Federal Government

So now Larry Craig says he won't give up his seat in the U.S. Senate. And more power to him. Mr. Craig was arrested in June at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where a police officer said the Idaho senator attempted to engage in gay sex. Mr. Craig pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge, fellow Republicans threatened an ethics investigation, and the Idaho senator pledged to resign by the end of September. Last week, Mr. Craig's lawyers appeared in court to request a withdrawal of his plea.

Capitol Hill is abuzz over allegations of vigilantism and recklessness by U.S. contractors in Iraq. But reports that Blackwater USA has operated outside the law could turn out to be a window into a much larger Bush administration scandal. Largely unnoticed over the last seven years, President Bush has increased the number of contractors working for the federal government at an unprecedented rate. And as the Blackwater debacle shows, the federal government is not equipped or prepared to exercise proper oversight over this vastly expanded, federally empowered work force.

NATIONAL President visits Ford bier President Bush, joining thousands of Americans who started the new year by saying goodbye to a former president, stopped yesterday at the U.S. Capitol after returning from his Texas ranch to pay his respects to Gerald R. Ford. pg 3a Democrats list agenda When Democrats take power on Capitol Hill this week, House leaders will kick off their legislative campaign with a lightning-fast, 100-hour agenda. But there won't be a revolution. pg 4a MARYLAND Gun licenses targeted The federal government has ratcheted up the number of licenses it has taken away from gun dealers over the past five years, according to newly obtained statistics.

It's lucrative to be within shouting distance of the nation's capital. Maryland ranked third among states in per person federal spending in the 2005 fiscal year, the U.S. Census Bureau said yesterday. That added up to $11,936 for every man, woman and child. In total, the federal government pumped nearly $67 billion into the Maryland economy, the Census Bureau said. That includes everything Uncle Sam spent here, from salaries for the 125,000 federal jobs in the state to grants for various programs.

Lest there be any doubt about the importance of federal courts, consider the role courts are now playing in prodding the federal government toward a more practical approach to energy and the environment. The most recent example came last week with a federal appeals court ruling adopting the view of Maryland, California and other states that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be considered by the federal government when regulating vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. But that was only the last in a series of decisions that have injected a healthy dose of common sense into a debate that has been wildly politicized.

THERE IS BIG TROUBLE BREWING in Washington. And I am not talking that mess involving Monica Lewinsky and President You Know Who. Nobody cares about that anymore. The public is sick of it. The Republicans could produce a videotape of the president and Monica pistol-whipping a 7-Eleven clerk and then performing an illegal act with a Slim Jim, and the public would say, "So what! Let's focus on the issues!"No, the trouble I'm talking about is the federal budget surplus. It is raging out of control.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. governors, displaying a united front on an issue critical to their state budgets, plan to urge President Clinton today to halt attempts by the federal government to claim a portion of more than $200 billion that states captured last year in a landmark legal settlement with the tobacco industry.One after another, governors who are here for a four-day conference indicated their resolve yesterday to defend their share of the tobacco settlement, even though the president has included a major chunk of that money in his proposed budget.

Stephen Bailey, chief of the family violence unit in the Baltimore County state's attorney's office, had a problem.A woman had come forward to say that the gunshot wound that left her face half-paralyzed was not an accident, as she had originally told investigators. It was an attack by her boyfriend. But the woman balked at testifying, making chances of a conviction on state assault charges iffy at best.But a review of court records revealed that at the time of the shooting, the boyfriend had been convicted on drug distribution charges.

ROCKVILLE -- Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan has demanded that the governor prove his claim that the federal government will not allow construction of the $1.1 billion Intercounty Connector.Duncan has sent a Freedom of Information Act request to Gov. Parris N. Glendening, asking for all communications between the state and federal governments about the highway, which would have linked Montgomery and Prince George's counties.In September, Glendening killed the project, saying it was environmentally destructive and would never have gotten federal approval.

WASHINGTON -- Critics of the watershed welfare law of 1996 forecast any number of problems, from starving children to dwindling benefits to Depression-era soup lines. But virtually no one imagined the strange new condition startling the experts coast to coast: States have more federal money, literally, than they know how to spend.That is because the welfare rolls have dropped dramatically while federal financing remains, by law, fixed at historic highs.Consider Wisconsin's version of the new welfare math.

