By Louise Radnofsky

Washington Wire loves presidential proclamations, in which the commander-in-chief “by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States” declares a given time for a national celebration of causes often obscure or vague.

This Friday, we note the just-passed National Entrepreneurship Week and America Recycles Day, and look forward to National Farm-City Week, National Family Week and National Child’s Day.

Before the “NOW, THEREFORE…” the White House sometimes slips in a partisan message — or two. In case you missed it, here is today’s plug for the economic stimulus package and the health care overhaul bill in the proclamation for National Family Week:

“My Administration is committed to helping American families meet the demands of modern life, increase their self-sufficiency, and achieve their full potential… the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides a broad spectrum of support to families experiencing difficult times. It boosts child care and Head Start programs, essential not only to a child’s future but also a parent’s peace of mind in the workplace. Health care reform will provide security and stability for American families with insurance and affordable options for uninsured Americans.”

Of course, as we’ve noted before, sneaking a timely message into a historic proclamation certainly isn’t a quirk peculiar to the Obama administration. The Bush administration’s National Family Week proclamation last year included a reference to “our deeply held commitment to supporting America’s families by signing laws that respect the sanctity of life, lower taxes, double the child tax credit, reduce the marriage penalty, and empower parents to make choices about their children’s education.”

By Peter Landers

The clock is ticking up to the Senate’s vote scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday on whether to proceed to debate on the health-care bill.

The all-important number is 60. That’s how many votes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to overcome Republican delaying tactics. With 58 Democrats and two independents in the chamber, he is considered likely to clear the bar, but we won’t know for sure until the votes are counted.

One of the last Democratic fence-sitters, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, confirmed Friday he’d vote for the motion to proceed. Nelson said he hasn’t decided whether to support the final bill.

Other points to watch for:

–How will the other wavering Democrats characterize their votes? Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Sen. Blanche Lincoln are the senators who have needed the most wooing from Democratic leaders.

–Will any Republicans vote yes? It’s unlikely. But Reid is still hoping to get support later in the process from Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

–As speeches from both sides continue Saturday on the Senate floor, who makes the most effective case to Americans? During Friday’s debate, Republicans made a particular point of addressing older voters, saying cuts in the bill will threaten Medicare patients. Democrats say trimming the growth of Medicare spending won’t affect basic services and will help keep the system solvent.

If Reid wins the Saturday vote, the full Senate is set to start debate the bill and take up amendments after the Thanksgiving break, in the week of Nov. 30. If he doesn’t win the vote, it’s back to the drawing board.

By Martin Vaughan

Sen. Charles Grassley expressed exasperation over another Obama nominee’s tax problems.

“We do not need anyone so badly in the federal government that we allow them to live by their own set of rules,” Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee said today at the confirmation hearing for Lael Brainard, who is up for Treasury undersecretary for international affairs.

President Barack Obama nominated the former Brookings Institution senior fellow and deputy National Economic Adviser to President Bill Clinton in March, but Senate confirmation has been stalled as committee aides scrubbed her tax history. They found Brainard had repeatedly been late on paying property taxes, challenged her claim of a home-office deduction, and uncovered some glitches on tax forms for domestic employees. Brainard paid a late 2008 property tax bill and cut the home-office deduction going forward, but she was not asked by the committee to amend previous returns.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), supports Brainard, and she is seen likely to be confirmed.

Grassley slammed critics who have implied he is using the committee tax vetting process to stall Obama nominees. He said Finance Committee standards haven’t changed but the Obama administration has encouraged nominees with checkered tax histories to go forward rather than withdrawing their nominations.

A couple of Obama nominees have withdrawn over tax issues earlier this year, notably Tom Daschle, Obama’s choice to head the Health and Human Services Department, and Nancy Killefer, nominated as chief performance officer. Tax problems surfaced in the confirmation process for others including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

By Susan Davis

The Senate Ethics Committee today admonished Illinois Democratic Sen. Roland Burris for his ties to impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who appointed him to the seat.

