President Obama gave his State of the Union address.

Can Dreams of Cooperation be Fulfilled? – Yesterday the nation celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His vision of unity and reconciliation will be needed as a divided Washington takes on many contentious issues, such as health care repeal and several budget-related issues.

Last night, the House Republican conference approved a new set of rules -- making some big changes to several budgetary rules currently in place. The rules package will go before the full House of Representatives this afternoon, and is expected to be easily adopted.

Happy New Year – Washington is gearing up for what will be an interesting 2011. President Obama is back to work on Tuesday from his vacation and the new Congress, featuring a Republican majority in the House, will gavel into session on Wednesday. Key dates are taking shape – the White House will release its 2012 budget request on February 14 and the stopgap measure currently funding the government expires on March 4.