A leading border-enforcement advocate in Congress is calling for hearings into what is being referred to as President Barack Obama's "Executive Order amnesty."

On August 18 Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced her department was creating an interagency working group charged with reviewing -- on a case-by-case basis -- the removal proceedings of all illegal aliens slated for deportation. The move has been seen by immigration enforcement advocates as a way for the Obama administration to ignore its congressional mandate to remove those people from the country.

Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa), vice-chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, admits he is "offended" by the administration's tactics.

"Congress writes the laws and the Executive Branch enforces them," King states. "For the president to have his subordinates declare and announce they're not going to enforce the law is de facto amnesty.

The government-run Obamacare law that includes abortion-funding and rationing concerns for pro-life advocates is not the central topic of political discussion these days as most Americans focus on the Republican presidential primary and the state of the economy.

However, a new poll out today from Rasmussen Reports shows 57% of Americans still want to see the Obamacare law overturned in Congress via legislation to repeal it. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters has 46 percent strongly favoring repeal.

Just days after the administration said it was eliminating hundreds of unnecessary regulations, House Speaker John A. Boehner fired off a letter blasting President Obama for a 15 percent increase in the number of new rules and demanding cost estimates for some of them by the time Congress returns from break.

“This year the administration’s current regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each,” the Ohio Republican wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama Friday. “That’s almost a 15 percent increase over last year, and appears to contradict public suggestions by the administration this week that the regulatory burden on American job creators is being scaled back.”

Mr. Boehner repeated an earlier request for a list of all new regulations that would have an economic impact of more than $1 billion...

Congress might want to find some consultants as it tries anew to tackle the country's deep deficits. A report from the Employment Policies Institute finds that only one in five members of Congress has an academic background in business or economics.

The organization looked at lawmakers' college degrees and found that most of them -- 55.5 percent -- majored in either a government-related field or "humanities." Just over 8 percent majored in economics, while almost 14 percent studied business or accounting.

The numbers raise questions about their ability to tackle tough economic challenges when they return from break early next month. The Obama administration, as well as lawmakers touring their districts, are clamoring for a new approach to the jobs crisis. Meanwhile, a congressional "supercommittee" is set to get to work finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade...

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) will not vote for a balanced budget amendment proposal unless it includes a cap on federal spending. However, he is undecided whether the amendment absolutely must require a supermajority of Congress to approve a tax hike for him to support it.

“The most important element is the cap on spending,” Gohmert told CNSNews.com. “If there is no cap on spending, then the balanced budget amendment is a formula for ever-increasing spending and ever-increasing taxing that will just spiral upward and upward again. So there’s got to be included a cap on spending, and best if it’s related to a percentage of GDP. But, absolutely, if there is no cap on spending, I could not vote for it”...

The government will run another $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2011, Congress’s chief scorekeeper said Wednesday — easily eclipsing the $917 billion in savings over the next decade lawmakers scratched out earlier this month in their debt-reduction deal and underscoring the deep challenge they face going forward.

And over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said, the federal government will rack up nearly $6 trillion in new deficits — far outstripping the $1.5 trillion in future savings the new deficit super committee is charged with recommending to Congress...

Bowing to pressure from immigrant rights activists, the Obama administration said Thursday that it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, such as attending school, having family in the military or having primary responsible for other family members’ care.

The move marks a major step for President Obama, who for months has said he does not have broad categorical authority to halt deportations and said he must follow the laws as Congress has written them.

But in letters to Congress on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she does have discretion to focus on “priorities” and that her department and the Justice Department will review all ongoing cases to see who meets the new criteria...

He’s the only member who voted against last week’s debt deal, and also the only one who wrote his own individual budget this year — both of which make Sen. Patrick J. Toomey the wild-card selection to the 12-member deficit supercommittee charged with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts by Thanksgiving.

Mr. Toomey is not a chairman or ranking member of any committee, he is not an elected caucus leader, nor does he bring the experience as a former White House budget director that his fellow freshman Republican committeeman, Sen. Rob Portman, carries.

What the first-term Pennsylvanian does have, though, is a long record of fighting for spending cuts — and even leading the charge against his own party during his six years in the House, from 1999 through 2004, when he stepped down to fulfill a term-limits pledge he made to his district...

House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday tapped three top Republicans with spending-cuts credentials to join the 12-member super committee tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit-lowering tax increases or spending cuts.

Mr. Boehner selected Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, who is Congress’s chief tax-writer; Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who is chairman of the House Republican Conference.

Already, Republicans signaled they will focus on cutting spending as they try to bring Washington’s record debt and staggering annual deficits under control...

A conservative black writer and commentator is outraged over the left's continued campaign of demonizing groups like the tea party by referring to them as "terrorists."

Ron Miller is the author of the book Sellout: Musings from Uncle Tom's Porch and president of Regular Folks United. In a recent column he called "Tea Party Terrorists," he reacted to the recent comment by Vice President Joe Biden who reportedly told a Democratic Congressional Caucus that the tea party-affiliated Republicans in Congress "have acted like terrorists."

"It's outrageous, but it's not inconsistent with where they have been going as of late," he tells OneNewsNow. "They must have some kind of a communications directive saying this is the talking point for the month about the tea party -- and then all of a sudden people start repeating it...