Washington (CNN) — The Obama administration Friday filed papers with the U.S. Supreme Court outlining its arguments in favor of the minimum coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act — the latest move in a high-stakes legal battle playing out in the heat of the presidential campaigns.

Justice Department lawyers essentially mirrored their arguments from cases in appeals courts.

The government insists officials have the power to require minimum health care coverage, and that individuals who do not carry it will owe the government a penalty, which the Justice Department calls a tax.

About 40,000 state laws taking effect at the start of the new year will change rules about getting abortions in New Hampshire, learning about gays and lesbians in California, getting jobs in Alabama and even driving golf carts in Georgia.

Several federal rules change with the new year, too, including a Social
Security increase amounting to $450 a year for the average recipients
and stiff fines up to $2,700 per offense for truckers and bus drivers
caught using hand-held cellphones while driving.

(CNN) — Only two Republican presidential candidates will appear on the ballot in Virginia next year, regardless of how many are in the race.

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will have the Dominion State all to themselves. Supporters of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann will have to be content with yard signs or donations as ways of cheering on their favorite would-be nominee.

That’s because their campaigns failed to gain the requisite 10,000 signatures. It is, to be sure, a self-inflicted wound, a measure of some organizational chaos. But it is also a function of illogically restrictive local laws. They not only impede ballot access but end up denying open representative democracy to operate on the road to the Oval Office.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Come January, will 160 million American workers owe a) more than; b) less than; c) the same as they’ve been paying in payroll taxes this year?

The answer will be revealed when lawmakers decide in the next few weeks if they will let a one-year payroll tax cut expire on Dec. 31.

Thanks to the tax cut, employees only had to pay 4.2% of their first $106,800 in wages into Social Security this year, instead of the normal 6.2%.

The impact on your wallet: If the payroll tax cut expires, workers in 2012 will pay the extra 2 percentage points of their income up to the wage cap, which next year will be $110,100.

Heated discussions are commonplace on Capitol Hill, but it’s rare form for a witness and a legislator to have at it.

But it happened on Friday when Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young sparred (intensely) with historian Douglas Brinkley at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Brinkley recently authored “The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom,” and was offering his opinions on the effects of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But Young called the hearing an “an exercise in futility,” and likened the testimony to “garbage.” Then, he called Brinkley “Dr. Rice,” confusing him with the university where he teaches.

And that’s when the fireworks began (note the expression on the face of the aide sitting behind Young).

WASHINGTON — The Senate has approved must-do legislation to fund the day-to-day budgets of five Cabinet agencies, kick-starting long overdue work to add the details to budget limits agreed to by President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans this summer.

The bipartisan 69-30 vote came on a $182 billion bundle of three bills to fund programs including transportation, space exploration, housing subsidies and the FBI for the 2012 budget year that started a month ago.

Under the budget pact enacted in August, lawmakers have to cut about $7 billion — or less than 1 percent — from the more than $1 trillion budgeted last year for the daily operations of federal agencies. Such cuts are too small for tea party conservatives but would come in addition to savings from benefit programs like farm subsidies and Medicare expected from a deficit “supercommittee” later this month.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — To those still trying to salvage homes wrecked by natural disasters this summer, don’t worry. Congress has your back.

There is just no way lawmakers would let funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency run out.

Well, they probably won’t. They don’t want to anyway. But they’ve now left open the possibility that they might.

Once again, Congress is manufacturing a crisis — the third this year. Lawmakers are putting the country at risk of a government shutdown, creating pointless uncertainty over what used to be ordinary legislative business.

Why? House Republicans and Senate Democrats can’t agree on the terms of a bill that would continue to fund the government temporarily beyond Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will propose $1.5 trillion in new taxes as part of a plan to identify more than $3 trillion in long-term deficit reduction and slow the nation’s escalating national debt.

Obama’s tax plan is aimed predominantly at the wealthy and draws sharp contrasts with congressional Republicans.

It comes just days after House Speaker John Boehner ruled out tax increases to lower deficits. It also comes amid a clamor in his own Democratic Party for Obama to take a tougher stance against Republicans. And while the plan stands little chance of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support.

Washington (CNN) — Should members of Congress cut their salaries or raise the age at which they can draw a congressional pension when many Americans are making personal sacrifices during the country’s prolonged economic crisis?

Sen. Sherrod Brown thinks so.

In April, the Ohio Democrat introduced the Shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011, which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions. Currently, lawmakers can retire as early as 50 with a full pension depending on how long they served.

“The reason I introduced my bill … on this shared sacrifice in terms of retirement age is I hear lots of members of Congress, especially, particularly conservative members of Congress, say we should raise the retirement age for Social Security,” Brown said on CNN’s “American Morning.”

NEW YORK — President John F. Kennedy openly scorned the notion of Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson succeeding him in office, according to a book of newly released interviews with his widow, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

She said her husband and his brother then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy even discussed ways to prevent Johnson from winning the Democratic nomination in a future contest.