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Looks like Larry Craig in a wig.

Former U.S. attorney nominee Melodee Hanes traveled abroad with Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and six other staff members twice at the end of 2008, both times as a member of the lawmaker's office. Those two trips -- to the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam -- occurred while Hanes was serving in an official capacity as the state director for the Montana Democrat, but before Baucus recommended her for an attorney position she later turned down. Joining Baucus on both stops, which featured discussions about international trade and education opportunities, were William Dauster, a staff director for the Senate Finance Committee;...

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus says the Montana Democrat was in a romantic relationship with the woman he nominated for U.S. attorney. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was already involved with his girlfriend and former staffer when he recommended her earlier this year to become the next U.S. attorney for Montana, a spokesman said. The Montana Democrat and his former state office director Melodee Hanes began their relationship in the summer of 2008, after Baucus separated from his wife, Ty Matsdorf told The Associated Press late Friday. Baucus nominated Hanes for the U.S. attorney post in...

From the Senate Republicans’ Web site: SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): “Just for a second — health care reform, whether you use a ten-year number or when you start in 2010 or start in 2014, wherever you start at, so it is still either $1 trillion or it’s $2.5 Trillion, depending on where you start…” (Sen. Baucus, Floor Remarks, 12/2/09) This is, of course, what opponents of the various Democratic bills have been pointing out all along: Starting the new taxes a few years before the benefits begin is the only way these bills get a cost estimate of “just” $1...

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus' approval rating is taking a dip following a high profile push for health care reform. A survey released Monday shows that just 44 percent approve of the job performance ... That is down from two years ago when the same Montana State University-Billings poll showed Baucus with a 64 percent approval rating. The poll also found that a vast majority support the hunting of wolves in the state — and that most oppose any effort to legalize marijuana in the state.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) says Tuesday’s Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey should be a “wake-up call” for Democrats in Congress. Here are 10 likely to be hearing alarm bells. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) No one noticed the election results more than Reid’s advisers, who know he faces a situation similar to that which befell New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Like Corzine, Reid is an unpopular incumbent running in a state whose economy is in the tank. And like Corzine, he’ll have to use his massive war chest to create a negative impression of his opponent...

Poring over the details of the 1,501-page health care bill that came out of Sen. Max Baucus' Finance Committee, it's clear that the financing is so full of smoke and mirrors that one has to wear a respirator and hard hat to get through it. But by the time one gets to the end of the bill, estimated to cost $829 billion over 10 years, clarity emerges — the Democrats plan to finance their expanded government care on the backs of America's middle-class taxpayers. Baucus and company have decided to tax what the press calls "Cadillac" health plans. Prior to...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine said Tuesday that she'd support a sweeping Senate Finance Committee bill overhauling the U.S. health-care industry, giving Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., a sought-after Republican vote on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. In highly anticipated comments on the $829 billion, 10-year bill, Snowe said the bill wasn't all she wanted. "Far from it," she told fellow senators during what is likely to be the committee's last work session on Baucus's bill. "But when history calls, history calls, and I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress...

Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) health care overhaul would cost more than $2 trillion. It would expand the deficit. But he has carefully and methodically hidden those facts – so well that he has completely hoodwinked nearly all the major media. The media are reporting that the Baucus bill would reduce the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years. Wrong. The Baucus bill assumes that Congress will allow the “sustainable growth rate” cuts in Medicare’s physician payments to occur beginning in 2012. Yet Congress has routinely and repeatedly blocked those cuts, making Baucus’s assumption preposterous. The CBO handled the issue delicately,...

How good is Sen. Max Baucus's health reform bill? So good that Democrats have made sure some of the most costly provisions don't apply to their own states. The Senate Finance Committee is gearing up for a final vote next week, and Chairman Baucus now appears to have the Democratic votes to pass his bill. Getting this far has of course meant cutting deals, and those deals, it turns out, are illuminating. The senators are all for imposing "reform" on the nation, so long as it doesn't disadvantage their constituents.

