Johnny Isakson News

President Barack Obama made it clear during the onset of the health care debate that he wanted deadlines for health care legislation.

Imagine voting on a ballot initiative and knowing that everyone who didn't show up at the polls still got to vote - because their votes would be counted as "No." That's the process for airline and railway workers when they vote on whether to join a union.

But as one of 435 members of the House or even the 100 in the Senate, an individual lawmaker doesn't often feel the warmth of the limelight.

When Democrats and Republicans want to work together, they certainly know how. The U.S. Senate late Wednesday unanimously passed legislation extending unemployment benefits and also significantly expanding a homebuyer tax credit that was championed by Republican U.S. Sen.

A proposed change in the rules for union representation elections at airlines is adding tension to expected union votes at Delta Air Lines in the wake of its merger with Northwest Airlines.

MIDCOAST : Expected to contribute approximately $22 billion to the economy, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan measure this week extending the $8,000 home buyer tax credit to April 30, 2010.

Emergency help for out-of-work Americans will be a huge windfall to Realtors, homebuilders, mortgage bankers and others, and that's no accident.

Lauren Bratcher hasn't even stepped inside the "perfect" home she's hoping to buy on West View Drive in Abilene, but she's already told her realtor to start working up the contracts.

Late yesterday, after weeks of IIE dithering, the Senate approved the extension to unemployment benefits, 98-0. Claire McCaskill and Robert Byrd abstained.

Buying a home is about to get cheaper for a whole new crop of homebuyers _ $6,500 cheaper.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to back a Senate plan to extend a popular homebuying tax credit through April and also expand its scope, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday.

The expected extension and expansion of a popular home-buyer tax credit should be the last extension Congress should consider, the tax credit's chief proponent said on Thursday.

On the surface, the federal homebuyers' tax credit proposed by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., has all the makings of a sound policy move.

The U.S. Senate wona t vote until next week at the earliest on proposals to extend both an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and unemployment benefits for the nationa s jobless.

Senate leaders released more details about their compromise on the home buyer tax credit today.

An extension of the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit appears all but certain after the Obama administration called on Congress to give house hunters more time to claim the popular tax perk.

Ricardo came to the United States when he was 12 and is studying business administration.

Senators agreed Wednesday to extend a popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers and to offer a reduced credit to some repeat buyers.

An exhibit of Georgia artist Steve Penley's work opens Thursday at the Centre for Performing and Visual Arts in Newnan, with a public reception for the artist between 6-8 p.m. Penley, of Carrollton, Ga., is known nationally for his pop-culture, oil-on-canvas treatment of iconic American figures, from American presidents to scientists to artists.

Like an ocean liner making a languid u-turn, metro Atlanta home prices continued their slow course correction in August, according to the widely watched Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index.