The investigative panel found that Burris’s actions reflected “unfavorably on the Senate” and that he acted inappropriately in a November 2008 phone call with the governor, and that he was “less than candid” in public and sworn statements regarding how he was tapped for the seat.

But the committee found no explicit criminal or ethical violations.

The panel also noted that a state prosecutor in the case against Blagojevich determined in June that there wasn’t enough evidence to support charges of perjury in the broader corruption investigation.

The public letter of admonition is the final word on the matter as there were no “actionable violations of the law.”

Burris was appointed by Blagojevich early this year in a cloud of scandal. Senate Democratic leaders initially fought the appointment but had little constitutional ground to block his appointment.

While he consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to the Blagojevich corruption case, a taped November 2008 conversation in which he and the governor discuss both fund-raising and his appointment to the Senate raised repeated questions about his truthfulness in the matter.

Burris is not seeking re-election in 2010.

By Susan Davis

A New Kind of Declaration: Christian activists are holding a new conference today at the National Press Club to release the “Manhattan Declaration.” The 4,700-plus word document has over 125 original signers and affirms opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage while endorsing religious freedom and, when necessary, civil disobedience. The document is addressed to Christians, but also members of Congress and President Barack Obama. Chuck Colson, founder of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, helped draft the document. Original signers include Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council.

Payback: Former Iowa GOP Rep. Jim Leach made waves last year when he bucked his party and endorsed Barack Obama for president. The Obama administration returned the favor with a choice perch as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Leach will speak on bridging cultures today at the National Press Club.

Girl Power: World Bank President Robert Zoellick will deliver remarks today at the Council on Foreign Relations regarding women’s roles in recovery from the global financial crisis.

La Vida Latina: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will be a featured speaker today as part of the Latino Luncheon Series. The series has existed since 2004 “to provide a platform for prominent Latinos to network with each other and gain insight from their peers.”

By Brody Mullins

The skies just got a bit friendlier for lawmakers, courtesy of the Federal Election Commission.

Today’s FEC vote largely guts rules imposed by Democrats to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets for cut-rate prices.

The ban had been a key element of Democrats’ pledge to break the close ties between corporate lobbyists and lawmakers. One way they tried to do that was by adopting tough ethics rules that, among other things, reduced lawmakers’ ability to borrow corporate jets and reimburse the company by paying only the cost of a commercial airline ticket for a similar route. Instead, lawmakers had to pay the “pro rata share of the fair market value of the flight,” often several thousand dollars.

Just in time for next year’s midterm election, the commission today essentially struck down much of that travel rule, deciding that the rule doesn’t apply when lawmakers are traveling to campaign or raise money for other candidates or political parties.

The FEC’s move lets lawmakers return to the days of paying cut-rate prices for some flights on corporate jets.

The move left government watchdogs growling. “The FEC’s new rule illegally contradicts the plain meaning of the statute,” said Paul Ryan with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

By Alicia Mundy

For two decades, Sen. Barbara Mikulski has hammered the government, the health industry and her male colleagues for over problems like major medical studies that forgot to include women patients, and weak insurance coverage for women-only ailments.

This week, the Maryland Democrat has been all over the recommendations of a government-sponsored panel that most women don’t need mammograms until they reach 50 years old, and then should get one every two years instead of annually.

Mikulski has issued two statements – one dictated on the run - denouncing the recommendations. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force proposal “threatens the decades of progress we’ve made” saving patients’ lives, she said. And she expressed her longstanding suspicions of insurers, adding, “It could give insurance companies already looking for ways to deny coverage to women yet another reason to do so.”

Today, just four days after the recommendations were released, Mikulski announced she will push an amendment to the Senate’s new health care legislation that would guarantee women access to mammograms starting at age 40, and prohibit insurance companies from charging too much. “Otherwise,” said Mikulski, “insurance companies may use this new recommendation as yet another reason to deny women coverage for mammograms.”

By Brody Mullins

Here’s something that hasn’t happened since the summer: the Democratic Party raised more money last month than the Republican Party.

