Politics: Afternoon Edition: Congress reaches deal on FAA shutdown

If you have difficulty viewing this newsletter, click here to view as a Web page. Click here to view in plain text. Thursday, August 4, 2011 HEADLINES Congress reaches deal on FAA shutdown Congressional leaders reached agreement Thursday on stopgap funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, ending a stalemate that cost 4,000 furloughed federal workers almost two weeks of pay and drained more than $300 million from the Treasury. » Read full article THE FIX: The most unpopular Congress. Ever. 14. That's the approval rating for Congress in the latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll. It's the lowest approval rating ever for Congress in a CNN poll and one of only three times that approval has dipped below 20 percent. » Read full article Mystery company dissolves after giving $1 million pro-Romney PAC A mysterious company gave $1 million to an independent political committee supporting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president and then quickly folded, raising questions about the donation. » Read full article What Obama can learn from Bill Clinton As Obama seeks to pick his way through the difficult political path laid out before him, he would do well to heed the example of the only other modern president who spent his 50th birthday in the White House: Bill Clinton. » Read full article POLITICAL BOOKWORM: Glenn Beck hits the books If you've been wondering where Glenn Beck is since he left FOX, he's still on the radio — and moving bigtime into publishing. » Read full article BEHIND THE GOVERNMENT SHOWDOWN Sign up for daily e-mail updates on the federal budget showdown QUOTE OF THE DAY New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addressing criticism of his appointment of a Muslim attorney to the state bench.: "This sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies. It's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background." COMMENT OF THE DAY spectator1, on Chris Cillizza's "The most unpopular Congress. Ever." story: The Congress has been gaming for the 2012 elections instead of building up a record of serving the public interest and everyone knows it. Q&A DISCUSSIONS Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments was online at 11 a.m. ET to discuss when the Pentagon gets the axe: Q: One of your recent reports detailed nearly $50 billion in research and development funds that were allocated to defense programs that did not produce a single operational unit. What confidence can American taxpayers have that if the Defense Department is again entrusted with hundreds of billions of dollars that this money will not be spent in such a questionable way? Todd Harrison: Yes, we were able to identify a dozen major programs that were cancelled over the last decade while still in development. Their funding totaled over $46 billion. The systems many of these cancelled programs were developing are still needed. If we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past decade we have to fundamentally reform the acquisition process. In my view, that means changing how requirements are approved for systems. Right now requirements get added and approved without any regard for their budget impact. That has to change. » View full Q&A session MULTIMEDIA Video: Obama jokes about turning 50 During a fundraising event in Chicago Wednesday night President Barack Obama joked about turned 50, telling the crowd he expects an email from AARP. Get The Washington Post, your way. Want to stay on top of the latest news, features, commentary and more? Here's how: Mobile: Alerts: Social Media: Applications Web site E-mail SMS RSS Feeds Facebook Twitter SEND TO A FRIEND UNSUBSCRIBE E-NEWSLETTER CENTER GET HELP Washington Post Digital E-mail Customer Care 1150 15th Street NW Washington, D.C. 20071 ©2011 The Washington Post Privacy Policy