This report is about a free trade agreement between the United States and Bahrain to encourage further reform and signal appreciation for Bahrain's support.

On December 8, 2003 the President signed into law the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA, P.L. 108-173). This legislation establishes a Medicare prescription drug benefit, effective January 1, 2006. In the interim, the legislation requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a temporary program of Medicare-endorsed prescription drug discount cards. This report discusses the objectives and benefits of this legislation.

This report provides an overview of the "digital divide," which is a term used to describe a perceived gap between those Americans who use or have access to telecommunications and information technologies and those who do not.The report also dicusses about an important subset of th digital divide debate concerns high-speed Internet Access.

During the last half of the 1990s, real gross domestic investment rose as a fraction of real GDP. This resulted from the rise in U.S. productivity and the related rise in the real yield on U.S. assets. This drew additional private capital from abroad. If the twin deficits theory is correct, it has an adverse implication for the efficacy of fiscal policy as a stimulus tool. It suggests that in an environment of highly mobile international capital flows the effect of policy induced increases in the structural budget deficit (e.g., tax cuts) on short-run economic growth would be largely offset by increases in the trade deficit. The experience during both the 1980s and 1990s demonstrates that a large and growing trade deficit need not be an impediment to overall job creation even though it may have had an effect on the type of jobs that were created since it affected the composition of U.S. output.

The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China (PRC) is vitally important, touching on a wide range of areas including, among others, economic policy, security, foreign relations, and human rights. This report addresses relevant policy questions in current U.S.-China relations, discusses trends and key legislation in the current Congress, and provides a chronology of developments and high-level exchanges.

This report provides information about the Country Applicability of the U.S. Normal Trade Relations (Most-Favored-Nation) Status. The united states extends unlimited and permanent nondiscriminatory treatment to all of its trading partners.

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This report provides the background and a summary of the issues of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

This report provides an overview and some analysis of medical errors reporting and the House and Senate patient safety bills. It begins with background information on the nature and causes of medical errors, followed by a brief comparison of the differences between mandatory and voluntary reporting systems. The report then discusses some of the legal and policy issues facing state mandatory reporting systems and major national voluntary reporting systems, and identifies design features of effective reporting programs.

This report focuses on heritage areas designated by Congress, and related issues and legislation

This report provides information on how most of the countries banned United States beef after the first report of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in a Canadian-born cow after the December 2003 U.S. report. This explains all the steps USDA has taken to reduce the positive cases of BSE by starting special programs. Updated March 24, 2005.

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This report discusses administration’s proposed base program called strengthening America’s communities initiative intended to award funds in support of job creation and economic development.

The 108th Congress completed a full trade agenda with the passage of legislation on a broad spectrum of issues. The 109th Congress is expected to face a trade agenda that will be at least as extensive, covering a wide range of issues, from the extension of presidential trade promotion (fast track) authority to consideration of more free trade agreements and oversight of the World Trade Organization (WTO) trade negotiations. In some respects, these issues are distinct, each with its own policy and economic implications. In other respects the issues are interrelated. They have emerged from common sets of domestic politics, foreign policy, and economic factors and affect or are affected by the concerns of Members of Congress, of other policymakers and of many interest groups. These issues and how policymakers deal with them will define overall U.S. trade policy.