Democrats’ October total was $11.5 million, while the Republican Party raked in $8.8 million and still holds a slim fund-raising lead for the year, according to monthly fund-raising total released this afternoon by the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee.

The RNC has raised $69.2 million for the year and the DNC has brought in $66.3 million. Another number to plug into the equation: The DNC lists $4.4 million of debt, while the GOP is debt free.

The DNC’s triumph over the RNC in October is a reversal from the fund-raising momentum that Republicans had been building. In September, the RNC raised $8.8 million versus about $8 million for the DNC.

Before this latest fund-raising report, the RNC had brought in more money than the DNC in three of the previous four months.

By Neil King Jr.

Is Chrysler destined for the dust heap?

It’s a question that has two lawmakers caught in an odd duel of testy letters.

The spat started Sunday, when Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain—while serving as grand marshal of a NASCAR race in his home state—trash talked Detroit’s No. 3 auto maker, which taxpayers have bailed out over the last year to the tune of $15 billion.

If “anybody believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I’d like to meet them,” McCain said.

That galled Michigan Rep. Gary Peters, a Democrat who calls himself “the congressman from Chrysler” since his district includes the company’s Auburn Hills headquarters outside Detroit.

In a Tuesday letter to McCain, Peters said he’d take up McCain’s offer and introduce him to “the thousands of Americans who are working hard everyday to design new and exciting vehicles.”

McCain shot back a letter the next day clarifying what he meant when he said he’d like to meet “anybody” who believed Chrysler could survive. “What I meant was any objective observer,” he wrote.

To that, Peters zapped a second letter to McCain, offering up the names of three “well known auto industry experts” who have made positive sounds recently about Chrysler’s future: AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson, auto journalist John McElroy, and David Cole, who heads the Center for Automotive Research.

Peters, being extra gracious, then invited McCain to come to the Detroit auto show in January.

No word yet on McCain’s response.

By Damian Paletta

Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat who is one of his party’s most liberal lawmakers, created a stir when he said on MSNBC Wednesday evening that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should resign.

Today he spoke with Washington Wire, and here are excerpts from the interview:

Washington Wire: What are you hearing from your colleagues?

DeFazio: There’s tremendous concern about the lack of results on Main Street for all of the money that’s been borrowed and spent. That’s shared widely in the caucus, in terms of who to blame and what changes might be necessary in the administration, I just speak for myself. I don’t speak for anybody else.

Washington Wire: How much influence does Geithner have on Capitol Hill?

DeFazio: I think the banking committee is pushing back against his rather modest reform proposals, and pushing for tougher reregulation. So I would say he’s Treasury Secretary - there’s certainly some power that comes with that job, but in terms of enjoying strong support from the legislative branch and wilding strong influence there, I don’t think that’s the case.

Washington Wire: Have you expressed your views to the White House?

DeFazio: Rahm’s [Rahm Emanuel] locker is next to mine in the gym. I try and not give him an earful every day. He is certainly aware of my concerns.

Washington Wire: Is this going to pose problems for Democrats going into the midterm elections?

DeFazio: There was a very interesting slide shown to the caucus on Monday night, and I don’t know who the guy was, some economist. He had polling data. And he said the American people‘s opinion of what we’ve done so far for economic recovery, 90% think its been way too much Wall Street and that’s pretty overwhelming, and only 10% felt it was oriented toward helping real folks with real jobs in the real economy. That is a very troubling number, especially for a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress. I just think that pretty drastic steps are necessary to change direction of the policy. We’ve been fighting with the President’s economic team for months…They don’t believe in infrastructure. They don’t seem to believe in investment. They want a borrowed money, consumer driven recovery…that ain’t happening.

Washington Wire: Why do you think Geithner should resign?

DeFazio: I just do not feel that his orientation is other than Wall Street, and has not been other than Wall Street, and will not be other than Wall Street. And quite frankly all the gambling on Wall Street is doing nothing to put people back to work in America and rebuild our economy.