Politics: The administration stages a photo-op with handpicked doctors who support its health care reform. Fortunately, most doctors still believe that the first rule of medicine is to do no harm. It would seem some doctors still make house calls. Some 150 of them made one at the White House Monday in an attempt to give a booster shot to the administration's chaotic and stalled health care reform drive. Rather than a grass-roots uprising of physicians, this was a classic case of AstroTurfing. Attendance was by invitation only, and 40 of the 150 were said to be members of Doctors...

Most of the focus in the Obamacare debate has been on HB 3200. But Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has been trying to forge a compromise package. Instead, he has upset both sides, the Left because it has no public option and the Right because it too contains provisions that would, in the name of cost cutting, put the expensive for whom to care at great medical hazard.A Washington Times editorial points out one provision that I have been meaning to address.  It seems that physicians who spend the top 10% in caring for patients each year will see their...

Senator Max Baucus (D-MO), who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, recently asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to investigate a mailer sent by the Humana healthcare company to senior citizens that it insures claiming it misled seniors about proposed changes to Medicare. The letter Humana sent to its enrollees regards its concerns about potential cuts in the Medicare Advantage program. ... Today (Sepember 24th), Senate Republicans threatened to block Obama’s health care-related appointments if the decision is not reversed. House Republicans further called for a hearing on what they described as a politically motivated “gag order.” Democrats Gag...

Free Speech: The Senate votes against transparency as the administration silences a private insurer for exposing the president's health care proposal. Meanwhile, AARP is allowed to tout reform as it awaits payday. We weren't surprised when the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday voted 12 to 11 against allowing two weeks for the Congressional Budget Office to complete its cost analysis of the health care bill pushed by Montana Democrat Max Baucus and to put the bill online in its original wording. Instead, the Senate panel passed another amendment to require the committee to post the full bill online in "conceptual"...

"Quotable" September 24, 2009 - Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) “We’re doing this all on the fly, so it’s a little bit, makes me a little bit nervous.” — (September 23, 2009 at Senate Finance Committee hearing) Tags: baucus, health care reform, Senate Finance Committee

Here is video of Fox News' Carl Cameron reporting on tempers flaring in the Senate Finance Committee "Mark-Up" of the proposed Baucus Health Care Bill. The flare-up was between Democrat Chairman Max Baucus and Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl. Baucus accused Kyl of just "trying to delay," while Kyl was put out that Baucus kept "interrupting him in the middle of an important point." . . . (VIDEO)

In one small comment, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chairman Max Baucus confirmed what opponents of the Obamacare bill have been saying all along; the Democrats don't care about getting input from anybody outside their shrinking network of supporters, they just want to ram through Government Control of health as soon as they can. Witness this exchange from this morning:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) faced an early test of his leadership Wednesday after fellow Democrats challenged the $80 billion deal he struck with drug makers to help pay for health-care reform. Nearing the end of a 13-hour opening day of work on Baucus's bill to overhaul the nation's health-care system, several committee members pressed Tuesday night for an amendment extracting larger company rebates on medications the government purchases for low-income senior citizens. The proposal jeopardizes an agreement that Baucus and the Obama White House struck to limit the drug industry's exposure over the next 10 years to...

For liberal Democrats unhappy with the way Max Baucus is handling health care reform, here’s another dose of bad news: He’s got his hands on climate and energy, too. Behind closed doors, Sen. Baucus has been staking his claim on major aspects of the climate bill, including financing for a cap-and-trade system.

Jonathan Blum, an acting director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is apparently responsible for issuing a gag order against Humana, Inc., on Monday evening. Blum is a former staffer to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee currently in markup of their own chopped salad version of the health care bill. Baucus has taken credit in the media for demanding CMS issue the unprecedented order.  CMS also changed their mailing guidelines to include a ban on any Medicare Advantage (MA) provider sending information or placing information on their websites regarding the non-partisan Congressional...

