This morning the Senate Rules Committee marked up the Lobby Reform Bill, aiming to make the legislative process more transparent. This afternoon there is a hearing on the same subject. A number of amendments were offered during the markup from Senators including Dodd (D-CT), Santorum (R-PA), Feinstein (D-CA), Durbin (D-IL), Inouye (D-HI), and Nelson (D-NE).

As CongressDaily reports, the legislation "leaves the one-year lobbying moratorium in place, revokes floor privileges of former senators who are now lobbyists and modifies gift rules to require senators to disclose within 15 days the acceptance of a meal or drink. On travel, the bill requires the Ethics Committee to conduct pre-clearance and post-trip reviews of privately funded member travel. It also would require disclosure for senators or staff who accepted corporate jet travel for official or campaign purposes."

An eye-opening article in today's Washington Post says that internal White House documents indicate that meeting the president's goal of cutting the deficit in half will involve a significant amount of cutting to domestic programs -- even to those supposedly "favored" by President Bush.

This years budget has several of these programs -- such as veterans health care and the National Institutes of Health -- slated for funding increases, however the stark reality is that these programs would actually be cut by the end of the decade. While the budget released by Bush to Congress only shows funding requests for domestic discretionary spending through 2007, a separate White House printout shows hidden cuts in appropriations in many education, health, and service programs that are slated to see slight increases this year. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has prepared an analysis of these hidden cuts, which can be found here. The White House document, detailing their five-year cutting plan for every non-defense discretionary program (again, this is not in the budget) can be seen here.

Washington Post: Years of Deep Cuts Needed to Meet Goal on Deficit, Data Show