Chuck Hagel’s blunt-spoken past as a Republican senator from Nebraska is coming back to haunt him today, as many pundits are using his past words to criticize his nomination as Obama’s next Defense Secretary.

Hagel’s comments on Israel, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even his opinion on a gay diplomat could become fodder for critics of his nomination. Here are some of the more controversial quotes of his, and how they are being used against him. “I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator.”

Hagel said these words in 2006 when interviewed by former Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller in 2006. Hagel also made reference to “the Jewish lobby,” which rubbed many Israel supporters the wrong way. Read 

President Obama is nominating Chuck Hagel to be the next Defense Secretary, much to the dismay of many members of the GOP, who consider him to be insufficiently hawkish and unfriendly to Israel. Early indications suggest that Hagel will have a rough run through the gantlet of the Senate confirmation process.

Change is also coming to State, Treasury and a host of other executive agencies. Big oil and green energy companies should be most focused on changes at the departments of Energy and the Interior. Both of these agencies play big roles in Obama’s massive green-energy agenda.

Bottom line: New leadership at these organizations will likely signal a double-down on policy from the first term. Read 

Even though Congress finally managed to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, passing that bill didn’t spell the end of the United States’ debt woes. What problem does the U.S. face next? The debt ceiling crisis.

The issue facing the United States now is that it has essentially hit its borrowing limit, as set by Congress. It technically hit the limit on the last day of 2012, but some clever accounting will allow the United States to keep borrowing money and to meet its obligations for another six to eight weeks.

After that, though, a deal will need to be made. Congress could theoretically raise the debt ceiling again, but Republicans will want spending cuts in return for that deal. Democrats are less enthused about that, and, in fact, that’s what started this whole mess in the first place back in 2011. Read 

After the rancor over House Speaker John Boehner’s refusal to call a vote for Superstorm Sandy aid in the dying hours of the 112th Congress, the 113th Congress moved swiftly to rectify things.

Shortly after Boehner promised two votes on Sandy aid packages, Congress passed a $9.7 billion aid package for the storm’s victims on Friday. The bill passed by a 354-67 margin in the House, and passed unanimously in the Senate without any debate. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law today.

This was the first bill passed by the new Congress, though it paled in comparison to the relief package being considered by the previous Congress. Much of the aid proposed there will come up for vote on January 15, and it is likely that the $51 billion proposal will face increased scrutiny. Read 

Just when you thought it was safe to invest without having to worry about the next headline out of Washington, we face an issue that could have a much larger impact than the fiscal cliff:

The country’s debt limit.

This issue has much broader implications for the Treasury market, meaning that the lesson of the fiscal cliff — i.e., that debates regarding fiscal issues are mostly media hype — doesn’t apply here. Read 

Just one day after House Speaker John Boehner, R-Oh., pulled legislation that would have given $60.4 billion in relief aid to victims of Superstorm Sandy, the newly re-elected Speaker has changed his mind.

Perhaps worried that his position was at stake, Boehner met with Republicans yesterday in his office and promised two votes on legislation that would provide aid to victims of the October storm. Boehner was re-elected as Speaker today, although his margin of victory (220-192), was the smallest since 1997.

In a statement released with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., Boehner announced there would be a vote tomorrow to direct resources to the National Flood Insurance Program, and a vote on Jan. 15 for additional aid to Sandy victims. Read