Democratic Senator Max Baucus has gained much publicity for his supposed efforts to craft a compromise bill that both sides can support. Instead he has put together a monstrosity that no other senator on his committee, Republican or Democrat, is willing to back. This whole legislative undertaking for government healthcare has become a tortured process of trying to stuff into a small bag an enormous, complex and crucial aspect of American life and freedoms. It is not at all helpful that president Obama and others have not been truthful about what they are trying to do and what the results...

Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don't — isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax. And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement. "If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the...

Supposedly the Senate’s version of ObamaCare was written by Finance Chairman Max Baucus, but we’re beginning to wonder if the true authors were Abbott and Costello. The vaudeville logic of the plan is that Congress will tax health care to subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and regulation make more expensive. Look no further than the $40 billion "fee" that Mr. Baucus wants to impose on medical devices and diagnostic equipment. Device manufacturers would pay $4 billion a year in excise taxes, divvied up among them based on U.S. sales. This translates to an annual income tax...

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus finally unveiled his health-care plan yesterday to a chorus of bipartisan jeers. The reaction is surprising given that President Obama all but endorsed the outlines of the Baucus plan last week. But the hoots are only going to grow louder as more people read what he's actually proposing. The headline is that Mr. Baucus has dropped the unpopular "public option," but this is a political offering without much policy difference. His plan remains a public option by other means, imposing vast new national insurance regulation, huge new subsidies to pay for the higher insurance costs...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus formally unveiled a 10-year $856 billion bill that would extend health insurance to tens of millions of Americans not now covered, moving an important step forward on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. The sweeping measure is designed to steer a more moderate course on health policy than other major bills moving through Capitol Hill, and doesn't propose to create a new government insurance plan to compete with private insurers, as proposed in rival House legislation and favored by many liberals. Instead, the Montana Democrat is proposing to expand coverage by creating...

Barack Obama offered this "olive brancn" to Republicans during his health care overhaul speech to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday. After spending most of the speech deriding his opposition, Obama finally got to the subject of tort reform which the White Nouse had promised Obama would pursue to get Republicans on board.

Some breathed a sigh of relief that a new health care bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus does not include government insurance. This solace is premature. The Montana Democrat's bill proposes new regulations that would doom the private insurance industry. The lion's share of President Obama's Wednesday address to Congress pushed Mr. Baucus' plan. Because a direct government takeover of health care sparked violent public protests, the new strategy is to take smaller bites out of private care. The president still promises more service for less cost with greater government involvement, which is impossible. It takes chutzpah for Democrats to...

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants levies on insurers to pay for Obamacare and fines for families who don't sign up. To keep Obamacare alive, Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state...

Reform: The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants levies on insurers to pay for ObamaCare and fines for families who don't sign up. We can cut costs and expand coverage without sacrificing freedom.To keep ObamaCare alive, Montana Democrat Max Baucus has proposed a Rube Goldberg scheme of fees and fines on insurers and the uninsured designed to forcibly bring everyone into the loving and protective arms of the nanny state. To help finance his Plan B, Baucus would impose annual fees of $6 billion on health insurers, $4 billion on medical-device makers, $2.3 billion on drug manufacturers and $750...

A top senator is calling for fines of up to $3,800 on families who fail to get medical insurance after a health care overhaul goes into effect. The plan from Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana would make health insurance mandatory, just like auto coverage. It would provide tax credits to help cover the cost for people making up to three times the federal poverty level. That's about $66,000 for a family of four, and $32,000 for an individual. But those who still don't sign up would face hefty fines, starting at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for...

If smugness were a crime, they would put HBO "Real Time" host Bill Maher under the jail. On NBC's Aug. 24 "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," Maher expressed his frustration with President Barack Obama's inability to get health care/health insurance reformed and passed into law. "I think right now for example, this health care debate looks like it's - we could lose it because I don't think [Obama] he has been tough enough," Maher said. "You know, he used to say in the campaign, ‘It's your time.' This is his time. He should get mad, stop [expletive] around." ...more (w/video)...

