Who's awesome?

Morgan Carroll, Jay Leno and Diana DeGette, that's who.

DeGette's stem cell bill will be voted on in the Senate next week, according to the Post. And yesterday I got two press releases from her office. The first reported her urgings that Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt appoint "a new Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Population Affairs who is committed to family planning and women's health." The second read that next Tuesday, DeGette "will host a roundtable discussion on pending federal reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program."

Photo: DeGette speaking at the Point to help launch a new Fannie Mae program to assist minority home ownership in Denver.

Healthcare action items for the day

• The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative asks people to call their representatives to ask them to support funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. [More information and call-in numbers]

• House Speaker Andrew Romanoff asks people to send "ideas about how we can extend health insurance coverage to all Coloradans" to the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform. [More information]

UPDATE: The Washington Post has a good healthcare story here.

The 2007 federal budget: Colorado edition

Everybody (and everybody and everybody and everybody) has already pointed out that President Bush's new $2.9 trillion budget proposal funds a massive increase in military spending by cutting or underfunding domestic programs. What impact might we see locally? A couple highlights:

The White House's website trumpets funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, but in a press release, Diana DeGette stated that the budget may underfund the program by $10 billion, "putting the nearly 176,000 uninsured children in Colorado at risk."

The budget would sell off federal lands to fund an increase in national park spending. And it would cut expected funding for Golden's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. As Mark Udall said, "Energy independence is so critical to our national security, our energy security and our economy that we cannot afford to shortchange programs that will move us forward."

Cross-posted at SquareState.