No question, the job market is grim. With employers continuing to lay off workers in droves, the national unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent in April. But job seekers are finding some hiring bright spots amid the drumbeat of discouraging news. Industries such as education, health care and the federal government are adding jobs nationally and in Maryland. And there are signs that hiring activity is picking up in the Baltimore region, employers and recruiters say. Howard County General Hospital is looking to hire 220 health care professionals, including 140 medical nurses, patient care technicians, secretaries and other support staff for its new patient pavilion that's scheduled to open in August.

MOUNT VERNON, Va. - -Buoyed by a pledge of federal help from President Barack Obama, state and local leaders across the Chesapeake Bay region vowed Tuesday to accelerate their cleanup of the beleaguered estuary. But some environmentalists said the promised pollution reductions fall far short of what is needed and called for more aggressive federal action. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and other leaders called their commitments announced here on the banks of the Potomac River a "turning point" and "a new day" in the long-running struggle to bring back the Chesapeake, which has missed two previous cleanup deadlines in the past 26 years.

With the state facing a potential $1 billion-plus budget deficit and money getting tighter every day, one might think that collecting an extra $11 million from health care providers who defraud the Medicaid program wouldn't be terribly controversial. But Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposal to do just that has met surprising resistance in Annapolis this year. The Senate has a chance to set matters straight this morning, however, by approving the governor's proposal to allow the state to collect up to triple damages in Medicaid fraud cases.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and several fishing groups will file suit today accusing the federal government of shirking its legal responsibilities to clean up the troubled estuary, officials of the Annapolis-based environmental group said yesterday. The lawsuit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, contends that the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to comply with the Clean Water Act and with multiple interstate agreements the agency has signed over the past 25 years aimed at restoring the bay. The suit contends that the federal government's inaction has led to the continued decline of the bay's water quality and harmed its crabs, oysters and fish - and the people who make a living from the bay or seek to enjoy its diminished bounty.

Are we witnessing the end of capitalism? That's what you might think, based on the many voices now questioning the continued viability of the free market model that has provided our country with such abundance for well over two centuries. The strongest condemnations have concerned the unprecedented intrusiveness of the federal government's new role in the private sector and the ruinous dollar amount of the bailout package. These are legitimate concerns, but such criticisms must eventually give way to discussion about our path forward.

Economic turmoil and yesterday's unprecedented international interest-rate reductions provide the harshest reminder yet that political borders are no shield against financial avalanches. The U.S. housing crisis has become the global credit crunch. With rare coordination, central bankers from Washington to London to Frankfurt, Germany, cut rates, pumped out money and signaled a willingness to cut again. Acting separately, they were unable to stop the damage. Acting together, they hoped to wield a big enough bailing bucket to make a difference and - just as important - signal competence and agreement.

An interesting subplot in the story of Wall Street's troubles is that suddenly everybody's in favor of federal regulation. Conservative advocates of deregulation, who had never met a federal regulation that they didn't think was "intrusive," "harmful to the economy" or a "federal power grab" now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with lifelong advocates of sensible safeguards. It's been almost three decades since knee-jerk opposition to federal regulation became a staple of conservative politics.

The apparent suicide of a suspect in the 2001 anthrax mail attacks this week is spurring questions from legal observers of the 7-year-long federal investigation: Was Bruce E. Ivins' death a sign of guilt or the act of an innocent man unwilling to endure public accusations? Many suspects in high-profile federal investigations have been cleared only to suffer the lasting effects of ruined careers, health and reputations. And many believe government officials try to help their cases by deliberately leaking damaging information to the news media without official charges.

People are driving less, a lot less. That's hardly shocking given high gasoline prices and the downturn in the economy, and not entirely bad. Lowered consumption and greater fuel efficiency can only help the environment and loosen, if perhaps only slightly, the nation's dependence on foreign oil. But the trend is also disastrous for the financing of the nation's transportation infrastructure. At a time when the U.S. should be investing more in its deteriorating roads and bridges, the gasoline-tax-financed highway trust fund is oversubscribed and teetering on bankruptcy.

Frances Garth Johnson, a career federal worker, died of liver cancer June 12. She was 91 and had lived in Ellicott City since 1987. Mrs. Johnson, who worked for the federal government for decades, was born in Hazlehurst, Miss. She was the ninth of 10 children born to Ada Bird Garth and Llewelyn Branham Garth, a doctor and farmer. After high school, she decided to pursue an education and career in bookkeeping. She attended a two-year business college in Mississippi and earned a bookkeeping degree.