Poll: Montana Dems down on Baucus By: Jonathan Martin August 21, 2009 08:14 PM EST A new poll aimed at pressuring Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) shows 55 percent of Montana Democrats disapprove of their state's longtime senator's actions on health care, while just 34 percent approve. Thirty-six percent of Democratic voters said they would likely vote against Baucus if he opposed a public plan, while just 12 percent said his opposition would make them more likely to win their support. Fifty-two percent said it would have no impact on their decision. Overall, Montanans were split, with 47 percent saying they...

Obama is about to begin his Town hall in Montana. Post your comments here. Sen. Max Baucus doing the intro now.

Here is video from yesterday where Democrat Sen. Max Baucus (Montana) said after meeting with President Obama at the White House: "It's so wonderful to hear him speak. It's like listening to a symphony. It's like it was a great meal. He's so good. . . " Notice the smirking Sen. Charles Schumer over his right shoulder. Can Democrats get any more pathetic in their Obama worship? . . . . (Watch Video)

In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels. Baucus, who is more conservative than most of the Democratic Conference, has frustrated many of his liberal colleagues by negotiating for weeks with Republicans over healthcare reform without producing a bill or even much detail about the policies he is considering. “Every two years the caucus could have a secret ballot on whether a chairman should continue, yes or no,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the...

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is the target of left wing groups who accuse him of putting insurance company interests ahead of the public's. From the Politico Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) may have brought Democrats as close as they have been in years to enacting health care reform, but grass-roots progressives consider him their No. 1 target. Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee conducted a four-day, online poll of their members, and with about 64,000 votes cast, Baucus beat seven other Democratic senators as the lawmaker whose arm is most in need of twisting over...

HELENA — As Sen. Max Baucus has taken the lead on health-reform legislation in the U.S. Senate, he's also become a leader in something else: Campaign money received from health- and insurance-industry interests. In the past six years, nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by Baucus, D-Mont., and his political-action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical-supply firms, health-service companies and other health professionals. These donations total about $3.4 million, or $1,500 a day, every day, from January 2003 through 2008. Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee that is drafting a major...

Politico has gotten ahold of a list of taxes Max Baucus supports to fund taking over healthcare. Here they are: — Broaden the 1.45-percent Medicare tax on earned income to “passive income,” which could include money from capital gains, rental properties and businesses that do not require direct participation. This could raise $100 billion. — Levy a five-percent surtax on individuals who earn more than $500,000 and couples that make $1 million. — Tax health benefits at a higher level than had been considered. Two scenarios are in play. Taxing plans worth more than $20,300 for a family and $8,300...

Top aides to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) called a last-minute, pre-emptive strike on Wednesday with a group of prominent Democratic lobbyists, warning them to advise their clients not to attend a meeting with Senate Republicans set for Thursday. Russell Sullivan, the top staffer on Finance, and Jon Selib, Baucus’ chief of staff, met with a bloc of more than 20 contract lobbyists, including several former Baucus aides. “They said, ‘Republicans are having this meeting and you need to let all of your clients know if they have someone there, that will be viewed as a hostile act,’” said...

If sharks stop swimming, they sink and drown. President Obama seems to view his health-care program the same way. "If we don't get it done this year," he said in a recent pep talk to supporters, "we're not going to get it done." Well, why? If laying "a new foundation" for 18% of the economy really is as important as the President claims it is, then surely it could withstand more than fleeting inspection. Instead, Democrats are trying to rush the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ into law with a truncated debate and as little public scrutiny as possible. At...

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Friday refused to rule out the possibility that a government-run health insurance plan will be a part of the health-care reform plan he’s crafting. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has been the leading advocate for healthcare reform in Congress, told reporters at the National Press Club that a publicly funded health insurance plan – what he calls “the public option” -- was not off limits, adding that “everything is on the table” at this point. “Some people say ‘kick the public option off the table.’ The public option’s on the table,” Baucus said....

