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By Lauren French (
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lfrench@politico.com & @laurennfrench)

IT'S BUDGET DAY. President Barack Obama will unveil his $4 trillion budget plan this morning - teeing off what is sure to be another contentious fight between congressional Republicans and the White House over the direction of the country and the scope of the federal government. David Nather has a look at Obama's "have-it-all" proposal. The budget is "designed to convince Americans that they can have it all: more tax breaks for the middle class, more spending on government programs, and just enough cuts and tax hikes to keep the nation's deficits under control. To pay for it, Obama proposes raising a number of taxes on wealthy taxpayers or businesses - revenue measures that have already
been dismissed as nonstarters by the Republican Congress."

"The budget proposes new taxes on the wealthy, fees on big banks and taxes on companies that do business overseas - plus spending cuts on health programs and other savings - to cover the costs of all the new initiatives, senior Obama administration officials said on a conference call with reporters."
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OBAMA MAKES A PUSH FOR DHS FUNDING. Included in Obama's budget rollout day festivities will be a trip to the Department of Homeland Security to press for complete funding for the agency. The White House is in a logjam with congressional Republicans who want to see DHS defunded as a punishment for Obama's executive actions on immigration. According to a White House official, Obama will outline in a speech today the vast number of workers who would be impacted if Congress doesn't pass a budget for the agency by mid-February, including 40,000 Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Patrol officers, 50,000 TSA screeners and 40,000 Coast Guard members.
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THE MCCONNELL WAY. Manu Raju looks at how Senate Majoirty Leader Mitch McConnell is playing his cards close-to-the-vest as he enters an incredibly busy congressional period with major budget, immigration and national security concerns looming. "McConnell has set up meetings and briefings to get back-channel intelligence with the blocs of his caucus. He has instituted a weekly Wednesday meeting with committee chairmen in the Strom Thurmond Room just off the floor, where he suggested last week he may hold off on pushing new Iran sanctions until after March, senators said. He promises to invite the 12 GOP freshmen to monthly sessions in his leadership suite, which boasts grand views of the
National Mall. He's even inviting Utah Sen. Mike Lee, leader of the Senate's conservative Steering Committee and close ally of tea party firebrand Ted Cruz, to sit in on his weekly leadership meetings. To keep his caucus on the same page, McConnell sends out nightly emails to all GOP senators, including one that defended his
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refusal to let Democrats stage brief debates on their amendments to the Keystone XL oil pipeline bill before Republicans tabled them - a move that had given the Democrats a rallying cry."
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HAPPY MONDAY, FEB. 02, 2015 and welcome to The Huddle. This Huddle author is under the firm belief that the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holidays. Congrats to all you Patriots fans out there. Please send your tips, suggestions, comments, complaints, and corrections to
mailto:lfrench@politico.com
lfrench@politico.com and please follow along on Twitter at @laurennfrench.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The House will vote after 6:30 p.m. The Senate will vote at 5:30 p.m.on legislation aimed at reducing the rising rate of suicides among veterans.
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KEYSTONE VOTE LIKELY NEXT WEEK. Jake Sherman and Elana Schor report, "House Republican leadership would like to vote next week on the Senate's bill to jump-start construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would send it to President Barack Obama's desk before the Presidents Day recess, multiple senior aides say. The strategy still has to be discussed with the broader House Republican Conference, and senior aides stress that no final decision has been made. But the emerging strategy is likely to give Obama his first opportunity to veto legislation from a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill - and may push his administration to reach a verdict on the pipeline itself more quickly than
expected."
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EVEN WITH BIGGER NUMBERS, WOMEN HAVE LESS POWER. Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes for the New York Times, "The November elections brought a record number of female lawmakers to Washington. With 20 in the Senate and 84 in the House, women for the first time in history hold more than 100 seats in Congress. But the Republican takeover of the Senate has also cost women powerful committee chairmanships and presented new challenges to their wielding of power. Last year, when Democrats controlled the Senate, women led a record nine committees, including male bastions like appropriations, which dispenses billions in federal dollars, and intelligence, which oversees the government's secret national
security apparatus. Now there are only two female committee chairs: Ms. Murkowski and Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine...The reason is largely because Congress is a culture where power is tied tightly with seniority and committee chairmanships do not go to junior members. More than two-thirds of female lawmakers are Democrats, and Democratic women, who overall were elected earlier and in larger numbers than their Republican counterparts, have more longevity."
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GUESS WHAT'S BACK? BACK AGAIN.The Wall Street Journal reports on Janet Yellen's upcoming fight: the resurgence of the 'Audit the Fed' debate. "Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY), the libertarian son of Fed scourge and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, last week proposed legislation with 30 Senate sponsors that would subject Fed monetary policy decisions to reviews by the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog.With Republicans in control of the House and Senate and hostile to the Fed's post-crisis monetary policies, the idea could get a breath of new life in Congress this year, much to the chagrin of Fed officials. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala) has
suggested he's interested in the Paul bill, though it's unclear how far he is willing to take it. He is not a co-sponsor."
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DRY-LAND LAW CHALLENGED. The New York Times' Lizette Alvarez writes, "Cuban-American legislators in Washington and local officials in Florida are calling for reconsideration of a once-sacrosanct element of American foreign policy - the 1966 law that gives Cubans broader protections than any other immigrants arriving in the United States. Critics of the law, joined by the hard-line Cuban-American congressional delegation, say it is being abused by recent waves of Cuban arrivals who regularly travel back and forth between Cuba and the United States as economic, not political, refugees....Representative Carlos Curbelo, a newly elected Republican Cuban-American from Florida, said he would draft
legislation to make it more difficult for Cubans who come seeking jobs, and not protection from the Castro government, to avail themselves of the law."
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MONDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Jon Snekel was the first to correctly answer that Elizabeth Dole was the one of the previous woman Cabinet officials to share a home state with Loretta Lynch.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Who holds the record for the longest time spent out of Congress between non-consecutive terms? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email
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