planned parenthood<u+2019>s lobbying gets aggressive.<u+00a0>congress may have spent august away from washington but planned parenthood<u+2019>s campaign to convince lawmakers to protect the group<u+2019>s funding followed them back to their home states. power post has more.









<u+201c>lawmakers will raise the stakes when congress returns next week by threatening to defund the group through the federal appropriations process. planned parenthood<u+2019>s counter-offensive is widespread and varied and is unfolding inside and outside the beltway. the group has been<u+00a0>organizing rallies, flooding lawmakers<u+2019> town hall meetings, commissioning polls, shelling<u+00a0>out six figures for television<u+00a0>ads and<u+00a0>hiring forensics experts to try to discredit undercover video footage that sparked the controversy. the success of these lobbying efforts will be tested when congress returns and must move a short-term spending bill to keep the government open. some conservatives in both chambers are pushing to defund planned parenthood, even if a standoff with democrats leads to a government shutdown.<u+201d>









federal workers expected to get a pay hike in january.<u+00a0>the stalled appropriations process in congress means uncertainty for federal agencies and their workers but the white house isn<u+2019>t waiting around for lawmakers to decide the fate of federal worker pay. federal eye<u+2019>s eric yoder reports that president obama sent a letter on friday detailing plans for a 1.3 percent pay raise for federal workers.









<u+201c>it prevents what would be a much higher raise from being paid under the complex laws governing federal pay raises should no raise number be enacted into law by the end of the year. congress could yet set a different figure, but the appropriations bills for 2016 so far have been silent on a raise. that continues a pattern that resulted in 1 percent raises being paid by default in january 2014 and 2015.<u+201d>









rate hike at the fed still likely.<u+00a0>speculation has been rampant in recent months over when the federal reserve will increase u.s. interest rates and the wall street journal reports that all signs still point to a rate increase this year.









<u+201c>inside the fed, advocates for holding off a rate boost beyond this year aren<u+2019>t getting much traction. in jackson hole, minneapolis fed president narayana kocherlakota was an isolated voice among officials for sustaining near-zero interest rates. he has lost his share of battles over policy, including the decision last october to end the fed<u+2019>s bond-buying program.<u+201d>
planned parenthood<u+2019>s lobbying effort; pay raises for federal workers; and the future fed rates
noauthor