The Senate Finance Committee’s top two members — Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Charles E. Grassley — teamed up today to introduce legislation that would provide money to help small and medium-sized charities get training and management assistance. The legislation, introduced as an amendment to a national-service bill now being debated by the Senate, would provide $25-million over five years to a “Nonprofit Capacity Building Program” within the Corporation for National and Community Service. The amendment would “strengthen small charities around our country, especially where resources are scarce,” Senator Baucus of Montana, who chairs the finance committee, told his colleagues...

EXCERPT: Buried deep in the Associated Press’ excellent analysis of the president’s economic “stimulus” program was this little gem that most of the media has chosen to ignore. Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, challenged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week. “You created a situation where you cannot be wrong,” the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Senate Democrat said Tuesday he would consider taxing U.S. workers on their employer-sponsored health insurance to help pay for extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. "I think that tax provision should be on the table," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who will play a major role in writing the legislation to revamp the U.S. healthcare system as promised by President Barack Obama. "It's too aggressive. It skews the system," he said of the tax benefit.

Add former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to the list of Obama Cabinet picks with tax problems. The Senate Finance Committee says he underpaid by $9,975 in the last three years. Senate aides uncovered the shortfall during weeks of vetting, and Kirk – the administration’s designated point person on trade -- has promised to pay the Internal Revenue Service in full. The problems: Kirk deducted too much for season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks and too much for tax preparation fees, and failed to report as income speaking fees that he donated to his alma mater, Austin College. The full political...

he New York Times reports that Democratic senator Max Baucus will unveil his nationalized health care proposal today, and (surprise!) it would require all Americans to purchase health insurance: The plan proposed by Mr. Baucus, Democrat of Montana, would eventually require everyone to have health insurance coverage, with federal subsidies for those who could not otherwise afford it. Other Democrats with deep experience in health care are also drafting proposals to expand coverage and slow the growth of health costs. These lawmakers include Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Representatives John D. Dingell of Michigan and Pete Stark of...

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee unveiled a health-care reform plan Wednesday that incorporates many of the provisions of President-elect Barack Obama’s plan, but goes one step further -- it would require everyone to eventually buy insurance coverage. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) proposes that medical insurance cover pre-existing conditions, as Obama’s plan does, and would set up an insurance exchange to help people and businesses find insurance if they need -- but don’t have -- coverage. “Americans are acutely aware of problems in the country’s health care system and they are ready for change,” Baucus said at a...

Sen. Max Baucus and his wife, Wanda, may be splitting after 25 years... Baucus, a Democrat who is running for his sixth six-year term this fall... "In 25 years of spirited marriage, it is natural for differences of opinion to arise..."

Bob Kelleher, a former Green who sued the Montana University System for excluding the Green and Libertarian candidates from a gubernatorial debate in 2004, scored an upset victory in the Montana GOP primary race for U.S. Senate. Kelleher, who still maintains his Green beliefs, will be the Republican nominee versus Democratic incumbent Max Baucus. The Montana Green Party does not currently have ballot access. The theme of Kelleher’s campaign was “no more tax cuts until hunger, health, HRDC, and job needs are satisfied and social security, Medicare and Medicaid funds are secure.” Ballot Access News reports that Kelleher apparently raised...

As Jim Gransberry reports at the Billings Gazette this morning, state Rep. Mike Lange, R-Billings, has just announced that he will challenge Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. Lange, a pipefitter from Billings, told reporters he knew he has a long, hard road ahead of him, trying to unseat a powerful incumbent. He pledged to put "America first" during his campaign and focus on freedom, security and America's working class. Lange, who has served three sessions in the House but became famous during the last legislative session (in which he was the House Minority Leader) for the tirade against the governor, will...