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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- A backlash from Democrats over add-ons to a massive government spending bill is throwing passage of the measure into doubt and once again raising concerns about a government shutdown.

The House is slated to vote on the legislation Thursday, just hours before agencies run out of money.

The $1.1 trillion spending bill authorizes funding for virtually all agencies through September, but some Democrats on Capitol Hill are vowing to oppose the legislation, arguing that the addition of some key policy changes amount to a giveaway for big special interests. Congress must pass some type of legislation by Thursday at midnight to avert a shutdown.

READ: What's tucked into the spending bill

The top concerns from Democrats center on a proposal to ease banking regulations in the Dodd-Frank law and a measure that would allow wealthy donors to give considerably more money to the political parties.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the provisions were "destructive to middle class families and to the practice to our democracy" and demanded they be stripped out of the bill. Pelosi's position is critical because House Republicans need Democratic support for the measure to pass.

Though Republicans hold a significant majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner is expected to lose anywhere from 40 to 60 conservatives in his party who oppose the bill because it doesn't block the President's immigration executive action. Democrats will need to provide votes to offset those losses, setting up the sort of political brinksmanship that has become typical in Washington.

A shutdown remains unlikely because lawmakers could agree at the last minute to approve a bill that would keep the government running for a few months -- when Republicans will have full control of Congress.

House GOP aides say they are surprised Pelosi and others are lobbying for changes, since Democrats signed off on the bill before its release.

Continued here:
Democratic backlash throws spending bill in doubt

Nashville gets ready for presidential visit
Thank you for watching please subscribe us! The president #39;s speech in Nashville will focus on immigration reform. Casa Azafran, a south Nashville community center, will be hosting the president.

By: Nashville NEWS

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Nashville gets ready for presidential visit - Video

Looming budget fight could doom immigration reform
Thomas Basile and Basil Smikle Jr. on the chances Congress will pass a deal. How does immigration reform pass after a bloody fight over a government shutdown? The White House strategy for...

By: Orlando Sims

Excerpt from:
Looming budget fight could doom immigration reform - Video

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Jason Furman is the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. The views expressed are his own.

(CNN) -- Immigration reform may be a complicated issue politically, but in economic terms, the case is clear -- it is one of the biggest levers the United States has to encourage economic growth and to raise wages.

It's not just the Obama administration that thinks so.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund recently found that President Barack Obama's growth strategy, which he presented at the recent G-20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia, would add more to our economy than the steps being pursued by any other G7 country. And the single biggest contributor to that strategy? Immigration reform.

True, we can only realize the full benefits of immigration reform with a comprehensive bill passed by Congress. But the administrative steps that the President has announced -- including measures to better attract and retain high-skilled workers from around the world and to hold accountable undocumented immigrants with strong ties to the United States while providing them with temporary relief from deportation -- represent a good start and a meaningful boost to the economy.

As the President is discussing Tuesday at Casa Azafrn community center in Nashville, the main economic benefits of these actions are to raise our productivity -- increasing the amount of output we can produce for a given amount of inputs.

How do the actions announced by the President make that happen? Allowing more foreign-born entrepreneurs to come to our country -- to create jobs and to innovate -- is one common sense step to help grow the American economy. Another is enhancing the ability of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates from U.S. universities to further their on-the-job training for longer periods, something that will boost the overall skill level of the American workforce.

Less widely appreciated, but also economically important, is the contribution that offering over 4 million workers a path out of the shadows will make to our economy. And this comes as no surprise to this country's businesses. Indeed, one of the main economic arguments for this step is one that they have been making for years about their own investment -- the importance of certainty.

When faced with high levels of uncertainty, firms often hold off on making important investments for future growth. This is also true for the millions of undocumented immigrants living here in the United States. They participate in the workforce at higher rates than native-born Americans, and many are long-time members of their communities. Yet because of the uncertainty they face about their future, they are less likely to make important investments in themselves or in the communities in which they live, such as investing in their education, learning new job skills, purchasing homes or starting new businesses. And, as with firms, these decisions -- rooted in uncertainty -- can depress overall growth.

See the rest here:
Immigration: The truth about economic impact (Opinion ...

Written by: Sowmya Ramanan

Updated: Thursday, December 11, 2014, 11:36 [IST]

I am still waiting for a Green Card (GC)! Havent we all heard this statement over and over again? It summarises the situation for over half-a-million legal immigrants in the land of opportunities, the United States of America. Some are in a different stage in the legal immigration process, but most are in the state where the GC still feels like a very distant dream.

President raised hopes for the immigrants in USA

So when reports started trickling in about the president forcing executive action to fix the immigration system, the waiting game started on what could possibly be included in this for the high-skilled workers.

President Barack Obama turns around as he is interrupted by a woman on stage during his remarks at the Copernicus Community Center in Chicago to discuss immigration reform, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014. Obama visited his hometown to promote his executive action on immigration. PTI

These workers are those who came to this country as aspiring students leaving their families behind and stayed on to pursue the American dream or those workers and their families who landed here to pursue a fruitful career putting all at stake on the home front for a better life.

America is known to be a land that gives more than it takes and its all true for everything except immigration. My husband and I were part of this "waiting" community of legal immigrants who came to the US to pursue academic careers and stayed on.

Every immigrant in USA wants a stress-free life and hence waited eagerly for President Obama's announcement

Every immigrant here who had not yet been legalised through employment-based immigration was waiting to hear some positive news via executive action on immigration reform, which could make his or her life more stress free and predictable.

See more here:
US immigration reform: From red to amber?